Anyone with the time and energy to do so could probably build a country with all the Legos at Samuel Jamison’s house in Pittsburg.
Well, maybe not, but the 11-year-old Covenant Harvest student made his point. He has a lot of Legos.
“You would not believe how many we have,” he said.
He has so many and plays with them so often that his 9-year-old sister Molly has taken it up as a hobby.
“I was just watching my brother play Legos all the time, so I started joining in,” Molly said.
The youngsters were among the nearly 40 area schoolchildren who participated in Saturday’s Block Kids competition at the Kansas Technology Center on the campus of Pittsburg State University. The event, now in its third year, is sponsored by the National Association of Women in Construction and is aimed at exposing young children to construction concepts.
“It gives them exposure to construction-related activities,” said Dennis Audo, PSU construction instructor. “Plus, it’s a lot of fun.”
The kids each received a kit with 100 Legos, string, aluminum foil, a rock, and other basic items, and have a set amount of time to create a structure. In the past participants have built models of everything from wind turbines to a solar heated shelter for the homeless. Projects this year included a police station and booby-trapped house. The projects are evaluated by a panel of judges and prizes are awarded to the top winners in each grade.
Audo, who was instrumental in bringing the competition to Pittsburg after observing it in Wichita, said watching the creativity among the youngsters is worth the planning and effort it takes to conduct the event.
“There are a lot of creative kids in this area,” he said. “You see a lot of different things being built and they just have a blast doing this.”
While an objective of the program is to give the kids an early lesson on construction, the primary goal is to provide them with a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon — and that is one mission that is annually accomplished.
“I love playing with Legos,” said 11-year-old Jacob Otter, whose father James Otter is the chair of PSU’s Construction Management and Construction Engineering Technologies department. “I think it’s a lot of fun.”
Ethan Jewell, an 11-year-old sixth-grade student at Pittsburg Community Middle School, said participating in the program helps fuel his creative fire.
“I’m not very good at drawing,” he said, “but doing this helps my creativity.”
PITTSBURG —
