Have Glue Gun, Will Travel (AKA Spaghetti bridge, part 2)

After our rather demoralizing defeat at the hands of the kittens, it took us a week or so so get back to bridge building. When we did, we used the same template (hence the same picture above. It's not your imagination.) The bridge had to be totally rebuilt. There was no salvaging the pieces of the prior bridge.



Here is the finished bridge. We had some fun with it before we tested its strength. After all, we test to the breaking point. So once the bridge is "tested" it's no longer any good for playing around with. The floor of the bridge is linguine noodles. We removed the linguine for the testing. In the meantime, it took a bit of time for this traffic jam to clear up.

Finally the test. We hung a bag on the bottom of the bridge, supported by an unbent paperclip and a craft stick. We weighed these. They would be part of our final test weight after all. Then we began to fill the bag with quarters. I figured that it would be easy to measure quarters. You can just weigh one and then multiply by the number of quarters in the bag, right? Just for comparison, we broke one strand of spaghetti prior to building the bridge. It took 32 pennies to break one piece of spaghetti. We moved up to quarters because I didn't think I had enough pennies to break the bridge.

 



the wood brace you see is the table brace. It has nothing to do with the bridge. The angle is just weird.

empty bag.

quarters

more quarters...

It turns out, we didn't have enough quarters. We added other change. Nickles. Pennies. Dimes. We had to add a second bag.

We ended up with this bag and a different hook. We unbent the large s-hook I'd created with the paperclip and used an industrial strength hook finally. The bridge broke eventually, but it took a long time, all the change in the house, and finally the matchbox cars.

The test-broken bridge.

This is what it took to break Caleb's spaghetti bridge. The hook on the outisde of the bowl is what we hung everything from. It was just over 8 pounds of stuff.

 

Now, I know that physics classes do this kind of thing all the time, and that there are contests out there for high school classes. I've seen balsa bridges that support 200+lbs of weight. And damn, I'm impressed by those things.

 

But I'm impressed with Caleb's spaghetti bridge and its 8 lb. test weight. The bridge weighed just over an ounce. He designed it. He built it. He tested it. I helped with the weighing and the breaking of the spaghetti and the control of the hot-glue, but I didn't alter his plans. I didn't push my agenda. We talked about architecture. We talked about geometry. We talked about physics. He read some books, and then he designed his bridge. This is Caleb's project. Even when he complained about everything involved, he still took responsibiltiy for it. And now he wants to design more. He wants to build more. He wants to try arches next time. He wants to get over a 10 lb. test on an ounce bridge. 

 

As his teacher, I'm thrilled.

As his mother, I'm proud.

As a driver, I hope that we can find more durable material than spaghetti when he makes his first real bridge.

Spaghetti Bridges (without sauce)

Why a spaghetti bridge? Why not?
Okay, actually it's a real thing. It's like the balsa wood bridges, but since everyone has spaghetti in their cupboard* it's easier to get started.

I've got a bit of a confession to make: I always thought I was bad at math. I always hated not being able to figure out math. I was okay with adding and subtracting. Multiplication and division came after awhile. Fractions sort of made sense. But algebra? Geometry? What was the point. "You'll use it someday," I was told. For what? I never got a decent answer.

 I failed many, many math tests. I never failed a class, but it wasn't for lack of trying. My senior year in high school, I took a class called Transitions to College Math. I took it Pass/No Credit. I got no credit.

But something interesting happened when I got older. I became interested in electricity and electronics. Just for fun (prior to grad school) I took  "Science of Acoustics" and a "Science of Electronics" classes at Columbia College here in Chicago. Algebra made sense when I looked at it as I=V/R or V=IR.

I asked Mom why math wasn't taught this way in high school. She told me it was because I wasn't learning math, I was learning physics.  It turns out I wasn't bad at math, I'm just much better at learning (and now teaching) when I'm not told that I'll use it "someday," but shown how I can use it now.

So that's the kind of teacher I am. Caleb has been asking about why we study geometry? He loves physics. So now, at the intersection of geometry and physics, we build spaghetti bridges and test how much force it takes to break them. We use geometric shapes and a lot of hot glue. We measure and weigh, and we try to be all science-y about it. It's a lot of fun...and I never tell him that we're just studying so that he can use some esoteric skill "someday."

As stage 1, he designed his bridge. You can kind of see his template in the photo below. That is Caleb wielding the hot glue gun. We only incurred minor injuries

Stage 2: begin construction

Trusses for bridge complete!

