The format of Tinkering School doesn't change much from week to week. Mondays generally look the same: training, getting to know one another, practicing. On Tuesdays, we are in building mode. Wednesday and Thursday is usually the same. Fridays are a little different because we also take apart the thing we have built together.

The change -- the Delta, as we call it at TS -- is that we flip and flop and scramble and try and fail and (un?)gracefully attempt different themes each time. Every time is different because the community is different, and also the projects are different.

And this week: it's poop.

But more about that in a moment.

First, we had to do what we usually do on Mondays! Tool training! Tool practice! Community Agreements! Getting to know one another!

Drill training: Jeff models how to change a drill bit with Chase.

It's a Clamp-A-Ma-Jig! For clamp training, we always try to built a silly structure using only clamps as a wood attaching tool. Successful yet again!

Some awesome hyper focus when learning more about how to use the drills.

Okay, back to poop.

I gotta be honest. I've been waiting ALL SUMMER for this week. I told the Tinkerers this right before announcing our theme of the week. It's just silly enough and just gross enough to keep it interesting and awesome to chat about during lunch and park time. I'm sure it's going to be a great conversation starter/maintainer after hours during family dinner time.

Oh, and bonus! This is already a popular topic between Collaborators and the Tinkerers during the summer anyway (for reasons still unknown to me!).

But silliness aside, we have a couple of awesome projects started!

This afternoon, we split into two teams who set out to tackle two very different projects. Each team started with a design session, where Tinkerers were able to jot, draw, and scribble down their individual ideas about what the projects should both do and look like. From there, we chatted through their ideas and synthesized them into team-designed schematics that will function as a gameplan for the rest of the week.

Simply put: team one is planning to make a 15 foot long shark that poops out candy.

Team two is making a toilet and sewer systems large enough to transport humans.

And yes, we're doing this in 5 days. With 15 kids. 4 adults. Using wood. Ready? So are we!

More later! Also be sure to check out the Flickr Album!

Poop Week! - Session 7 - Day 1