Building cars and houses

We hosted Amanda's Odyssey of the Mind team at our house this morning. It's the first year her school has had a team, and we didn't realize when we got involved what a great fit it would be for Amanda. The purpose of the program is primarily to promote creative problem solving in kids, both spontaneous and long-term.
This morning, the team was working on building vehicles for their long-term problem, which they will take to competition the first weekend in March. There are certainly mechanical aspects to their problem, but theatrics are also a big part of the overall competition. The kids are supposed to put everything together themselves, given strict parameters, with minimal adult intervention.

After everyone left, we headed to the annual Fairy House Festival. We didn't have a lot of time to work on the house before the judging started, but the girls still did a great job.

It was a gorgeous day, and the crowd at the festival was much larger than in previous years. We ended up taking the trail that leads in through the back of the fairy village, instead of walking and then waiting for a shuttle to the entrance. The trail took us by a familiar, very unusual tree, and we had to stop for a picture.  (We found a letterbox on this trail when my mom was here visiting a few years ago.)

They added a few new areas to the festival this year, including a fairy boat building area. We were disappointed that they had mostly artificial materials available for building the boats, though.