Stage 3: Bridge top and bottom complete



The proud bridge-builder

When this is all complete, do not--I REPEAT DO NOT LEAVE THE BRIDGE WHERE THE CATS CAN GET IT. YOU WILL REGRET IT. Cats apparently love to destroy spaghetti bridges. We learned this the hard way.

After the cats...

Part II of our bridge saga, coming soon.


**note: this will NOT work with linguine, fettuccini, manicotti, gnocchi, penne, or any kind of pasta other than spaghetti.

Smart Chick

Hannah is getting used to school again. It's a little difficult. Organization is not her strong suit (not that I'm a great role model for her. My room looks like a yarn store exploded.) But she's starting to make friends, and she is getting her homework (mostly) done. Still, there's a few things she's getting used to. There are cliques that we never had to deal with before that seem to have sprung up in fourth grade. She's not always the most socially adept--she speaks her mind too freely for everyone's comfort sometimes.

A friend of Hannah's stopped by the other day. She just got a rocking cool haircut. Kind of punk. Kind of retro. She's eleven and if this is how she wants to express herself, good for her.

"I didn't recognize her!" Hannah said laughing at the memory and rolling her eyes at her inability to recognize someone who she has known for years. "Then she walked up to me and gave me a hug at recess. Who else would do that? That's how I recognized her. It's a really cool haircut."

Her friend's face fell. "I really needed a hug. I got called two really bad names today. Someone called me Lesbo, and someone else called me Faggot."

Hannah looked confused. "What does that mean?"

Her friend shook her head. "You don't want to know."

"They're mean names for people who are gay," I explained to Hannah who needs answers for things. Half answers don't work for her mind. She'll keep asking questions until she gets to the bottom of things.

This was still not a good explanation for Hannah. "But...what's wrong with people?" she asked looking confused. "Why would they try to make you feel bad that way? It's not like there's something wrong with being gay. Why would people use mean names to talk about nice people?"

Hannah was leafing through her math book as she recalled her summer. "I mean, my Auntie Becky has a girlfriend, and they're really nice. And there's Rosie and Michelle. They're cool too. And Cassidy's Moms. What are their names again, Mom, I can't remember." Suddenly the subject changed. "Hey, Did you use this math book last year?"

"Yeah, I know that math book!" her friend said, relaxing finally. "You know, next year, you'll do your math all differently."

"Great," Hannah griped. "I'm just getting used to it this way...."

I know that the kids at school have to go through anti-bullying classes. But I think that Hannah took away a lot of the power of these bullies just through her incomprehension of their mean-spirited attempt to belittle someone. Her normal is much more inclusive and understanding and kind and open than many other kids that she is exposed to...

...and I'm proud of that. I'm proud of her. She's a smart little chick(en.)

 

Hannah's favorite t-shirt. Mine too. She looks a lot like the chicken on the front
Her nickname is Chicken.

Striking Out on Our Own

So, what are we doing during the Chicago Teacher's Strike? We are reading, doing the remainder of our Summer Bridge activities (which we were too busy to do during summer), and we were sightseeing around the city. We stopped in the other day at one of our favorite sites. The Garfield Park Conservatory. It's a gorgeous place to visit...in an unfortunate neighborhood.

And we picked a great time to visit. They have ART! Art amongst the plants. This is something that they have done a lot in past years. I remember seeing the Dale Chihuly sculptures when Hannah was still in a stroller. The conservatory is over a hundred years old, and Jens Jensen was one of the movers and shakers in its inception, but it was very badly damaged by hail last summer. They're still working on restoring the plants and rooms, and replacing the glass.

One of the great things about the conservatory is that I am always surprised by the creativity that they manage to put on display. This year, instead of importing an artist, the conservatory employed twelve different Chicago artists to make art installations throughout the conservatory. We had a great time finding them all. Although I didn't manage to photograph everything, here are a few of our favorites.

There were the hanging fruits...they looked like tomatoes hanging from the ceiling, but they were planters. They also looked like little round squid, or an alien about to drop on your head, but hey, it's art!

There were towers of caps from detergent bottles. It was really kind of neat. I never would have done it, but I don't pretend to be an artist.

There was this...net thing. Balling wire, screening, and...well, we thought it was a cocoon from which a large butterfly must have emerged. This thought was enhanced by another display that looked exactly like a large rice-paper cocoon prior to the emergence of  a super-sized butterfly, but I didn't get a photo.

