Like many mornings, this one starts with some dismantling. Anna and Piper are waiting their turn to wax a boat, so to keep themselves busy they dig back into the color laser printer.

Anna and Sam bring a freshly canvased boat to the metalshop for waxing. There is already a boat and half ahead of them, so they will have to wait a bit.

The paper feed mechanism yields up an amazing assortment of gears arranged as a single interlocking chain. Piper couldn’t be more pleased.

Fiona and Brenna have mastered the perfect wax application technique - no air pockets, no streaks, no puddles.

In order to higher exit speeds from the launch tube, Nikhil attaches a couple of yards of dryer vent tube. Elena finds the undertaking amusing but thinks that the aggregate drag caused by the ridges in the tube will yield no significant net increase in velocity.

With the case completely removed, the gears and motors extracted, the mirrors and heating elements safely stowed in the parts bins, the skeletal paper path is left whole with it’s internal reservoirs of colorful but nasty toner.

Fiona, Brenna, and Robyn try to figure out something interesting to do with the oodles of plastic gears extracted from the printer.

Max finds something of interest in the heater element. Perhaps he is thinking he can use it to fix the toaster which broke this morning.

Nikhil remembered using melted crayons to make paint. Green is chosen as the correct color for the T.S.S Kraken and waxing is suddenly fun again (according to Nikhil, Elena, Piper, and Max).

There is a subtlety to the application of wax to canvas. The brush must be drawn across the bare fabric at exactly the speed that the hot wax wicks out of the bristles. The stroke must stop before the brush runs out of wax or else an area of superficial wax will be created and air will be trapped in the canvas - the result is a weakness in the waterproofing that will fail when the boat is put in the water.

Nik and Elena have got the technique down pat.

The finished boats are loaded on the trailer. Much nervous anticipation begins.

The Greek chorus (starring Max, Anna, Nik, Fiona, Brenna, and Piper) seems convinced the boats will sink, taking all aboard to their untimely demises in the briny depths.

When in a four-way group huddle to get warm (Anna, Brenna, Elena, and Piper), it is important that all huddlers wear their safety goggles.

We arrive at the beach only to discover that there is a cold, and somewhat foggy breeze blowing.

Marilyn and Robyn set up base camp while the tinkerers return to the truck for the boats.

Since the canvas is, shall we say, of less than perfect quality, we are all wary of punctures and decide to keep them upside down until we get them in the water.

While Gever runs back to the ranch to get the forgotten wet suits, the boats bask in the gray light of the overcast afternoon.

Sam takes his new surfboard out to meet the waves (calling them waves is very generous, let’s call them wavelets), and draws the tinkerers down to the waterline.

With a monster set coming in, Sam waits patiently and then pushes confidently onto the shoulder of the biggest wave to come through in the last ten minutes - at almost two and half inches high, the wave will come to be known as “the big one.”

Built from two scraps of bad paneling, some waterproof tape, some foam insulation, and a couple of really big bolts, Sam deems his surfboard sufficiently fun.

Sam enjoys a quiet, but very chilly, moment in the water.

“I,” says Sam, “can’t - believe - how - cold - I… am.”

Now that Sam has shown them that the water will not quite (but only almost) kill them, the tinkerers suit up for boating.

Despite the fact that he can’t feel his extremities, his ears, or his head, Sam cannot resist the opportunity to try out the boats.

The boats are surprisingly light weight, which makes bringing them down to the water line more of a game than a chore.

Taking a page from the David Bowie / Elton John / Piper book of fashion, Brenna accessorizes her personal flotation outfit with some really cool turquoise swim goggles.

The edge of the sea is filled with green seaweed. “It’s a bad omen,” says one of the tinkerers.

With their flat broad hulls, the boats don’t sit down in the water, which puts the center-of-gravity too high, and as a result, extremely prone to tipping off to one side. Fiona and Sam try to paddle, but the motion of moving the paddle causes the boat to roll dangerously on every stroke.

