It's a Mouse-Mobile

This has been the bane of my existence in the last few weeks...

What is it? It's a vehicle propelled by a mouse trap, of course. It's Chris' Odyssey of the Mind problem. And every parent with school aged children knows that if your child has a project you have a project. You may be reading this as a parent of young children or no children and saying to yourself, "Not me. That's cheating. My kids will do their own work." But that's one of those silly things that people without experience in the field say. You will help them because watching your child crumble to tears over the impossibility of finishing this on their own will make it impossible for you not to help them. Now, I'm not saying you should do it for them. Just "help" them. And by helping them, you will be the one crumbled on the floor in tears over the impossibility of doing this project. Or maybe that's just me on this particular project.

Now, I'm rambling. That's what this project has done to me. Let's get back to the topic at hand. So that is Chris' Mouse-mobile. A vehicle propelled only by a mousetrap. After months of working with his team to complete it, Saturday was the day he got to present it to the judges. And it worked! Sort of.

I feel I should explain Odyssey of the Mind at this point to those who aren't familiar, as I wasn't. It's not just that they have to invent something that solves the problem presented. That invention has to complete a serious of tasks. The team also has to come up with a story and script to present their invention completing these tasks. They also have to build a set and design costumes. And none of the ideas for this can come from the parents. We can show them how to build it and how to use the tools. But the finished product has to be done by the team. (The judges actually ask the kids, who are awful liars, so as parents you really can't have that much input.) On the day of competition, along with presenting their long term problem, they will be presented with a spontaneous problem. Something they have 10 minutes to solve on the spot, such as "You have 2 Popsicle sticks, a plastic cup, a sheet of paper, and a ping pong ball. Build a structure that can support the weight of 1 team member while protecting the ping pong ball." (That was really one of the spontaneous problems in past years.) In sum, this is the most stressful project we have ever worked through. Too many parts for 10 and 11 year old boys. And yet in the end they pulled it off! Sort of.

I keep saying sort of because none of it really worked during the presentation. But the set looked great, the lines were mostly remembered. And the cars moved, in the wrong direction perhaps, but the important thing is they moved.

All in all, I think it was a good, character building experience for the boy. I highly recommend doing it once. We, however, will never do it again.

But I am proud of my boy. He worked hard and pushed through his frustration. And so did I.

Last minute team meeting before the presentation

Proud of themselves after the spontaneous problem. The stickers say, shhhh!, because they can't tell other teams what the spontaneous problem is and they don't because if anyone doesn't like cheaters it's 10 and 11 year olds!

Getting ready to start the long term problem presentation. Their script was inspired by Tom and Jerry, you know because it's a mouse-mobile. Chris is in all black because he's the crew. That means he didn't have any lines, my shy boy, but he and two other boys were responsible for running the mouse-mobiles through the tasks. He stayed calm and composed the whole time, even though they only sort of worked. It was impressive.

The whole team was older brothers with little sisters. The little sisters thought the boy's show was great. They gave the loudest applause at the end.

And now the mouse-mobile at work. Like I said, it sort of worked. It was supposed to raise the flag. He gets two runs to make it work. The first time the string came unwound from the flag pole, but the car made it to the target point. The second time the car didn't make it to the target point so it didn't raise the flag. But he got points for the car actually running. So we're saying it worked. Sort of. Either way I'm proud of him for keeping his cool and pushing through. In the end he made a vehicle that was actually propelled by a mouse trap. I think that's pretty impressive!