Engineering a Boat...

Remi learns best with his hands- if he can build it, he can learn it! He is very project minded and jumps at the opportunity to create and invent. For the second time this year, his teacher has assigned a project that encourages students to be engineer minded. Remi is very naturally wired this way, and so getting to apply his talents to classroom assignments is a huge treat for him!

Each boat had to be made out of recycled products and materials found at home- no store bought supplies. The boats couldn't be bigger than 6" x 6" and had to hold at least 15 pennies for 30 seconds. There is an all-time record of 200-something and Remi's personal goal was to blow that out of the water.

He is a hoarder when it comes to things he can build with- as in the other day, I was throwing away a pair of pants with a hole in the knee and he told me to keep them so he could use the zipper- and I'm being dead serious! It's so bad, that I have an entire room downstairs dedicated specifically for Remi, his tools, his supplies and creating. It gets messy, really really messy, and this obsessive organized mom struggles with his chaotic, creating space, big-time. But, I shut the door and let it be... until it gets so bad that I can't even walk into the room, and then I clean it all up, secretly while he is at school, and when he walks into his clean workroom, well, his smile all but explodes off of his face!

At some point, Remi kept some styrofoam packing material from something I ordered online, and that is exactly what he made 90% of his boat out of. He used two pieces, glued them together and that was basic idea of his boat. The top piece had a square cut from the middle to create a space for the pennies to pile. He used very little supplies in effort to keep his boat as light as possible...

-Styrofoam
-Hot glue
-Duct Tape
-Wooden skewers
-Green acrylic paint

Thats it! I helped him figure out how to make it colorful and the sails where my idea; the rest was all Remi. He actually wanted to do one more layer of styrofoam but I was afraid it would be top-heavy and discouraged that idea. In the end, he was super proud of his final product and went to school that day full of excitement. That feeling of seeing your child so eager for the school day- that is the very best!













Oh happy day!! The day they tested boats at school, his teacher sent me this picture. I have no doubt, this is going to be one of his favorite school days of all time!



Even though his boat ended up holding a whopping 340 pennies, Remi's little boat ended up in 2nd place by 8 pennies- he swears if I would have let him add that extra layer of styrofoam, that would have put him in the lead! That little booger doesn't do 2nd place very well when it comes to building, but taking 2nd place with a smile is a lesson all in it's self.

As always, I am super proud of this little mind in the making!