Elena and Max keep a wary eye on the incoming waves. The ripples caused by seagulls landing 300 yards away are almost too much for the tippy boats.

Abandoning their paddles (which add more instability than motive force), Nikhil and Piper convince Julie the give them a big shove.

With it’s symmetrical bow and stern, the T.S.S. Boat rides nicely over waves when facing them, but has a tendency to take on copious amounts of water when chased by them. Brenna and Anna would like the waves to stop for a minute while they bail out the water.

Nikhil, seeking what warmth he can from the meager sunlight, lays down into the sand, making himself as invisible to the wind as he can manage.

By connecting the two longest boats into a simple catamaran shape, amazing stability is achieved, and paddle adventures become possible. Nik and Fiona take the newly reconfigured boats out for a tour of the nearshore waters.

Gever and Julie take the catamaran out for a spin and find that it is quite stable, but begin discussing design improvements for home-made paddles and get blown by the wind almost to the abandoned pier.

Nik, Sam, Brenna, and Elena manage to get in the new boat for some wave riding and spinning (since they didn’t quite figure out how paddle in a straight line).

Nik, Sam, Brenna, and Elena manage to get in the new boat for some wave riding and spinning (since they didn’t quite figure out how paddle in a straight line).

Gever, reminded of a boat he once saw that looked like a shallow bowl, thought that it might work better if he just got his center of gravity low enough. Low enough turned out to be underneath the boat.

With not enough additional pieces to make another catamaran from the remaining boats, Fiona, Elena, and Nik enjoy other fine qualities of the canvas shell.

Piper found a hole, Nik jumped it. Much jumping ensued.

Brenna clears the hole easily.

Anna also makes it across.

A really crusty old sailor drags his heavy wooden skiff down to the water line and rows across the harbor in no time at all.

Piper, after chasing clams and sand fleas, inevitably catches a case sand hands.

Brenna also succumbs to the sand hand syndrome. Doctors are baffled.

Sometimes, under certain conditions, one can develop a case of sand feet, as Nikhil has here.

According to Marilyn (Robyn’s mom who came out from Virginia to help with the cooking), the 2008 Juniors have eaten:
16 lbs of grapes
12 lbs of strawberries
3 lbs of cherries
12 nectarines
3 peaches
24 apples
1 watermelon
8 plums
and, wait for it, yes,
30 lbs of Clementine Oranges!

This tally was taken today at noon, so we can expect them to pack away a few more pounds of fruit by Saturday at noon.

Another brilliant idea from Marilyn - why spend all that time stitching up the canvas to fit the boats when we can staple it?

With the boat project in full swing today, Sam’s zip-line is not getting any attention. You know it’s a good project when they are forgetting about the toys outside.

I think we all know where most of the 30 pounds of oranges went…

Sam has been asking about making a surfboard since the boat project was announced. He proposed the design, refined it with Gever, and then set about to build it.

Everyone agrees that the curved boat is the most boat-like. Later we will regret the shape for all the problems it causes in getting a tight canvas skin on it.

Brenna and Fiona have the canvas-fitting system down. It’s a bit complicated to get the canvas to fold and lay flat in all the right places. We started out using string to tighten the canvas, but have resorted to nylon zip-ties for the sake of expediency.

The performance of a surfboard depends on the subtle things - the symmetry, the shape of the side rails, the thickness - and Sam had to give up thinking about all of those things when we wouldn’t let him use actual fiberglass and resin to make his.

Gever and Piper make an efficient team in the application of wax to the canvas. Piper’s natural tendency to obsess over details gives her the zen-like focus necessary to keep any air from getting trapped against the canvas.

There’s something odd about a bunch of kids reading Dilbert books…

Anna does not much care to play tag, so she often takes a book and reads for 15 minutes while everyone else runs around the yard squealing.

Anna, Fiona, and Brenna work out the kinks in another boat skin.

