Do you like to break things? In shop class we had to make a crane. The crane project taught kids to design, build, and test a device to support weight, gaining its own strength through triangular shapes. Well, in shop, the crane my friend and I had to build was called "Mother Goose." With this project, I learned that we needed a good plan to build a good crane.

When designing our crane, we learned to have the right measurements or the crane will not be the way we planned. Trust me, we now know from experience.

We also learned that in building the crane we had to have enough wood for the crane for it to work. Surprisingly, a lot of glue is not always a good thing. Some times, only a little will work better then a whole gallon of glue. (We learned that one, the hard way.) In the construction of the crane, we had to make all the sides the same or it would be lopsided - and that was not a good thing for our grade or the strength of the crane.

But the best part of building a crane was the testing. To pass, the crane had to be able to hold 8 pounds. After it held 8 pounds we got to put more weight on the crane until it broke. Ka-bang! Our crane, "Mother Goose," held 18 pounds before it broke. That was pretty good.

From this project, we learned that we needed a good plan to make a good crane. Designing, building, and testing out a crane ended up being a lot of fun. Maybe in about 10 years someone will use the same design that we used, to make a real crane. Maybe they'll call it the Mother of Mother Goose.