The mystery of the headless terracotta warrior

We have a small statue ornament that has guarded our garden for many years. Unlike the real terracotta warriors in Xian, ours is a small polystone warrior from Bunnings. Over the years he lost his hands and recently, his head mysteriously started falling off.

We would find it on the ground and put it back into place. It became a puzzle to us.

We would come out days or weeks later and the head would be back on the ground. We were never curious enough to set up a camera to find who or what was knocking the head off our terracotta warrior.

With the wet season upon us, I was cleaning up the yard and again noticed that the warrior’s head had become separated from his body. I picked up the head again and was just about to put it back on the body when I discovered what was causing the removal of the head. Watch the video to find out what it was (and still is).

The fact that the warrior’s head weighs two to three times the weight of the thing that is moving it is very impressive.

We even have a cameo from the culprit at the end… the cameo was made with the Adobe Express “animate from audio” that our students have access to make their own multimedia stories by recording audio, selecting a puppet and combining the two into their own creative story.

All of our students in the NT plus their teachers have access to these creation tools for free which makes for some wonderful assignments they hand in.

I talk more about the tech we use in classrooms to create stories like these over on my Learnshifting Blog.