Anna has a secret super-power - she knows her way around a needle and thread. Our boats suddenly get a lot less flappy looking.

Anna is justifiably proud of her sewing on the stern of the last Nooi boat. With a coat of wax, this surface will shed water (hopefully out of, and not into the boat) when it cuts through the waves and chop of Princeton Harbor tomorrow.

Bob is teasing Piper about some bit of nautical lore. Brenna and Nik welcome the break from working with the difficult canvas.

We have, collectively, had enough of the boats. We decide to take a walk over to see the zonkey at a nearby farm - it’s becoming a Tinkering School tradition.

Gever accidentally let it slip that nasturtium flowers are often used as decoration on cakes, and that they edible. Elena promptly popped one in her mouth - before I could tell her to check for bugs.

“It tastes good at the beginning and then bad as an after-taste,” she said, adding, “can I have another one?”

Nik had to try a flower, but wanted it to seem more dangerous.

There are now two zonkies at the nearby farm. The woman who owns the farm purchased/rescued a zebra from a hunting resort in Texas and put it in a paddock with her prize donkeys, hoping that they might all get along.

Big heads, stripey legs and manes, and really big ears - the zonkey is the sterile offspring of a zebra and a donkey.

The tinkerers thought that it was mean that the zonkeys couldn’t have children.

Evidently, visitors are expected to bring carrots. If only we had known.

After the zonkeys, no one was quite ready to get back to tinkering, so we decided to walk down to see the Alpaca, stopping along the way for food so that we wouldn’t die from hunger.

“You can survive for five days without food,” offers Nikhil, “or is it three?”

We may have to send the goggles home with Piper.

As the minutes go by, the tinkerers lapse into introspective silences punctuated by fits of giggles.

Oranges are passed around, peels are tossed into the weeds along the road.

Even Sam find himself in a contemplative mood.

Recently shorn, the Alpaca do not disappoint as they frolic and gamble just like characters in a Disney film.

As we head home, the pace slackens to a stately amble - punctuated by fits of giggles.

Anna takes to the bridge as we head down for the evening tink. We’ll try to finish the skinning of one boat, finish the waxing of another, and dismantle a defunct color laser printer.

Elena, Brenna, Fiona, Piper, and Anna all get to work on the laser printer and soon have the case open and the guts spread out on the table.

Robyn removed the toner/ink before hand.

In a somewhat Huck Finn style moment, Nik, Sam, and Max enjoy the simple pleasures of applying hot wax to canvas.

Few can resist a visit to the bridge this morning. To this seasoned instructor, this bridge still looks great.

A brief digression: The thing I really like about this bridge, perhaps even more than the recycled garbage bag bridge, is that there are no concepts or techniques used here that are not completely understandable to a seven year-old. We based the design on pictures of great iron cantilever bridges that we found on the internet, we built it completely adaptively as we went, and it just works great.

We wanted to build some rickshaws, but the pinball table was sitting on our work surface. In order to move it (since we’re not done fiddling with it, and it still needs paddles), we have to put legs on it…

Just simple things - a 2×4 and a triangle of plywood at the top to brace it. Nothing fancy. Not going to win any design awards. Piper, Fiona, and Robyn have done it all before.

Most of our creations start on the whiteboard. Here we have broken the design down into its required elements (seat, wheels, pull thingy, and brakes), which we then group into three major areas of work (frame/wheels, seat, brakes).

Piper thinks it’s funny that Elena and Anna are pulling Max and herself - the littlest ones pulling the biggest ones. I say she’s reading too much into the diagram.

Fiona shows Elena how and why to use the clamps when you are screwing multiple pieces of wood together.

Gever is not so much helping as reminding Nik what the important things to do are.

