"Our very first briefing from the technical team ... was please can you come up with a design for the cauldron, and whatever you do, make sure there's no moving parts," designer Thomas Heatherwick told reporters after Friday's ceremony.
"And we were 'how are we going to persuade them, they are never to go for this'.
"It's the most moving parts that's humanly possible to have in a cauldron."
“The cauldron is made up of the “polished copper objects” which are in the shape of flower petals about a foot long.
There are 204 of them, representing each of the countries taking part in the Olympics, and they are attached to steel pipes, each of them about 28 feet high, which contain a gas pipe connected to the mains supply.
The pipes are made of a special type of steel with a heat and acid chemical treatment that give them a colour called 'bad black’. Each petal is individually made and each had to be clicked into place into a specific rod. At the end of the Games the cauldron will be dismantled and the petals scattered to the 204 nations that took part in the opening ceremony. “
The petals were constructed by “Stage One, a metalworking firm based in Towkwith, North Yorks, which is one of the few companies in Britain with the expertise for the task.”
Photo credit above of the petals at ground level as they were lit by the 7 athletes given the honor, and below after they were raised and came together
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