Introducing...El Toro!

Yesterday, the kiddo was inspired by Gizmos and Gadgets to create a marble roller coaster device thingamajig.

So we gathered all the boxes, bathroom tissue and paper towel rolls we could find, a small mineral bottle that used to be kiddo's prized possession, K'nex sticks and connectors, masking tape and cutter and scissors as well as kiddo's Inquiry/ Discovery/ Inventions graph paper notebook. We also used the broken anemometer cups from his weather-station science kit.

First, the man drew his blueprint...I'm still shocked he actually did this...major milestone here! Then, we brainstormed positions for the pasta box launcher. And slowly, the monster began taking shape :)

As predicted, I ended up being the major builder/ sticker-upper especially where the sharp cutter and masking tape dispenser blades were concerned but the kiddo, to his credit, was involved enough to hold ramps in place for me to attach and hover around like a concerned parent (or momma hummingbird more like, since it better describes his extremely high energy level).

The contraption worked really well when we'd finished but knowing us, it didn't stay that way for long what with all the fiddling we like to do (what, you mean you hadn't already guessed about our fiddling tendencies? LOL, just try to count how many times I've fiddled with this blog's layout).

So now it's his job to troubleshoot and fix the ramps and improvise. We have high hopes of adding a pulley and several more outlets for the marble to come through.

This really reinforces the need to not throw stuff away. I really hate clutter but have realized I should keep giving bits and pieces of stuff for the kiddo to collect because he just loves building so much. And now *I've* been bitten by the building bug. It's so contagious!

Here it is. El Toro (I wish!)

Marble launched from top of pasta box...

...hits the cup and falls into ramp...

...and exits from bottle (with sufficient force)

I don't expect our work on it will ever end :) Isn't a thing of joy a work in progress forever? (LOL).