Marilyn arrives bearing a fresh bowl of Clementine Oranges. This necessitates an immediate fruit-break as clearly stated in Rule #2: If you see a piece of fruit, AND you want it, you MUST eat it. [if, like Gever, you need a review of the rules to date, see last year’s diary]

The ramp based on a piece of high-pressure natural gas pipe was too ungainly and always at risk of getting torn off. Sam and Gever came up with a better design, which, naturally, required cutting a couple of feet off the tube. Better than adding a couple of feet…

Piper, wearing her goggles more as a fashion statement than out of any concern for safety, drives the last couple of screws into the last leg of the pinball table.

After the fruit-break and the tag-break, the lead tinkerers decided to abandon the rickshaw project (which wasn’t garnering much enthusiasm from the crowds) and return to the original plan (despite the gloomy weather) which was to build boats and take them down to the harbor for some fun in the little waves.

To demonstrate the brittleness of the closed-cell styrofoam, Gever asks the tinkerers to try to break the seemingly hard panels over their heads. Much hilarity ensues.

“It’s just too much fun to break styrofoam,” says Brenna. Fiona and Elena agree.

“I can’t stop myself!” declares Sam. “I can’t stop him either!” says Elena.

If you don’t know what size boat to make, and the math isn’t giving you any useful parameters, the next best thing is to try drawing various boat shapes around small groups of willing volunteers (Piper, Fiona, and Brenna).

Using our victims, I mean volunteers, we try out lots of different shapes of boats; long and skinny, short and square, and those other sizes in between.

Some take the PB&J route, but everyone mostly eats fruit for lunch. And carrots. Plates of carrots.

It got so quiet that we thought some of the kids had wandered back down to the studio - then we discovered that they had discovered the collection of Dilbert cartoon compilations.

Gever tries, somewhat unsuccessfully, to demonstrate what makes a boat tippy and why catamarans are so stable. The point gets lost somewhere in a contagious giggle-fit that passes back and forth between Brenna and Elena.

Based solely on these crude petroglyphs, the Piki and Nooi start construction on their fleets.

To make things interesting with the boat design, we’re using PVC tubing (without glue so it can be reused for years to come). Anna demonstrates an amusing side-benefit.

Nik and Elena find the pot of wax interesting. When Gever explains that the wax will be used to make the canvas waterproof, astounded and aghast exclamations arise from the tinkerers. “We’re all going to drown!”

Because of the limited angles allowed by the pipe couplings, the construction of the boat skeletons is fairly straightforward. Elena and Piper (still “wearing” her safety goggles) watch as Max cuts tubes.

Elena, Piper, and Max use the rawhide mallet to seat the elbow fitting securely on the pipe (no glue, remember).

The prow of the boat is the last part to come together since it’s the part with the tricky angles. Snap-T couplings are what make it possible.

Sam is sanding the handle for his set of paddles. Max and Nik are watching. A complicated job like this, with a new tool like the random orbit sander, requires at least two, and sometime four people to watch, if you really want the job done right.

Given the opportunity, Sam exhibits amazing attention to detail.

The slanted-prow boat is big enough for Elena, but what about the tallest tinkerers?

Piper likes how the prow acts like a perfect foot-rest.

Max too finds much to like in the slanted-prow design.

We all seem to want a boat with a gracefully curved bow, and since the PVC fittings don’t come in acute angles, decide to use a plywood plate to hold the shape we need.

Fiona has cut more than her share of PVC pipe this afternoon. She wonders if she will be able to practice her guitar tonight…

Nik and Elena work with Gever to get the tubes screwed onto the plywood plates.

Anna can’t seem to stop singing into tubes this afternoon.

Brenna takes a break from working on a tricky bit that has a lot of pipe fittings.

We’re using it here because the canvas is just not that strong and we don’t want to accidentally step through the bottoms of the boats when we are getting in.

The injection-mold process used to form the PVC couplings leaves a big nasty burr that will puncture the canvas when it is stretched over the boat skeleton. Gever uses his handy-dandy new Fein tool to remove them. He is very happy have an excuse to use the tool, which, though it was ordered to help with the metalshop project, proved not to be useful there.

