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About these pictures:

Now and then we do some kind of goofy school-wide event, a challenge that encourages students to drop everything else they're doing and build and invent and work together.

An educational theorist could say these projects provide experience with real-life research and development. Students have limited resources and a defined goal, with the method of achieving the goal totally open ended. The projects require having a vision, using one's imagination, coming up with a design, learning about tools, materials, and physics, experimentation, refining the design, working together, and being persistent. They're also fun.

The World's Shortest Mechanized Parade

Students were challenged to build a float that would go one inch.

The Great Yawp

At first the challenge was to invent a musical instrument, but we changed it to "something that makes a noise." Then we tried to play the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

The Parade of Lights

An annual riot of cardboard and duct tape, culminating in a downtown holiday parade for the whole family