Invention Convention
Thursday 04/10/2008 10:55 PM
Grandpa's visit last week coincided with Invention Convention, a competition Alex entered with his invention of The Stair Slide -- a set of stairs that transforms into a slide if you pull an emergency cord when you fall. Alex came up with the idea because he'd fallen down the stairs to our basement (luckily without any major injuries) a couple of weeks earlier. He worked on the design and the journal all week, and once Grandpa got involved, he ended up with a working prototype of the stairs. Here's a photo of the two of them just before we left for the convention at the high school:
After we helped Alex set up his invention, we had to wait in a separate part of the cafeteria, but we could still see what was going on, which wasn't too much ... here are a couple of shots of Alex waiting for the judges to come to his display:
After he was interviewed by two judges, we went back home for an hour until the awards ceremony. When we came back, Alex found a participation ribbon and a patent certificate for his invention at his display:
At the awards ceremony, Alex won FIRST PLACE of all third graders in his school district! Here he is receiving his trophy:
And here he is a few moments later, after he whispered to me, "Mom, I have a trophy, and I didn't even buy it!" (he's bought a couple of trophies at different yard sales because he thinks they're so cool):
And all of this happened on Grandpa's birthday, too! So afterwards, we went out to Joe's Crab Shack to celebrate (that's rootbeer Alex is chugging):
And that's chocolate on his fingers -- from the ice cream he had for dessert:
Alex was also invited to bring his Stair Slide to the Columbus Regional Invention Convention downtown in May, so we'll update with news from that one in a few weeks.
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