Are you up for the challenge?

At least it’s something fun to do while you’re saying home and doing school work and taking a break every now and then. Why not try one of these fun projects and make a video or picture to share? Show off your creative flair and imaginative brain by tackling The Challenges!

Send us your video or picture of the final project and we’ll share it with the world in our weekly newsletter and here on the website. Let us know what you’ve built by sending a link or an email attachment to:

[email protected]

Put your project title in the email subject line and we’ll take a look. If you have any questions or tech problems, send us a note and we’ll do our best to  help.

We are eager to see what you can do!

TALK TALK

This challenge will give you a chance to show off your flair for creative entertainment and might even earn you a Talk-Show-Host-of-the-Year nomination! Find a great costume. Design your own set. Write your own jokes. And get the cameras rolling!

Using all the members of your household (mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, brother, sister, the dog, the cat, your favorite stuffed animal, etc.), interview your guests to create an entertainment talk show. Record a short show, maybe 5-10 minutes and sent it to us! We might even feature it in our weekly newsletter.

Need some inspiration? Not sure how to start? Most talk shows like Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel have a camera (or in your case, a phone) crew, a host, a band, and one or two special guests. If you need some inspiration, watch this clip. And for a more at-home look, check out Some Good News by John Krasinski!

Can’t wait to see what you send!

Give It Your Best Shot

Your challenge this week—should you choose to accept it—is to come up with the greatest trick shot in the world!

Look around your house for anything you could use (be sure it’s something safe!) to complete this task. Perhaps it’s a ping pong ball in a paper cup… maybe it’s a soccer ball in a trash can… what about a stuffed animal in the washing machine!

Whatever objects you choose, the goal is to come up with the most creative AND MOST AWESOME way to get one item into the other. Brothers and sisters and pets can always lend a helping hand too!

The true Masters of Trick Shots – Dude Perfect! – can give you some inspiration. Check out these tricks and then make up your own.

Give it your best shot and show us your moves!

OK Go, Rube!

Have you ever heard of a Rube Goldberg machine? Music sensations OK Go show you how it’s done in this great video: This Too Shall Pass.

And this kid, Jacob, figured out a way to feed his dogs with a simple phone call. Check out his invention here.  Can you be more creative?

Your challenge is to create the most intricate Rube Goldberg machine that the world has ever seen! Use whatever you can find around the house, recruit your family and pick an everyday chore that you would like to be able to do easier. Gather your wits and design your machine… GET CREATIVE!

OBTW… for some added inspiration, check out more from OK Go in The One Moment. Love these guys!

The Never-ending Story

This will be a fun one! The goal by the end of the week is to create a story… one sentence at a time. Here’s what you do:

1. Start with this sentence: The year was 2020. A strange virus had swept over the entire world, prompting businesses to shut down and families to remain in their homes.
2. Add one sentence of your own that continues the story.
3. Now you have three sentences. Send these three sentences to a friend or family member via email, or even better, call them on the phone! Ask that person to add one more sentence to the story and send it back to you.
4. When you get it back, send those four sentences to another person and ask them to add one more sentence and send it back.
5. Keep repeating with as many family members and friends as you can think of until your story is 30 sentences long. [Or even longer!] Feel free to involve your teachers as well.
6. Once you have received your 30^th sentence (if you have less, it’s okay… if you more, WAY TO GO!) it is up to you to give your story a conclusion and send it to us.

Who knows! You could be the next Dr. Seuss! Share your story and we might put it in the newsletter and on the website.

Your Own Lego[-ish] Movie

Are you familiar with stop-motion film? Take a look at this example. The Lego movies are great examples of how creative you can put single photos together to make a whole movie and tell your story.

Now it’s your turn.

Start by creating characters made from Lego people, stuffed animals, or toys. You can make up your own characters from your imagination or use some from your favorite books or movies.

Write a simple outline of the story you want to tell in your movie. It can be short or shorter… whatever you want. Then create your movie set! Add a scene using anything you have around the house or even draw your own backgrounds and set up a filming location.

Choose from one of these themes to begin your storyline:

• A terrible virus has overtaken the world. People have been forced to remain in their homes and find new and creative ways to educate themselves and also to entertain themselves. What might a typical day (or portion of a day) look like?
• Recreate one of your favorite movies.
• Choose a classic fairy tale or one of your favorite books. Using stop-motion, act it out but add a major plot twist.
• You and your friends or your family are eating at a restaurant. Unfortunately, the service and the food are terrible. What might the dinner conversation look/sound like?
• Answer this question in a mini-film: What do students really do when the teacher isn’t looking? (keep it appropriate, of course)

Place your characters on the set and take a picture. Move the characters to the next position to illustrate your story, and then take another picture. Move your characters again and take another picture. Take as many pictures as you need to tell your whole story.

Record yourself or another person telling the story out loud of what your characters are doing. Then use an app to put it all together. Create a slideshow of your series of pictures and add the voice over. [Ask a parent or older brother/sister to help… or we can help too.]

Create your video and send it on over to us for a stop-motion film festival! We’re excited to see through the eyes of all our budding directors!

The Paper Bridge Challenge

If you like to build things, this is the challenge for you! Let’s make a crazy-strong paper bridge!

Using regular-sized paper, your goal is to create a bridge that can hold the most weight. You can only use paper, but you are free to fold it, rip it, or cut it however you want.

Once your design is complete, set your bridge between two stacks of books and place as much weight on the bridge as it will hold. You will have to get creative with the weights… try using coins, or washers, or maybe even apples and oranges.

Be sure to take Before-and-After pictures and videos of the building and breaking of your bridge. We definitely want to see your engineering feats of strength and ingenuity.

Let us know how much weight your bridge was able to hold. If you don’t have a scale to measure, just tell us and show us what objects you placed on top. You might even win the Golden Hardhat award!

S-Car, Go!

Have you ever seen an S-Car-Go? [S-Car-Go… escargot… get it?!?]

Unfortunately, we are pretty much confined to our houses these days. That doesn’t mean we can’t still use vehicles. Better yet, WE CAN CREATE THEM!

Using whatever you can find around the house, create a self-driving vehicle that will get from one place to another. Your vehicle doesn’t have to travel a long distance, but it must end in a different place than where it started, and it must be able to move on its own. Be super creative and use things like ramps, rubber bands and maybe a hair dryer to get your vehicle rolling!

Take pics. Take video. Show us your awesome work!