fandomhigh | Creative Problem Solving, May 19, 2025 [2nd period]

Creative Problem Solving, May 19, 2025 [2nd period]

There were no bananas in sight today. This was probably a good thing. There were, however, two teachers seated in throne-like chairs in the front of the classroom looking expectant. "Let's start with your homework," Anakin began. "You were given 20 dollars and told to buy an amazing gift for one of us. Let's see what you found."

"After you've presented your gifts, Anakin will judge them," Ahsoka said, from her spot in the smaller of the two throne-like chairs. Because of course they were getting judged on the gifts. "Then we'll get into your task."

"I do like judging," Anakin said, to the surprise of absolutely no one.

After the presents had been ranked according to the caprices of Anakin, the students were led one at a time through a door into a small room with a model of a miniature farm scene.

Next to the scene were various improvised building materials, and a potato.

"Your task is to build a bridge over the river using only the materials on the table," Ahsoka explained. "Your bridge must be self supporting and hold the weight of the potato by itself. Highest bridge wins. Do not take apart the tiny castle to help you. You have twenty minutes."

She blew on her whistle.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Frantically checking your pockets for a gift, maybe.

Tell us what it is, what teacher it's intended for and why you chose it! Bullshitting is absolutely encouraged.

[OOC: RNG says that Anakin likes them in this order:
Steve McGarrett
Henry of Skalitz
Eleanor Zarrin
Quinn Maybrook
Lydia Bennet
Cal Kestis
Vi
Jonathan Sims]

Edited 2025-05-19 14:21 (UTC)

The model features a miniature version of the school castle and actual water, which is more than two bananas across (do you not also measure things in banana now?) In the river is a small barge with the words "Debajo De La Mesa" painted onto it. On the table are some bendy plastic drinking straws, some playing cards, some rubber bands, some chewing gum, and some uncooked spaghetti.

There is also a button facing the students that h illuminates a sign on the other side of the table (that they can't see from their side) which reads ‘Look under the table’, and a sign with the same message printed on it is stuck to the wall above the exit to the room. A variety of extra bridge-building supplies are attached to the underside of the table: some pieces of wood, some tape, some scissors, and a banana.

[OOC: RNG says:
Cal Kestis
Steve McGarrett
Henry of Skalitz
Quinn Maybrook
Lydia Bennet
Vi
Eleanor Zarrin
Jonathan Sims]

"Take a picture of people holding eggs. You must be in the picture as well. The most eggs in the picture wins."

"What the hell is wrong with you" will not be answered.

God, I love this class already.

Eleanor Zarrin

Steve McGarrett

"I'm from Honolulu," Steve began, "and so I have contacts with access to incredible aloha shirts. Knowing your affinity for them," he said, nodding at Anakin, "I purchased you a vintage Cooke Street shirt, straight from the market."

And it wasn't even ugly!

Edited 2025-05-19 14:29 (UTC)

Most of Eleanor's $20 budget had gone into packaging, actually, because she already had most of what she needed to make two bottles of what looked like lotion, each with a ribbon around it to make it slightly more decorative and to compliment the slightly fancier bottles that she'd picked up.

"I couldn't decide," she admitted, "who to get a present for, so I hope it's okay that I actually brought one for each of you. If it's not, I guess they can both go to Mr. Skywalker, since this might be useful for him and his kids. They're lotions, with calendula and hypericum, which help with soothing sunburn, but there's also sage in there so it smells nice, too. I figured it would be nice, since we're going into summer, and making them meant they were a little more personal but also pretty cost effective with the budget."

Anything not spent on the materials she could just pocket, too, although that hadn't been much.

Steve wasted a few minutes trying to figure out what the button did, but he couldn't see anything moving as he pressed it, so he assessed the rest of his options. He'd spent enough time in classified locations in Spanish-speaking countries to recognize "Mesa", even if his expertise was in Asian languages, and he finally looked under the table and found the non-flimsy bridge supplies. "Now we're talking," he said around a bite of banana, putting together a bridge of wood, playing cards, tape, drinking straws, and wrapped up bundles of dried spaghetti.

Not exactly what SEAL training had been for, but not unlike it, either.

Quinn Maybrook

"You already got my gift," Quinn said dryly. "I participated in your weird relay race."

And then bought herself a couple coffees. $20 really barely covered anything these days.

Quinn had a rudimentary knowledge of Spanish thanks to the wonders of the Philadelphia public school system, but she didn't immediately think of actually following what it said on the little barge until she'd managed to crumple several bendy straws and break most of the spaghetti.

But she did eventually find the other supplies!

She didn't have the most construction skills, though, so her bridge still ended up only middling height. (And yes, she was very tempted to just hand Anakin the potato and call it a day again. But this project actually intrigued her a little, so curiosity won out over pettiness.)

