A MACHINE made in the Forest that spins using the power of heat is to go on display in a museum.

Darragh Hewat of Drybrook developed the machine after "stumbling across" a discovery made in the 1890s that materials lose their magnetism at a certain temperature known as the Curie Point.

The Museum of Mechanical Art and Design in Stratford-upon-Avon agreed to take the piece after seeing a prototype in a YouTube video.

He said: "Being quite environmentally minded I've been working on ways of doing things that are not quite so fossil fuel based and I've been looking at ways of creating motion from heat.

"The piece works by tea lights heating the magnetic material above the Curie Point.

"The magnet pulls itself around to the part of the material that is magnetic and that creates rotary motion.

"I would like to develop it in practical way but I don't have the funds I wanted to develop a decorative piece to be able to continue this research work.

"I believe it could be developed into something practical. If you take the internal combustion engine 40 per cent of the fuel burnt is thrown away as waste heat.

"If you could harvest the heat and return it directly to the drive of the car you would theoretically be able to increase the fuel efficiency."

The base for the piece – which is intended to be the first of a series – was made from oak by local craftsman Paul Hannaby and the metalwork was cut by Grail Engineering of Cinderford.