Simple Machine??

Well, maybe not so simple.  The third grade Simple Machine Fair was yesterday!  On Saturday James and Robbie spent most of the day building this beautiful catapult that included four simple machines.  James moaned and groaned about the parent project and came very close, VERY to going over the $5 limit.  We played with it all weekend and it worked great!  Then the afternoon of the fair, Robbie got it all set up in the gym and a little friend from his class decided to try it out and . . .  you guessed it! broke it.  First of all no one is suppose to touch anyone else's machine.  It is a grand thing to have your mom at the school and it just so happens that mom has a student teacher and had a little bit of free time to try to fix the machine before the entire school came to the fair.  However seeing how mom didn't build it in the first place, she didn't do such a great job fixing it.  By the end of the fair it was all mangled and twisted and had to have major repairs before the parent night.  James trudged off to the hardware store again and sorry to say now we went OVER the $5 limit so that the machine would function for the evening shindig!  Well  Robbie's "Flinger"  was better than ever!  Robbie stated that the purpose for his "Flinger" was to shoot things at your annoying brother and sister!  Because it now has a second life, we will see how well it fulfulls it's purpose!!