"It flies differently depending on where the paper clip is!"

We signed my son up for a local 'Science Olympiad' group.  I am still not sure what it is, but it is free, and it is science, and I know the lady in charge.  I figured it wouldn't hurt.

After the first week I learned they would be doing something with paper airplanes.  My teacher mode was in full gear.  I requested books on paper airplanes, looked up a few websites and considered lesson plans to be sure he had the full experience.  Then I remembered he doesn't like that sort of thing.  I left the books on the list, and forgot the rest of it.

He built a few of the designs in the books and learned they don't always work quite the way the book says.  (mentioned in one of those Saturday WMCIR posts).  And yesterday he went off to his meeting without anymore info from me.

He built a very cool looking plane, that doesn't fly hardly at all.  It takes a pretty fast nose dive, without so much as a fun flip.

Apparently for the official Olympiad you get 2 paperclips, 4 sheets of paper, scissors, and some tape to build two planes.  Dude took his lousy flying (but very cool looking) plane and started throwing it around, with that 'look'.  You know the one where a kid is really studying what is going on?  Where they seem to mentally record what is happening, and make some sort of adjustment based on what they saw.  I call it the 'scientist look'.  Dude gets it far more often than any of the others.

Now the teacher in me really REALLY wanted to get out some paper and charts, and make a little diagram showing how if you put the paperclip in X spot it flies Y distance and so on.  The mother in me who was nursing one kid and consoling another while trying to talk one through preparing her GS portfolio, and another out the door with his noise...didn't do anything but notice Dude in the background.

After a few minutes, life was moderately calmer, and Dude exclaims 'It flies differently depending on where the paper clip is!".  Um yeah, I bet it does.  By dinnertime Dude had decided how the paperclip should be for best performance, though he still doesn't have a very fast plane.

I certainly would never sit Little One down with charts and graphs to study how her rolling progress was going (quite well if she starts off rolling to the right she can flip, not so well on the left).  And yet I trust her to figure it out.  I think anything a kid sets their mind to they can do.  Now if I could only convince one of the kids to set their mind to a clean house!

Though I did go request a few books on aerodynamics and have made a mental note to suggest he try a few design changes between now and next month.