All the materials that didn’t get used in the boat and pinball projects today, go back to the Tinker Shed. Fiona and Elena take many small loads up the path, across the grass, and under the tree to the shed.

Nik brings up the plywood we didn’t use to make paddle blades - by rolling it all the way to the shed…

Piper hops aboard to help out with lashing down the canvas so that we will have at least one boat ready for waxing tomorrow morning.

“The thing that makes it unique,” explains Brenna, “is that it leaves a trail of tools wherever it goes.”
“Oh,” says Robyn, “just like Gever.”

Elena and Gever cinch down the Nooi tree belt that will support the main structural elements of the walkway surface using paired screw drivers. This technique (first introduced to Tinkering School during the treehouse project last year) generates incredible torque and tension in the lines.

Anna arrives with her new utility belt - masking tape and a box-cutter - and she’s ready to make lashing lines.

We needed a Piki to walk out on the first cantilever and see if it would hold - with no railings, and no walkway, it was going to be a dangerous job - Sam immediately volunteered.

Though wobbly, newly fashioned structural elements held.

Sam throws away his walking poles and exults. We could all be a little more Sam-like and spontaneously celebrate our lives on a moment to moment basis, I think.

The Nooies are feeling the pressure after watching the Piki’s test their cantilevers, so they get right to their #1 and #2 sized poles (pole sizing follows the International Eucalyptus Structural Elements guidelines, 2007 edition).

Elena takes up the walking poles and makes her way out on the newly minted Nooi cantilevers. Since she only weighs 14 pounds, some of the Nooi wonder if this is a valid test of the structure.

The River King seems to like his new crown, but he remembers ordering a scepter as well…

NPR stopped by for a visit today and spent a couple of hours hanging out with the tinkerers. After looking at how he was dressed, Gever was glad it was radio and not television - at least he shaved.

Fiona and Brenna took Chana (NPR reporter) on a tour of the studio and pointed out some of the coolest features of the pinball machine.

“She’s more eloquent than half the people I work with,” says Bob after listening in on Fiona’s in-depth interview with Chana.

Putting up the walkway requires sitting on the work you’ve just done - this is an aid to concentration. Piper likes the new string color that we are using (as a result of a slight miscalculation on Gever’s part - he would like to know if there is a formula for determining how much line you will need for a bridge of a given length).

Since Anna has gone off to play on Sam’s new zip-line, Max takes over the line cutting.

Nikhil decides that the new Nooi walkway is probably safe, and he climbs up for a look around.

Until there is enough walkway to reach and lash the overlapping spars of the cantilever, the bridge is, shall we say, in a very dynamic state. Elena is nominated to lay in some of the furthest out cross pieces, because: she’s good at tying the line, and, she weighs, like, 3 pounds.

Anna is one of the types of arboreal monkeys which actually sleep in the tree tops. So, naturally, when work slowed down for a little while, she just closed her eyes and had a little nap.

After butt-bruising experiences hanging in the zip-line “chair” (which was just a loop of rope), Piper and Elena decided to make a new seat with foam cushioning.

The foam and board combo works very well.

Piper discovers that the new seat sits a little low for the big kids, and finds her ride cut short when it bottoms out.

With the bridge finished, it is time to unite the long-separated tribes of Piki and Nooi so that they may become the Pikinooi once again. Elena and Anna go first as ambassadors for their respective countries.

Bear witness to the historic moment when the Nooi and the Piki (here represented by Elena and Anna) ceremoniously join their two nations.

The River God had earlier declared that for lasting peace and prosperity to exist between the two tribes, they must all stand on the bridge together, over his head. He was appeased, and lo, peace and prosperity did blossom in the land, like daffodils.

The Pikinooi rejoiced at their great accomplishment, and yet the bridge held.

Unable to restrain himself, the River God took a stroll across the bridge and declared it the best in the land.

Walking across the elevated structure, one is struck by the amazing variability of the workmanship and then doubly struck by how solid the whole thing is. Really solid. You could park a Mercedes up here.

