Hand made sculptures smaller than a pin head.

Willard Wigan creates incredibly small sculptures using dust, the hair pulled from a fly and minute shards. It is painstaking but breathtaking. Behind his work lies a story that he tells about inadequacy and rejection... now his sculptures sell for considerable sums. The whole video is easy to watch. There are YouTube versions that are shorter as well.

Theo Jansen's astonishing kinetic sculptures

Theo Jansen creates "creatures" out of simple materials. Amazingly, with no electronics and no computer, he designs creatures that are programmed to anchor in high winds, move away from the water and who can store energy. Everything about this work is intriguing, however the whole video is perhaps a little long for a general Year Nine class. Watch it all yourself, however, and encourage students to follow up. You can discuss the idea of evolving design, the idea of self sufficient "creature" sculptures, how you program behaviour without a computer, even the idea of using absolutely basic material like PET bottles and electricians conduit. The leg action, common to all his creatures, is remarkable in itself (some nice mathematics here as well).