Trebuchet 2

India's trebuchet is due tomorrow, so naturally, we got to work on it today. This is not India's usual modus operandi with regard to school work. She is generally on top of things and quite self-sufficient, but this assignment was specifically designed to be impossible without the "parent involvement" that was "encouraged" in the instructions.
Really.
''Parent involvement is encouraged?"
Am I to understand that the middle school does not want all its 13 year old students driving themselves down to Home Depot and operating power tools unsupervised?
They should have just written, "Parents, as Spring approaches, we are getting sick and tired of teaching your adolescents. In order to relieve some of our frustration, we are assigning YOU, by way of your child, a super labor intensive, but loosely defined project- the Medieval Siege Machine. You will have to research this online, use only materials available in the Middle Ages(were there golf balls available at the local village Sports Authority at that time? I guess the rules only apply to those building the machine, not those testing it.) , and include a whole list of elements that complicate the design of the machine without improving its performance.

Silly me, I had the naive idea that I, sorry, WE would make improvements/modifications to the trebuchet I, no wait, CORAL built last December and have India turn it in for her assignment. Sadly, Coral's trebuchet was kept by the teacher and subsequently lost by the teacher. I kept telling Coral that if she pitched it in the dumpster after class or sold it to a middle-schooler, I just needed to know so I could stop hoping that I would not be starting this over from scratch for India. She is, however, sticking to her story, and India and I had to build a new one. Several employees at Home Depot had us pegged as seige machine builders instantly. One was quite helpful, the other snidely amused.

Interestingly, since trebuchet building is required in at least two different science classes in the school district, there is an underground market for these machines. Coral's project partner assured her that they could find one built by a middle school student and turn that in for their credit. When that didn't pan out, I was stuck building Coral's at the last minute,too.

Kevin says I obviously have issues about this. I say that he obviously does not have these same issues only because he is blissfully uninvolved in the manufacture of Medieval Siege Machines.

I think a better assignment for learning would be to require students to play the trebuchet game on the following web site- http://www.globalspec.com/Trebuchet/ (thanks, Uncle Lloyd) and then allow those so inclined to build one for extra credit. This would, however, eliminate the vengeance component of the original assignment-the teachers will never go for it, never mind.

I am trying to decide whether to try to keep India's trebuchet for when the boys are older, or to sell it on e-bay to the parents of one of next year's 8th grade science students.