6 Ordinary Things You Need to Make a Strandbeest

If Dutch artist Theo Jansen’s giant self-propelling sculptures—called strandbeests—don’t cause your jaw to drop and your eyes to bug, you’re in the most micro of minorities.

The most extraordinary thing about these uncanny kinetic creatures is that they’re made from the most ordinary of materials—stuff you probably have in your house, or could at least pick up at a hardware store. Let’s take a look.

1. PVC

PVC tubing is what Theo calls his “artistic protein.” Used for electrical conduit in the Netherlands, this versatile plastic powerhouse makes up the cells, muscles, bones, and nerves of the strandbeests.

2. Zip Ties

Zip ties are the new duct tape. If you can’t strap two objects together with zip ties, then perhaps they just aren’t meant to be together. For strandbeests, zip ties serve as connective tissue, joining cell to cell, muscle to bone.

3. Plastic Bottles

That empty soda bottle in the recycling is—or could be—the stomach of a strandbeest. Gusts of wind are a tasty meal for these beach animals; with fluttering fins and sails, they capture the wind’s energy and store it—as pressurized air—in plastic bottles. Later, they can use this stored energy to propel themselves when the wind dies down.

4. String

Good ole string (made of tough polyester) steps in for zip ties where greater length or durability is required. Theo’s go-to knot is a little something called the constrictor hitch. This knot has a serious squeeze factor. Once tied, it cinches tighter and tighter—like the boa that shares its name.

5. Heat Gun

You may have used one of these to strip paint, but a heat gun also makes possible the wild contortions that Theo puts his PVC tubing through. With a little heat, you can make PVC tubing bend, flare, and do other fancy tricks.

6. Stubbornness

When you see a strandbeest strutting proudly across the beach, what you don’t see are the hundreds of graceless topples, the torn sails, the exploding bottles, and the sand-jammed joints that grind to a halt—or the decades of dogged determination on the part of their maker.

Clearly, this is the single most essential ingredient. Alas, it’s not to be found in any store.