But even without the artists, there is plenty to contemplate and observe at the Conservatory. Like These melon shaped things. I don't recall what they were, but the kids were kind enough to stand beneath them looking thoughtful...or angry. Or thoughtfully angry because their mother put them in danger of being brained by mystery fruits and they really question Mom's judgement sometimes.

The Conservatory is more than plants inside. Outside, we were able to not only interact with nature, but also with traffic cones. The kids played conservatory bingo, looking for everything from rabbits to goats. This unusual sculpture was not on their bingo card, surprisingly enough.

The traffic cone sculpture from a distance. The lily pond is gorgeous.

These goats were on our bingo cards. The placard explaining the presence of goats on the west side of Chicago was, unfortunately, written in chalk. I was unable to read most of it. They appear to be at the Conservatory as part of an urban farming experiment.(?) To the credit of the goats' proprietor, you can't get much more urban than the west side of Chicago.

A lovely Morrocan fountain. More beautiful art...and more interactive than you'd think. I saw someone washing their hands in it after they ate lunch. 

My kids are fascinated with the idea of meditation. Lucky for us, there is a labyrinth that is well-maintained here with instructions for walking it. They waited until another lady was done with the walk, and they took off--reasonably slowly. Hannah later said that her favorite part was getting her shoes wet in the waterlogged beginning and ending. I guess that if that's how she achieves inner peace, I can't knock it. I just wish she hadn't been wearing my shoes.

Precious, precious fishes! Actually some really honking huge koi. We always have to visit them.  We were even allowed to feed them once. It was a highlight. I think the kids like to hang out here just in case we're ever asked to feed them again.

The kids and I wandered around the Conservatory for several hours. Hannah and Caleb insisted on travelling apart from me for most part of our visit. I didn't mind. I like it when they get along; it happens so rarely these days. The quiet was soothing to me, and the ultra-oxygenated atmosphere is good for the lungs. 

Did we learn anything? I'm sure we did. I'm just not sure what yet. Sometime knowledge takes time to sprout and grow. Like the plants there. The Conservatory is growing a lot of new plants after the destruction of the hail storm. It's going to take awhile though. They have the huge Show Room closed so that it can be used as a makeshift propagation house because several greenhouses were mostly destroyed. It's going to take time to regrow and rebuild. 

Damage from the hail storm on a greenhouse roof.

The Fern Room after the hail storm.

The Fern room today.

But in the midst of this rebuilding, regrowing, and searching for elusive knowledge there's always room for fun! The Museum of Contemporary Art has an installation right next to the gift shop. It's a room filled to the ceiling with balloons. White balloons. Thousands of white balloons. Visitors to the Conservatory are invited to go inside.

So we did...
...and we got lost in the art...
...and it was a great place to spend the afternoon. I think I want to go back. Funny that something that's been around for 105 years can feel new all the time.

Mr. Lincoln, I've been thinkin'....

Where do you go when you need a break, but not too much of a break? When the well of creativity is dry and you just want to get out of town--but you still want to be able to count it as school time? What do we have to study that we have sadly neglected? Local History of course. State History, to be specific. So where did we go on our last field trip? You can guess. We went further afield than we have in awhile...

Springfield Illinois! The Land of Lincoln--literally. The site of the only National Park managed property in Illinois--the Abraham Lincoln Home National Historical Site (and yes, I got a stamp in my National Parks Passport.) It's a nice little town, but as two days wore on we noted a theme amongst the places we visited. Springfield is not only home to the Lincoln Home, but also the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the Lincoln Depot, the Lincoln Law Office, the Old Capitol Building (where Lincoln delivered the "House Divided" speech), the Lincoln Pew (in the Presbyterian church), the Lincoln Ledger in the archives, and of course the Lincoln Tomb. Just outside of town is New Salem where Abraham Lincoln lived as a young man, and if you want to complete the list there's even a town named Lincoln just a few miles past it all.
We had great weather and the kids earned their third Junior Park Ranger badge while visiting the Lincoln Home NHS. They now have badges from Sequoia NP, Acadia NP and the Lincoln Home NHS. At this rate, they will be able to earn enough badges to trade in for a National Park pony or bison or something. At the very least they should be fully fledged rangers by the time they're fifteen or so.

George, Abe, Mary, Hannah, Willie and Caleb

There were memorials to Lincoln all over the town. The kids really liked the life-sized Lincoln family statues. I was more impressed that we managed to park all day for less than ten dollars. Sweet!

