STARBASE Camp

This week the ten year old got to participate in STARBASE camp, at the National Guard Armory in Cheyenne.

They had four classes each day, all based on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).  In one of the classes they designed these dog tags, which were printed on their 3D printer.  Every day they did some computer drafting or design, or programming.  Then they had fun hands on activities doing things like designing a way to land an egg on the moon without it cracking, building rockets and shooting them off, studying gravity and tornado tubes, and a fun marshmallow experiment to measure air pressure.  There were a lot of other activities too, but too many to list.  I'll get pictures later and post more about them then.

 This is the satellite he designed.  Notice it says spyder in the bottom corner.  That was his call sign for the week.  They had to pick car names for their call signs. He designed his satellite to look like a spider - with eight "legs."

When we went to pick him up yesterday, someone had a tiny little Yorkshire terrier puppy in a canvas and mesh bag.  The two year old was especially interested to see him, which I was amazed by, since he is terrified of all dogs.

He was braver with it being in a bag.

The ten year old let the five year old wear his lanyard and dog tag.

South of Cheyenne there is a buffalo ranch.  They have camels too, but my picture was really blurry.

The ten year old thought this cloud looked like a marshmallow.  I think it was more like a cotton ball.

After I dropped the ten year old off this morning I had to take the five year old to Walmart to ride the fire truck with Mickey Mouse.  Having autism makes things a lot more complicated for the poor kid (and all the rest of us).  He struggled all week with not wanting to poop in Grammy's toilet.  Even at our house, he is very picky, having decided that one of the toilets is for peeing, and one for pooping.  TMI, I know.  But I had to bribe him (and endure much crying and stress) before he would agree to poop at Grammy's.  He had already had one disaster of an accident when he tried to hold it too long and failed, then stripped off his clothes (in a store!) and refused to put them back on because they were wet and wet clothes freak him out - even one little drop of water on his shirt will make cause a meltdown until we get a new shirt).  Thankfully the ten year old was there to run out to the truck for a spare outfit.  So you can understand why I resorted to bribery for the next opportunity to poop.

We had stopped at Walmart a few days ago and he spotted this toy from afar and wanted to ride it.  We didn't have time, so I made the statements all parents have made, "Maybe later."

Well, kids with autism are like elephants.  They never forget.  He's been talking about that firetruck ever since.  When he first brought it up, it took a long time to figure out what he was talking about, because it was such a minor incident when we saw the truck the first time.

And here are a few pictures from the fun the kids had with the stickers McDonalds gave them.