Jonathan has always been a build-it, fix-it, take-it-apart kind of guy. When he was at the ripe age of two years old, we found him in the bathroom with a screwdriver. He was trying to take off the electrical switch plate because he was curious about how the light worked. Thank goodness we caught him in time!
When the Discovery Science Center recently announced the Toothpick Bridge Building contest to celebrate National Engineers Week, Jonathan's eyes lit up. He decided to enter the competition and enlisted Daniel as his apprentice. I had no idea how complicated and messy building a toothpick bridge would be. Toothpicks, toothpicks, everywhere!
Over 25 hours of labor and hundreds of toothpicks later, the boys unveiled their project.
Jonathan commented, "We used a lot of math to figure out the triangles. When we did the math wrong, we ruined one side of the bridge and had to start that side all over again. Math is very useful for building bridges!"
The load competition will be held on Saturday, when all the bridge entries will be judged as well as tested for their strength under added weight. Whether the boys' bridge wins or not, they voted the project as "better than playing computer games!"
In the meantime, Elizabeth, who would rather hold a paintbrush than a screwdriver, worked on her own masterpiece.
What a pleasure it is to see creativity is in bloom around me!
"And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good." Genesis 1:1
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