Moving hand

What do you need:

• Firm paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Drinking straws
• Tape
• Wool
• Satay stick

You can do a lot of different things with your hands because your fingers can move. This is because they can hinge and muscles are tightened. You can easily simulate this.
Start with a piece of firm paper and draw your hand on it. Indicate also where the fingers can bend (fingers on 3 places and thumb on 2).
Cut out the hand. Take a straw and cut it in small pieces. Attach the pieces on the finger parts using tape. On the picture you can see how that is done. On the hand itself you attach some bigger pieces that are leading to the wrist. Once the straws are all attached you make a small incision at the finger tips. This serves to fix the wool in a later stage.
Take a piece of wool and string it through all straws of a finger. This goes pretty easily by making a little knot at the end of the thread and by pushing the knot through the straws using the satay stick. Fix the knot in the incision made on the finger tip. If you now pull at the back end the finger should be moving. If that works then string the wool through the other fingers too. Now you can try moving the fingers in multiple ways. All at once or one by one or maybe bending all except one.

Hint

• Using this technique you can also try rolling up a long strip of paper. It is hard!