With no aforethought given to the aesthetics, the bridge is surprisingly lovely to look at. Tinkerers pause on their way too and from the studio to look at it, or touch it, or cross it.

From tree to shining tree. The sun emerges for a few minutes in the late afternoon to light up the bridge for a last look.

For bonus points, spot the phone from the kitchen that Gever left outside.

Here’s the backstory: the Piki and the Nooi tribes have become separated (again) and must build a bridge over the raging Pikinooi River. The bridge, like all bridges in Pikinooi, must be tall enough for their king to pass under while standing on his royal barge (approximately 5′ 6″).

It’s obvious to everyone that a bridge is only as strong as the materials you build it out of, and the Piki tribe begins selecting eucalyptus branches suitable for their cantilever design.

The Nooi tribe has determined that without any handy branches on their tree, they will need a ladder in order to both work on their end of the bridge and get up to it once it is built.

Max takes on the arduous task of cutting poles and rungs.

The rules of the game state that no bridge element may extend past the opposite shore of the raging Pikinooi River (whose banks are marked by stakes lying end to end along the ground between the two trees).

Elena, the smallest of the Nooi, checks to see if one of their main elements is going to be too long.

The Piki are using a circumferential belt to create an attachment point for the poles that will be the basis of their walkway. Fiona uses a pair of screwdrivers (hand made from native Piki clay) to tighten the belt so that it cannot slip no matter how many Piki or Nooi stand on the walkway.

A new technique for lashing has been developed and it’s making things go considerably faster. Elena, Max, and Piper have an efficient rung-attaching assembly line going.

Sam has gotten his hands on some interesting rope. His scheme is not well formed enough to share with the group, but he’s requested some time to figure some things out.

Whatever his plans may entail, Gever makes it clear that the hooks must be removed (due to them being attached to very pointy eye bolts). Putting aside his concerns about the negative impact it will have on his project timeline, Sam gets down to the work of removing the hooks and duct tape.

It is a time-honored tradition at Tinkering School that whenever there is an untested, rickety contraption to be climbed, the lightest person will make the first ascent. On the Nooi team, this job falls to Elena, who gleefully clambers up the freshly minted rope ladder.

Once the structural integrity of the ladder is established, both the Piki and the Nooi take turns going up for a look. Nik waves to his fans.

Max throws down a sign to his homies in Berkeley.

“It’s just a ladder,” someone says. But it’s a ladder built out of bamboo and string - that’s what makes it cool - so it must be climbed. Piper goes up for a look around.

Fiona also succumbs to the siren call of the somewhat bendy ladder.

Brenna, after waiting patiently for so long, goes up, but then decides to hang out for a few moments since no one is waiting - one of the perks of going last.

Anna is understandably excited when her re-tooled, dual-motor, doodle-bug comes to life and starts waltzing around the table. Also, she likes to make faces for the camera.

We put aside the bridge project and begin to build the world’s largest pinball machine (Nik thinks we should submit it to the Guinness people). It’s record status is somewhat disputed, but at four feet by ten, it’s undeniably large.

Nik and Elena take turns drilling holes and driving screws to mount the side-boards that will keep the ball on the table.

We happen to have one cordless screwdriver that is just the right size for Elena.

Driving screws takes some practice and a helping hand now and then. Gever reaches in when the driver goes all wobbly to show Elena how to re-center the screw.

As a second-timer, Sam has the mad skills on the big drills. The new heavy-duty unit is like putty in his hands.

Despite the fact that she can barely lift it, Anna is determined to drive a few screws with the big heavy-duty drill.

There appear to have been no ill effects from her record-breaking Clementine Orange consumption, so, after a brief hiatus (due to a lack of available oranges) Fiona dives back in when the fresh fruit arrives.

Gever and Max collaborate on the upper-end of the pinball machine.

Piper tries out the Anna-size driver and decides that it’s too slow. Anna agrees.

