I have no idea when exactly Matt discovered the Kickstarter campaign for a paper airplane motor controlled by an iPhone, but it’s been quite a while. Of course, he contributed to it - as did a ton of other people. The guy ended up with a ton more investment than he requested. Due to this and some manufacturing hiccups, Matt just got his in the mail today! There were already people selling theirs on ebay while we were still waiting.
But waiting time aside, Matt loves it! He got a deluxe package with two steerable motors, one non-steerable motor and a boat that propels itself around in the bath tub. Unfortunately for Matt, he had to charge them all up before he could play with them - poor guy!
In the mean time, Matt’s dad and Thomas got to work on putting the boat and pull motor together. It was a bit of origami to get it to work, but they eventually figured it out. And the boat is honoring the paper airplane motif by being technically paper, but it’s Tyvek paper so it won’t disintegrate in the water.
Once they were charged up, Matt tested out his new toys. He has learned many lessons from flying things in the house (*cough* 10 different helicopters *cough*), so he was smart enough to cover the TV with a blanket before letting loose. The dogs also have learned their lessons and quickly hid upstairs in the bedroom.
Thomas didn’t hide in the bedroom, but he did sit on the chair out of the way and tried to avoid getting too close to the action. Smart boy! He also is surrounded by the pieces needed to complete his boat. He was more interested in playing with them than letting his pawpaw install them.
But the best part of the night… I didn’t have to cook! Matt had been mentioning to his mom about how she cooked pork chops for them growing up and that he hadn’t been able to figure out the trick. So she surprised him (and me) with a pork chop dinner. It is so nice to be able to play with the kids in the evening and not stress about cooking - best present!
And for the record, the trick is to use water and flour to coat the pork chops. So simple I would have probably never figured it out. And they were quite tasty - I might give it a try some day for Matt, but I make no guarantees they will be as good. :)