Last week, I helped with a two-day Kinetic Puppets class for 6-8 year olds. I've taught this before as a one-day class. The kids make two characters that move using bottle cap cams (Adam's project is on the right).

We didn't introduce much more than the basic milk-carton automata on the second day, but just brought out more containers (smaller milk cartons, shoe boxes, etc.). What was really exciting was how the students improvised new automata, based on the first design. Some used bigger boxes with more cams, some used smaller ones, and one student, Adam, even invented his own mechanism (the project on the left). He was really generous with his idea and used the last half of class to help other kids make ones like his!