Brenna understands the importance of staying aligned with the screw. Her focus is unwavering, despite the continual testing of the nascent pinball table.

There is something magical about the big empty table. No one can look at it for long without blurting out “what this needs is…” Brenna, Gever, Max, and Piper work on the upper backstop.

Always ready to schralp the pow-pow, Sam is also safety conscious and quick to point out that the shades are not only gnarly, but also shatterproof.

Remembering the technique he developed last year, Sam leans in to the driver as the screw starts to bite in.

The construction of the pinball machine requires some 1×4’s and 1×2’s. Sherpas Elena and Brenna are quick to volunteer for schlepping duty.

Anna is as safety conscious as she is fashionable in her two layers of shatterproof lenses.

Tinkering School often relies on a construction-site chopsaw for quick cuts and trim jobs. Bob explains the system to Piper and Elena.

Taking a break between building projects, Fiona and Piper apply their artistic skills to the task of decorating the pinball table.

Elena is working on shaping some chopsticks for a bridge that she is building for the pinball table.

Without the special powers of Uri Gellar, Nik must resort to more reliable means - his plan is to drive the screw halfway into the board, then whack it with a hammer a couple of times. The question of how to then extract the bent screw will be addressed later.

Fiona has recruited Brenna, Sam, and Piper to help her create a junkyard on the pinball table where the ball can bounce among the battered cars.

Sam, having spent some time with the rope, has come up with a dandy zip-line.

As Fiona’s junkyard takes shape, Piper adds a magnetic crane holding a car.

Nik and Sam have settled on a combination of shredded foam and cork. How the head will be applied to the table and what role it will play will be determined later.

During a brief lull in the building frenzy, Max takes a moment to explain a couple of key ideas about pinball, but before he makes his point, the crew turns back to the table for more construction.

Elena is working with Robyn on a new element for the table, but she’s not quite sure where it is going or what it will do. Nevertheless she follows Robyn’s description attentively.

With the addition of a rope for a seat, the zip-line becomes a ride and queue quickly forms.

Anna and Gever have decided to add some actual working lights to the pinball table (Anna had earlier added some decorative lights which did not light up but looked rather jewel-like, everyone agreed). Here, six lights are wired up in parallel.

Car smashing results in a lot of small pieces getting scattered about. Some of them are quite interesting and Anna is determined they get incorporated into the table.

Sam and Bob have been working on a new launcher. The holes are spaced so that you can control the velocity with which the ball leaves the tube.

Marilyn bakes up the dough sent by Geetha (Nik’s mother) and the house smells wonderful. The cookies leave a beautiful pattern in the drying paper.

She also likes the pattern that the cookies leave in the paper.

Fiona needs junk for her junkyard, but none can be found. She does, however, have a hammer. A solution which turns out to be both effective and infectious.

Brenna wields the extremely tall bamboo stalk to get the newly minted Squiggly Dude 2 out of the center-court tree.

If you aren’t holding the pole, then your job, evidently, is to give advice and encourage the pole-holder to hand over the pole to someone more qualified.

Since the official Duskball Squiggly Dude got lodged in the tallest tree at the edge of the court last night, we spent an hour constructing a new Dude (paying close attention to the International Duskball rules and specifications, of course).

Fiona shows off the fine workkidship.

According to calculations performed independently by both Brenna and Piper (the later currently considering changing her name to Pipa so that it will end in a soft ‘A’ like the rest of the girls this year), Fiona has consumed 22 Clementine Oranges in less than 12 waking hours since yesterday.

Brenna and Fiona vehemently rejected the so-called “apple flavored” Wateroo water after less than one sip. Over the course of lunch, the question became “How much real apple juice would you need to put in a glass of Wateroo to actually make it taste good?”

After trying to hand-squeeze apple slices to get juice, they settled on the garlic press. Unfortunately, the results of the experiment indicated that it required more than a tablespoon of sugar and more than one whole apple squeezed through a garlic press to make the “beverage” taste anywhere near “good”.

