Beijing's Birds Nest Stadium

Toby's entry in the recent Cantamath Competition as explained in the post below, was his model of Beijing's National Stadium, nicknamed the 'Birds Nest'. He was fascinated by the structure with the Olympics all over our papers and TV, so set about building his own one to enter in the competition.

He used aluminium mesh which he cut and carefully moulded with his hands into the correct shape, then built and glued on the roof. He then cut large rubber bands in half lengthways and glued them to the structure. Once this was complete he spray painted the whole thing grey.





Mesh moulded and rubber bands in place.

















Spraying the model.








He glued the structure to a board he had painted and glued trees round the outside.

Inside he lined it with card and cellophane to represent the track and field, and underneath glued an LED light used for cupboards etc which ran by remote, to give the effect of the stadium being lit at night.

On top he built 'The Olympic Flame" and inside this he hid a small LED light which when pressed turned on and pressed again it flickered on and off, thus looking like a real flame.

He had instructions on his display board for people to operate these lights to see the effect.








The finished product























He also achieved Highly Commended for his project and very sore fingertips from the burns from the hot glue gun with all that sticking!

Toby's eye for detail and very precise vision for things three dimentional has always been one of his strengths and just keeps getting better with age. Who knows what he might do with these skills when he is older!






The flame and inner stadium lit up.