What you’ll need...
Card – fairly sturdy, but not too thick
Ruler
Pencil
Right angle or set square
Glue
Craft knife or scissors
Paints or coloured pens
Suitable for ages 8–14 (if you're a younger child, ask an adult to help you when cutting) Time guideline: 45 minutes
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, when Alice lands at the bottom of the rabbit hole, she comes across a long, low hall with doors all the way around it. In this activity, you’re going to use scale, proportion and a little bit of maths to create a miniature hallway of doors.
STEP ONE
Let’s start with a mathematical conundrum! When Alice lands in the hallway of doors, there is a table on which she finds a little golden key. She tries the key in all the locks and finally finds that it fits a tiny door. She opens it to reveal a lovely garden on the other side that she longs to get into. The door, however, is far too small for Alice to fit through.
Alice is seven years old and 120cm tall. The little doorway she has found in the long hall, and which the golden key unlocks, is only 30cm tall. Too small even to squeeze through lying down. Alice, wishing she could ‘shut up like a telescope’, finds the potion labelled ‘Drink Me’ on a three-legged table in the hall. This potion will make Alice shrink.
Each gulp she takes will shrink her by 15cm. How many gulps of the potion does Alice need to take in order to shrink enough to fit though the little door and get into the garden beyond?
STEP TWO
Now you’re going to make a ‘hallway of doors’ stage model in 1:50 scale.
When stage designers make a model of a set to scale, it means that their model is an exact replica of what they want to appear on stage but ‘scaled down’ in proportion. Working in 1:50 scale means that everything in your model will be 50 times smaller than in real life. An object that is 1m tall in real life, for example, would be 2cm in your 1:50 model.
STEP THREE
Start by looking at pictures of different doors on the internet or in books, and decide what you would like your doors to look like.
An average door is 200cm tall  and about 75cm wide. Alice is 120cm tall.
To make a simple straight wall, use an unwanted cardboard box or some packaging to make the walls of your hallway. In real life, the wall would measure 7m long by 3m high, so in 1:50 scale, your model wall will measure 14cm long by 6cm high.
Measure your doorways at equal distances apart along the card, using a right angle or set square and ruler to get nice precise lines. Mark with a pencil before you draw your lines in pen or paint.
STEP FOUR
You can make your walls stay upright by cutting right-angled triangles out of card and glueing them to the back of the wall.
STEP FIVE
If you want to add a greater sense of perspective to your model, you could try exaggerating the perspective of the hallway, so it gives the impression of the length of the hallway to the audience. Do this by making your walls start tall at one end and get smaller towards a ‘vanishing point’ at the other, and then do the same with your doorways.
To exaggerate even further, you could build your walls on a floor slope (or ‘rake’) which rises the further back it goes. This will ensure the whole set looks like it’s diminishing towards a vanishing point.
STEP SIX
If you want to add a greater sense of perspective to your model, you could try exaggerating the perspective of the hallway, so it gives the impression of the length of the hallway to the audience. Do this by making your walls start tall at one end and get smaller towards a ‘vanishing point’ at the other, and then do the same with your doorways.
To exaggerate even further, you could build your walls on a floor slope (or ‘rake’) which rises the further back it goes. This will ensure the whole set looks like it’s diminishing towards a vanishing point.
If you made your own model in Week 1, you’ll be able to fit this hallway of doors into your model box.