What a wonderful day we had on Friday as the children all turned into Oopma-Lumpas to work in Willy Wonka’s factory. An important first step was to shed our human names and discover what our Oompa-Lumpa name should be.

Thankfully, Mr Wonka himself put in an appearance to help the children with pronouncing their new names.

With that done, there was a problem to solve, which was why the children had been drafted into the factory. The previous Oompa-Lumpas had eaten far too much chocolate and were struggling to lift the chocolate ingredients up and down the stairs. We needed a solution that would keep the factory running. Luckily, 3vL know all about pulleys and could use their imaginations to create a solution. The first barrier was deciding what shape the basket should be at the end of the pulley. We explored different nets and made 3D shapes so each group could make a decision.

Once our shapes were made, we could progress onto developing our pulley prototype. We looked at Mr Wonka’s specification and drew out a design that included a pulley and met his requirements. Using our cardboard boxes, some perseverance, careful cutting skills and outstanding teamwork, the children developed and attached their pulley systems to the roof of their factory models.

As with any good design process, our prototypes needed testing with real product. Each group had a set of sweets to load their baskets up with and test out their pulley systems. This allowed them to see where any changes might need to be made so that the mechanism worked perfectly.

The day was a resounding success! The children learnt some new craft skills, got to put their designs into production and, most importantly, gave Mr Wonka some working prototypes so he could continue his chocolate production. Well done 3vL!