Spirit of Invention
The National Archives
The Brief
As part of their “Spirit of Invention” season, The National Archives invited school children to submit designs for their own inventions.
After receiving over 200 wonderful, creative (and often zany) inventions, TNA wanted to turn a selection of these into short animations to bring the designs to life.
The Animations
Eloise’s invention has wheels, a mechanical arm and a console for entering instructions. I decided the screen should display the details of the toy being searched for, and created a range of toys for the invention to seek out or ignore.
Toy Detector
by Eloise
Claudia’s design features some beautifully drawn flowers, and would be extremely useful if, like me, you always forget to water your plants. I included a bee as I thought Claudia’s flowers deserved a visitor.
Self-watering Plant Pot
by Claudia
Machine to Make Sure You Get Out of Bed
by Bella
Bella’s hilarious invention was too good to be passed up. Bella’s excellent illustration works perfectly on its own, so I tried to focus on making the moment of pie-to-face delivery as satisfying as possible.
Brooke’s charming robot is here to help, with a beautifully observed tea-towel thrown over over one shoulder. Intriguingly, in Brooke’s original design they included an “emergency stop” function.
The Robot Cleaner is very cheerful, but I suspect it could make quite a mess of your house if left unattended.
Robot Cleaner
by Brooke
Maggie’s magnificent dog is the star of the show: a wonderfully imperious pooch, clearly used to being pampered.
Scented Dog Dryer
by Maggie
Bobby’s inventions features a self-locking hedgehog house, two (!) mechanical arms and, most importantly, a hedgehog. To try and help bring Bobby’s excellent hedgehog drawing to life, I recorded my own snores and snuffles
Self-feeding and Self-locking Hedgehog House
by Bobby
Ella’s robot features sensors (front and rear), a prehensile nozzle for sucking up clothes and handy bags for storing the collected clothes. There’s something pleasingly elephantine about the nozzle.
Clothes Picker-Upper
by Ella
All-New Audiomatic Disco Bathroom
by Daniel
Clothes De-Creasing Hanger
by Amy
The Combi-Showerhead
by Callum
Three designs were chosen as part of a special presentation to a participating school. All the designs submitted by these pupils were brilliant, but these three were selected due to their ingenuity and visual appeal.
Daniel’s witty design was beautifully illustrated and cried out for a colourful (and musical) animation.
Amy’s design was an ingenious solution to an age-old problem: ironing is boring.
Playful and vibrantly illustrated, Callum’s design for an automated shower experience included a variety of colourful elements (including a robotic arm!)