In this chapter we show you how to build a story generator from paper and yoghurt pots. If you or your children would like to experience for yourself the power of generative grammars, storyworlds and medieval AI, then read on. If not, skip to the final chapter on story machines of the future.

In this chapter we show the reader how to build a story generator from paper and yoghurt pots. The first activity is to build a headline generator based on a generative grammar. Next, the yoghurt pot headline generator is extended to produce simple stories. Adding a map with locations and characters provides a storyworld that can be followed to make the characters move and interact. The last activity is to cut out a copy of a mechanism to generate universal truths invented by Ramon Llull in the 13th century. Rotating the three sections of this device and looking up the results in a table of divine principles gives a moral title for the story, such as “Gluttony is never good” or “The wise man puts patience before envy”.