OMg

This is going to be a quick post, or so I say at this moment.  Things can change very quickly as I start typing.  With only the dogs to talk to, I often find I get diarrhea of the mouth or hands in this case, when I want to chat.

The Odyssey of the Mind competition is coming up on Saturday and I am starting to stress out a bit.  I haven't written much about my first endeavor with this program, but suffice to say my lame attempt to  demonstrate one of the projects to the husband, made him chortle, "Are you really the coach?"  "It should be called Odyssey of the Dipshit,"  I am not the most mechanical person.  I take that back.  I think  I could be mechanical, but I have absolutely no interest.

For any of you who have never heard of OM, it is a program that challenges kids to come up with creative solutions to problems;  the more outrageous the better.  My team is to develop and build three vehicles that are powered in three different ways and they must be able to travel 10 feet.  The kids are supposed to do all of the brainstorming and building and the adults are just there to supervise.  I gave this approach a try but by week four I realized this was not working so well and my patience was wearing thin with a couple of kids, only one of which was mine.

I must take some responsibility for their lack of initiative since half the team is made up of my own children and I can be a rather take charge kind of person both by choice and necessity.  My ADD means I am always running about 15 minutes behind schedule because the kitchen cabinets really do need to be cleaned right now, even though I am in the middle of making dinner.  It is easier to do it myself than spend twice as much time and way too much anxiety trying to get the boys to do it.  This approach helps to keep us on schedule but doesn't do much for turning them into self starters.   My heartfelt apologies go out to their future mates for delivering grown men who don't know how to put their clothes away.  I just couldn't bear to see crumpled shirts shoved into drawers.

As the OM competition got closer, the kids still had not made the vehicles they were supposed to build for their performance.  I decided they needed a little help coming up with their own ideas so I spent countless hours researching balloon powered cars, mousetrap powered cars, rubber band powered cars, etc.  I stayed up until midnight one night trying to figure our how to use wind power to blow a plastic container ten feet across the floor and then figure out how to get the kids to come up with the idea themselves. Oy.

I started bringing all of the materials to make a rubber band powered car a couple of weeks ago.  Instead of telling them, "We are building a rubber band powered car."  I held up a rubber band and asked, "Could we use a rubber band in one of the vehicles?"  My heart started racing and I was thinking, 'Please someone say rubber band powered car.'  I could hear crickets chirping as most of them stared blankly at me. Luckily, there is one smart little cookie in the group who seems to be a classmate of mine at  Youtube University.

They all agreed that a rubber band powered car was a great idea and they were glad they came up with it.  The task of actually building it was now at hand. Despite all of my attempts to have them accidentally find the step by step directions in my open folder, no one got it. After a few failed attempts, one kid decided to make a rubber band ball and the others decided to shoot the rubber bands at each other.  I realized I was going to have take them through the process step by step by asking them not very open ended questions:  "How do we twist the rubber band around the axle to make it move?" "Would you want to use these wheels here and turn it into a Batmobile?"

When one kid started to get frustrated and suggest that we just push the car, I acted as if I hadn't heard him.  "What's another way we could attach the end of the rubber band?" "Could we possibly use this notched piece of cardboard I just happen to have?"

My aggressive questioning has paid off and the vehicles are all done.  Come to think of it, I may be a mechanical genius.  I have learned more about axles in the past couple of months than in my entire life.  Did you know CD's make excellent wheels?  Maybe this is really is my Odyssey of the Dipshit?

One rehearsal left and lots to do. Wish me, I mean the kids luck.