ROBOTS - The Windmill

Following the first Video Conference on Robots, children from Paganel Junior School in Birmingham started to discuss some of the things that had been said and some of the pictures they had been shown. Many of the children said that they had seen a picture of a windmill, but had never seen one up close. SO…. the ATHENA Excellence in Cities Action Zone immediately arranged for the children to visit Avoncroft Museum of Buildings. Avoncroft is an open-air museum at Stoke Heath, near Bromsgrove in Worcestershire. The Museum has a working windmill that used to stand on the hill at Danzey Green and was carefully taken apart and put back together at the museum - which just happens to stand on a hill too!

The children were given a tour of the Windmill by the Miller who answered all the children's questions and told them many stories about the Windmill, its history and what each bit of it did.

To get into the Windmill the children had to climb up a steep narrow ladder. The ladder led into a small room that had steps going up to another room above it. The children climbed the second set of steps and stood in an even smaller room that was right at the top of the windmill. It was a very windy day and the windmill rocked a little as the Miller explained how everything worked. The bits the children were particularly interested in were the parts of the windmill that controlled what happens. The Miller pointed out the huge brake that controlled the speed that the large cogwheels travelled (up to 20 revolutions each minute).

Connected to the main cogwheel was the spindle. The spindle was a very big and heavy axel that had chains attached to it that could haul heavy sacks of grain up to the top of the windmill.

We were also interested in a small bell that was connected by a rope to a leather 'tongue' which sat on top of the grain barrel. As the grain went into the grinding stones, the tongue rested on the top so when the grain ran out, the rope was pulled tight, which pulled the handle on the bell into the main cogwheel. As the wheel spun round the bell handle would bang against the cogs and the bell would ring and let the Miller know he needed to put some more grain in the barrel.

When the children went into the room below the Miller explained that the two stones that ground the corn needed to be exactly the same distance apart all the time to grind the grain. He showed the children how the governor was used to keep the stones the same distance apart whether the stones moved quickly or slowly. He also pointed out the handle he used to set the gap size. This was the tenter wheel.

Once all these bits and pieces had been demonstrated, the children went back down the narrow steps, to look at the wheel and track that ran round the outside of the windmill. The track had large metal blocks stopping the wheel moving. When the Miller wanted to point the windmill towards the wind, he would take away the blocks and push the wheel round the track a little.

Finally the children looked at the large sails of the windmill. Each sail was made up of lots of square holes with a curtain that could be pulled across them. The Miller explained that it was so windy that the sails didn't need the curtain pulled across today. He then told us a about a strange custom. He said that when someone passed their training to be a Miller, they would be strapped to the sails and sent for a spin!