The Bike Ramp

 Gathering the Materials - Two plastic ramps made the journey from Bryson's garage across the street.  Bryson was also kind enough to contribute most of the bike and helmet gear.

Here they are working on the solution for the backside of the ramp. The question is, "How do we make it tall enough?"

OK, Down Ramp...ready to go!  The table can hold the bike's weight but the board fell down while they were pushing it up.  No problem - all you have to do is set it up again before the next person goes.

After the reset, the front is back in business. 

Let's test the back end of the ramp.

Tabletop is OBVIOUSLY not going to work.

...and the testing starts again...

 

Tomorrow's Engineers!

Justin had his buddies (Jordan and Bryson) over yesterday for the normal after school antics.  I was in the back yard doing homework with Annalise when I heard some loud scraping noises that made my ears perk up.  It eventually stopped so I went back to fractions with Annalise.  I got a little worried when it started again a minute later, so I went out front to investigate and, sure enough, my kids were responsible for the noise.  Bryson has two plastic bike ramps that they were dragging over to our house to use in their bike ramp.  The contents of our garage were also being unloaded and considered for the final product.  There were 2x4s and boards from John's last project, saw horses, and every other random thing we might own. 

I knew this would most likely be entertaining, so I got out the camera and found a spot across the street to watch their progress.  Their negotiations were quite spirited and they all found themselves to be fantastic engineers.  They were eventually ready to test the contraption and Justin hopped on his bike to be the first brave soul.  I tried to stay out of their way but when I saw that happening, I had to jump in and ask they they test with a non human object first.

Thank God.

They have set a date for next Wednesday to construct and test the newest version.