Balancing

One night last week Sam came home from school and went right to the piles of Lego and paper and markers and tape that have recently engulfed our dining room table.  He told me he was working on a project and I wasn't allowed to know what it was until he was done.  He made a cone of paper and fed it through the hole in the center of his new wooden ruler, and then he balanced it on a tower of Lego and began forming little pans on either side.  He later explained that he wanted to be able to measure which is heavier when he compares various sized Lego bricks so it's a balance scale.  His first grade teacher said it was an interesting idea since they are currently learning about balancing both sides of an equation.  Sam keeps telling me he wants to be a singer when he grows up (despite having what he calls severe stage fright), but he also tells me he's smart enough to be an engineer if he wants to.  My little Renaissance man will, perhaps, be balancing his left and right brain his whole life.