Trying on Tad's Hat

Hannah found a friend

We even took a ghost tour of Springfield on our second night in town. It was really more of a historic tour with some ghosts thrown in for color...Caleb kept asking the tour guide when he would get to the "spooky stories." I'm afraid Caleb was destined to be disappointed.

Notice that I didn't mention visiting the Capitol? We didn't. I had considered going--contacting our state senator or legislator, but I didn't. This was on purpose. I had considered it, but when I mentioned it, Hannah demanded of me, "The state capitol? Isn't that were all the thieves work?"

I suppose that I have to take a more definite line in distinguishing my editorial commentary from our school lessons. I don't want to think that the only thing I've taught my kids in the past year is how to be cynical. So in the interest of keeping the tour guides at the state capitol free of my daughter's demands ("I'd like a list of everyone who is currently under indictment, and the crimes that they are accused of") we took a pass on the present and concentrated on the past.

On our way out of town we stopped at Oak Ridge Cemetery to visit the Lincoln Tomb. Oak Ridge is a beautiful setting, and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. There were several buses at the tomb when we arrived, so we passed on an immediate tour and looked around some other places in the cemetery first. We saw a lot of really neat memorials--much of them very traditional (weeping angels!) but there are quite a few modern burials in Oak Ridge also. This memorial was puzzling for us. The man buried here was a dentist. What was this? A set of forceps? Elephant tusks? Teeth spreaders? We were stumped.

Then we noticed the shadows. It was obvious what these were; they were angel wings.

Hannah Angel

Caleb Angel

Rock on, Angel.

When we returned to the Lincoln Tomb, the school groups were gone and we had the building to ourselves...mostly. There was the Peru Illinois Ladies Auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Union* on their annual Lincoln pilgrimage, but I didn't think they would be poorly behaved in the tomb. Caleb, however, was not quite so forgiving as I was. "They're as loud as kids," he informed me. (To be fair, it's difficult to be quiet when you are surrounded by as much marble and granite as is inside the tomb.)

To anyone who hasn't been at the tomb, it's an impressive edifice. The outside is stunning, but the inside is really quite something. When you step through the public entrance you are in a small rotunda of marble and palladium with ironwork grilles with a corn motif (symbolizing Illinois, of course) and with columns and stars representing the states that were part of the Union when Lincoln was President. The hallway curves around with niches that have small statutes representing various aspects and stages of Lincoln's life. There are plaques with parts of his Second Inaugural Address ("With malice towards none; charity towards all...") and the Gettysburg Address. 

And then there is the burial chamber. There are niches where Mary Todd Lincoln, Willie, Tad and Eddie are interred--they really were a tragic family--and across from them is Lincoln's resting place. There is a large (very large) monument above his grave. I'm assuming it's his final resting place. The poor man was disinterred at least six times because of problems with the tomb, grave robbers, and doubt that he was actually dead. 

The Peru Illinois Ladies Auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Union* was behind us on our first pass through the burial chamber. Caleb asked if we could return. "I just want a little bit of silence," he informed me. "I can't read when everyone is talking. I can't think." So we waited until the ladies had left and we returned to the burial chamber.

"Do you have more questions?" the very nice docent asked us. 

"No," I explained. "My son just wants a few moments of silence back here."

The lady smiled softly at Caleb. "Sometimes I come here early in the morning so that I can have a few moments of peace with Mr. Lincoln, myself," she confessed.

So Hannah knelt before the tomb respectfully. Caleb bowed his head and closed his eyes. We spent a quiet moment in front of the memorial to the man who was arguably our greatest President--definitely one of this country's greatest men. After a few moments, I nudged Caleb. "Is this enough?"

He looked curiously let down. "Yes. Thank you," he told the docent as we left. I'm sure that she went home that night with fond thoughts of the respectful children who stopped by to pay their respects to her Mr. Lincoln...but I had my doubts.

"Caleb," I asked him as we exited into the sunlight. "Were you listening for a ghost?

"Yes," he admitted. "I'm not sure, but I might have heard footsteps. It's hard because everyone is so loud!"

With or without ghosts, we had a wonderful trip into our nation's past, and our state's history which, per the State of Illinois Board of Education Leaning Standards, is something that they have to study. Funny, but it didn't feel much like studying.

(*Peru Illinois Ladies Auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Union--I made this up. I have no idea who they were, or where they were from. They were very nice.)