Day Two - Monday Stands for Work

There are things that happen at night at Tinkering School, in the dining room, after lights-out. With cards.

Sometimes, before you get to work, you need to indulge your creative impulses. Liora feels that her puppet needs a nose.

"I just need to finish this chapter…", says Griffin, tool in hand.

Gever describes the first challenge of Session 3, and suddenly, what seemed like "just a chariot, you know, a box pulled by a bicycle" is starting to sound tricky. There's the connection to the bike, the wheel mounts, the carriage…

But the bicycle is definitely an interesting thing to try and connect to.

That's enough talking, let's make teams and get to work.

Lauren is quick to point out that she's been on the Kablooi team at every one of the three Tinkering School sessions she has attended.

Taking advantage of the open floors before the projects take up all of the space, Gever takes one of the bikes for a ride.

Portrait of a Young Tinkerer: Josh

Liora and Eloise get to work on their wheel mounts. From Gever's presentation of the challenges, most of the teams seem to have picked up on his clues about focusing on the two most complicated problems first: the hitch, and the wheel mounts.

Adam and Emma of the Panda team are working on their hitch implementation.

Griffin (of the Nooi) is thinking that a caster bearing might be just the thing to connect a chariot to a bicycle. A decision that may come back to haunt his team later.

Liora begins what will be a multi-hour ordeal threading large hex nuts on to a long axle rod that has many manufacturing defects.

There are many fascinating solutions to the hitch problem emerging.

Be careful what you bite when you are holding both a banana and a drill.

Harry gets the support beams added to the Kablooi hitch.

Before lunch, we decide to take a quick break at the creek.

Mackenzie catches a crawdad and shares it with everyone.

Portrait of a Young Collaborator: Serena

Something wonderful happens when you let children loose in the woods.

After lunch, Harry gets back to work in the barn.

The Nooi's re-purposed caster is fully integrated in their new hitch mount.

A load of kids heads off to view and analyze the test track with Gever in the truck - so they ride on the outside.

Gever, Mori, Griffin, and Josh (a motley crew if ever there was one) walking out to the test track.

Gever has lead them to the abandoned RC airstrip south of Half Moon Bay. It is, we determine, twenty feet wide and 265 usable feet long. Perfect for chariot racing!

And this happened.

After another few hours back at the barn, we took a goat break. Emma with the baby brown kid.

Serena with the beige goat.

You can't believe how adorable it is to be nibbled by a baby goat. Really. You can't.

Noah and the beige goat.

Liora with the brown goat.

Eloise with the bony one.

Griffin with the wrinkly one.

Adam with the sleepy one.

We return to the barn, finish up, and dance!

Dancing is not enough, we must play tag.

Serious Banana Tag.

In case you were wondering, here are tomorrow's dinner makings.

After dinner, the Tinkering School knives are given out. Lauren has every one of the three knives she has received at Tinkering School.

A spontaneous whittlin' circle takes form on the barn deck. The conversation turns to the critical differences between geeks and nerds.

And that was our day. Tomorrow is Tuesday, day three. The theme of the day is "Chariot Testing." So far, one of the caster-based hinges has already broken - it should be an interesting day.