I decided to make up a new phrase for today’s Phun Phriday post. (At least I think I made it up.) To me, “Extreme Creating” is when people take something that is usually used as a toy to pass the time, and devote days, weeks, and even months to making something remarkable with those toys. The K’nex constructions made by Austin Granger fall into this category.
The ferris wheel pictured above took 12,000 K’nex to build. You can see more stats when you watch the video on this post from Visual News. Granger’s most recent project, which took over 100,000 pieces, is also featured on the post. It’s a Goldberg-ish type machine that resides in The Works Museum in Minnesota.
You can visit Austin Granger’s blog for more pictures and information. He also has a YouTube channel, Austron, with more videos of his creations. And, here is a great article about the creator, himself.
My 2nd grade GT students are about to embark on their own K’nex journeys using the Bridges kits for our Structures unit. I think I’ll wait until we finish before I show them how Granger uses K’nex. It would not surprise me, however, if some of them could take it to this level some day.