Elena and Mom got the full house, studio, and property tour from the early arrivals (who, it must be noted, were practically crawling the walls from anticipation).

“What have I gotten myself into?” she wondered.

The Sam and Nik show gets off to an early start while we pass out the water bottles.

Eight players, three balls, four empty tape cases - this game is not for the faint of heart or the stickler for rules. It’s a bruising, brawling free-for-all that spends most of it’s time somewhere between pure chaos and utter nonsense.

Sunday afternoon is the on-ramp to full-on tinkering. Max and Nik are working on a system for reliably crush-shaping the toothbrush heads so that they will give the proper forward momentum to the bristle-bots.

There’s some detailed assembly to do to get these little critters to really work - my plan is to instruct them to the “barely working” stage, and then get them to tinker - I think that Max, Nik, and Elena are on to me already.

Sam’s approach to Tinkering School has always been along the groovy path.

It takes steady hands and patience to solder wires to tiny cell-phone vibration motors. We settle on system where the tinkerer holds the soldering iron and I feed the solder in. Nik takes his turn while Max and Elena wait and offer really insightful advice like “Easy does it” and “Hold it steady.”

Due to some travel complications, Anna arrives a little late but jumps right in and starts working on her bristle-bot. As she warms to her new surroundings, she relaxes and starts talking in a mashup of English and Spanish.

She challenges me to come up with statements that will be difficult to translate into Spanish. “My refrigerator is full of elephants,” I say, and when that proves too easy for her I try “The neighbors house was consumed by a black hole.”

Here is an early almost working bristle-bot that suffers from a roll-over problem. Our analysis seems to indicate that mounting the motor up high may be raising the center of gravity too high for the narrow bristle-base.

Despite the high motor placement and the so-called “analysis” that indicated that a high center of gravity could not work, this little beastie performed well. Current thinking is that the front-back centering of the motor is ameliorating the high COG issues, also, it seems like the wire is absorbing a lot of the motor vibration. There may also be some magic involved, we’re just not sure.

Everyone gets into the after-dinner dismantling project. An old computer and a bad phone are the evenings victims.

There is a meme about piranhas reducing a full-grown cow to skeletal remains in under a minute. After witnessing this evenings group effort which left no screws unscrewed and no cables connected, I think I believe that piranha story.

Elena manages to create the only brush-bot able to move in a relatively straight line.

After the failure of Experiment #1 - paint - we decide to try candle wax. Robyn located bulk wax at a hobby shop, and Bob, Gever, and Brenna melted it down on the campstove in a stainless pot.

The fun part was applying the liquid wax with brushes to the canvas. Probably won’t be able to use those brushes for anything else ever again.

After more than five hours in the test tank (also known as the studio kitchen sink) the waxed canvas allowed a minute amount of water through to the cardboard, but not enough to weaken it.

Fiona gives the prototype thingy (like many physicists of the 50’s, they worked on the project without knowing what they were building) high marks.

Trained in Russia by renegade Czechoslovakian coaches (expelled from the international Duskball Players League after that incident in Tokyo), Piper shows the form that garnered the highest scores. She displays amazing talent for dancing while playing Duskball, with an unfortunate negative effect on her throwing accuracy.

Brenna likes the outfield (parking lot). There’s lots of room to not catch the ball, and plenty of space for her windup. Nonetheless, she gets it fairly reliably over, or at least around, the center court tree.

Uh, Piper, it’s supposed to go forward, not backward (that’s the tail of the ball exiting stage left).

Piper preferred the height advantage afforded by the big rock. From her elevated position, she was able to deliver the Squiggly-Dude almost anywhere in the yard, including over the center tree, but almost never to her intended victim.

While she ended the game early by putting the Squiggly-Dude in a very large, very tall, very inaccessible, even by ladder, tree, Fiona showed early aptitude in the tossing of the dude.