Ernest's Advice

Ernest had a bad day on Monday. The biographical report that he thought was due on Friday, turned out to be due Tuesday. Yes, Ernest had started on it. No, he wasn't procrastinating, it's just he thought he'd have 3 extra days. So he got it done. No sweat.


The 3-D monument was due Wednesday. Ernest wanted to build a model of the Lunar Rover. Ambitious. While I was running errands, he set to work cutting up styrofoam. But then he called me at the grocery store, "Mom, I need a little help." When I got home, I saw that cut-up styrofoam gets a little messy.

Building the entire Lunar Rover from scratch seemed to be a daunting task. There are some great paper models on the internet, but that seemed like cheating and the lack of originality would be graded poorly. So I offered some other suggestions. What about the moon? It seemed easier to create a moon out of a ball. Ernest sensibly agreed. We couldn't find a ball at home, but a trip to the toy store was successful. The ball was painted like the moon. The cut-up styrofoam made a pedestal. Time to paint the pedestal. "Wait," I shrieked. We had two kinds of silver spray paint. "Test them on some scraps first, to see which looks best." This is what happened: Seriously, the paint completely dissolved the styrofoam! Good thing I suggested the test. So Plan B, acrylic paint to give the base a faux-granite look. And Voila:

Ernest's advice:

1) Double check your due dates, don't rely on a supposedly reliable friend.

2) Test your materials!