Newspaper / Cinder Block Project

I have to say, a project like this was the last thing I had expected as the first thing I'd be doing on the first day of WASH. I suppose I expected something a bit boring, the standard "This Is What You Will Be Doing For The Rest Of The Semester" speech*. Instead, I'm told that I have a newspaper and a cinder block, and my goal is to raise said cinder block as high off the ground as possible.

Well then. It's certainly a bit unconventional. As far as first day experiences go. Of course, I just rush into the project without considering any sort of plans, because I hadn't expected anything like this. Note to self: planning is a Good Thing. I set my sights a bit too high for such lack of previous thought, tried to make a large tower, only to have a little thing called Reality smash it into figurative pieces. (It actually was just too weak and wouldn't support the block.) But it looked impressive - which gave a good enough impression to earn a second chance.

The second chance was a bit more modest than the first, I decided to have one fail-safe tower that would work, with an extension that *might* work. It was basically a ton of rolls of newpaper taped together, reaching a fail-safe height of about 23 inches, with an extension reaching about 34 inches. The extension technically worked - it held up the cinder block. For about half a second.

The fail-safe did work, though it was a design that required precise balance, and couldn't be replicated in front of the whole class. It was disappointing to see that happen, but I think I took away several things from that initial experience. First off, it served as a great way to talk with everyone else at my table, something I probably wouldn't have gotten around to until a week or two later otherwise. Secondly, I learned that I really, really need to think out what I do before I do it. This applies to the cardboard project we're doing, and I think I'll have to get to that later. Third, I think having this project right off the bat has gotten me to look forward to future classes.

P.S. I got that camera. Unfortunately, the camera phone I used for pictures the first day is a piece-of-junk older model than can't get pictures from its memory onto my computer.

*"This Class Owns Your Soul" optional.