". . . Define 'people'?"

Did it have to be more than one person? Would she actually have to talk to someone outside of class??

Eleanor was...not an engineer, no. And physics and science had been taught to her by devout nuns in the 70s, so...

Needless to say, she was having trouble. Every time she thought she'd mangled something together, it would always collapse under the potato. Sometimes so spectacularly that she was surprised the potato even survived. At one point, she may have even whispered to the bridge-in-progress to stay together, but, alas, her compulsion powers did not work on inanimate objects.

Eventually she got it, though, and was so irritated at the end that she picked her potato back up and declared, "I'm taking this and turning it into French fries."

Revenge would be hers!

Even if her bridge was pretty sad and pathetic in the end, and far from the highest by a long shot.

Edited 2025-05-19 15:53 (UTC)

"Someone in addition to you," Anakin said.

"That's...that's honestly a lot nicer a gift than I was expecting for 20 dollars," Anakin admitted, holding the shirt up. "Thank you."

Well shit.

Quinn huffed softly through her nose, but otherwise didn't argue.

Henry of Skalitz

"Well, I went to the shop and I can't say I understood most of what was there," Henry volunteered. "But they had wine, and wine can't be that different in this day and age, even, so..."

He put down the very nice bottle of wine. It was absolutely more expensive than twenty dollars.

"It's funny, I don't think he was very good at haggling? He looked very confused. Anyway, I had a bit left over, so I got a bit of wood and a knife and with all the lizards running about..."

He presented a tiny, somewhat crude whittled wooden figurine of a knight who looked vaguely like Anakin (you could tell by the hair) holding a very tube-like sword. "So I made something pointless while I waited for them to pass."

~~Levelled up Craftsmanship while doing it, so not so pointless after all!~~

Henry tried to read the words. He did. "Day-bajuh?" He continued reading aloud, butchering the Spanish to levels no one had ever heard before nor would ever hear since.

But eventually he found the supplies. The tape, that took a while, and he nearly taped his fingers together, and then cutting it meant fumbling with the scissors until they sort of resembled a knife and he could stap the tape, and--

Look, he was a blacksmith. So the bridge turned out to be a pair of scissors, fully extended, taped to many pieces of wood.

"This would be easier with a forge."

"If it's for both of us, I'll have to dock points for not completely following directions," Anakin said with a smile.

"And do you have physical proof of this?"

Anakin was clearly delighted by the wooden figure. "Thank you."

Lydia Bennet

What did you get people who could probably have anything they wanted? Cal wasn't sure, but he'd settled on some stress balls.

"For the next time there's big creatures in the park, or the water pipes turn into gravy or something," he said as he handed over his offering.

Eleanor considered this for a moment before giving a soft smile back.

"That's fine," she decided, with a shrug of her shoulder. "Do the points really matter, anyway? I'd like you both to have one."

"No," Quinn said flatly.

She'd destroyed the t-shirt.

What Cal lacked in interpersonal skills, he made up for in building skills. He stumbled upon the supplies while debating if he could use his multi-tool without getting accused of cheating, and decided to just go with copious amounts of tape instead.

The banana went in the middle, like a seat for the potato, because why not?

Jonathan Sims

Jon hadn't had any idea what to get them. So on the principle that he must love them, he'd gotten Anakin an extremely ugly shirt.

Jon saw the button, wondered what it did, and then knew.

He sighed and went for the extra materials.

But there was still only so much you could do when one of your hands barely worked and you had no idea how to engineer things.

By the end of the class, his bridge was wonky and he was very, very wet.

"Got you dice, they go with everything," Vi said, presenting Anakin a dicebag.

Inside the bag was a set of dice that just seemed...off. Too many sides, shapes that didn't seem like theycd actually fit together, and colours that didn't seem to settle. Lose 2dπ SAN, Anakin.

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Creative Problem Solving, May 19, 2025 [2nd period]

Sign in 5/19

Present Your Gift!

Build a bridge for the potato!

Homework for next week, yay!

Talk to Anakin and Ahsoka!

OOC

Re: Sign in 5/19

Re: Sign in 5/19

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Build a bridge for the potato!

Re: Sign in 5/19

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Build a bridge for the potato!

Re: Homework for next week, yay!

Re: Build a bridge for the potato!

Re: Homework for next week, yay!

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Homework for next week, yay!

Re: Sign in 5/19

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Build a bridge for the potato!

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Sign in 5/19

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Build a bridge for the potato!

Re: Sign in 5/19

Re: Sign in 5/19

Re: Present Your Gift!

Re: Build a bridge for the potato!

Re: Present Your Gift!