System Engineering, 3rd Grade Style

Over three weeks ago, Adam came home from school excited about a bridge.

He announced that he had a project due. The Structures project.

He had to build a bridge out of paper or cardboard products and he could use tape, glue, staples etc to hold the parts together.

He started it that night.

It wasn't due until today. Three weeks later.

I'm glad he was excited about it, and wanted to work on it. I wasn't as excited about my living room turning into Craft Central, with my coffee tabled morphing into a drafting table.

After he had started the main structure, I took a good look at the instructions.

'It must span a space of 30 cm between two desks.'

'It must be strong enough to hold two dinky cars.'


I took out the ruler and checked out the bridge. Almost double the requirement.

Last Tuesday night, after adding the on/off ramps, he was finished.

Here is his masterpiece.

3rd Grade System Engineering at it's best!

Those white marks are skid marks from cars lol.

He did the entire project on his own. Everything came from his own brain, and through his own hands, and hard work.

I knew I saved those toilet paper rolls over the summer for a reason!

We brought in an outside contractor to give a true test of the bridge's strength and endurance.

The other night, I walked around the corner, into the living room and found her hard at work ...

The Kitten Stress Test

I have no fear that it will meet the 'Must hold 2 dinky's' requirement!

Here's the kicker.

He didn't get to present it today. We had a storm overnight and school was cancelled due to icy roads this morning.

He was really looking forward to showing that bridge off too. Not often you see a kid bummed about getting a snow day!

Hmmm ... maybe I should've put him to work, instead of letting him playing outside all day.

Wonder how he'd make out building me a new room in the basement!

My little System Engineer in training ;-)

Now where'd I put that 'Child Labour Laws For Dummies' handbook?

K