Review: Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions

 Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions You Can Build Yourself by Maxine Anderson(Nomad Press, 2006)

As a science instructor, I’m always on the lookout for good resource books; those with interesting activities that aren’t just the same old thing warmed over: the same activities that all the other books have, the same incorrect instructions for chromatography, the same incorrect use of the Bernoulli effect to explain flight.

Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions You Can Build Yourself (Nomad Press, 2006) is refreshingly different. Author Maxine Anderson has gone to da Vinci’s original drawings and has created interesting ways to interpret the inventive sketches in models or full-sized working replicas using everyday household materials. The book includes more than 30 projects.

The inventions range from art to science to practical tools. Anderson includes instructions for making a perspectograph that helps young artists make perspective drawings. There is a recipe for making egg tempera, the medium used by the artists who created church icons. Readers can build a camera obscura, make weather instruments, make their own working monkey wrench, or build walk-on-water shoes and finned gloves. There are instructions for making models of some of da Vinci’s war machines, including a safety bridge, a trebuchet, and a human-powered tank. All projects include detailed step-by-step instructions with illustrations and diagrams that make the instructions easy to follow. The detail of the instructions make it clear that the author has actually tried these projects herself.

What makes this book valuable to teachers and homeschool parents is the integration of science, art, and history, a terrific tool for building thematic units about da Vinci or about the Renaissance in general.Throughout the book, readers will find anecdotes about life during da Vinci’s times and about other artists and inventors of the Renaissance. da Vinci’s visionary “nothing is impossible” attitude shines through, making the book an inspiration to young inventors.