On finding that
our English teacher wouldn't allow a rendition of Iron Maiden's Rime of the Ancient Mariner as acceptable coursework relating to the epic poem of the same name, Toby and I set about making a photo comic to depict the events.

However, this isn't about our work, it is about a couple of other chaps.

It so happened that one of these guys (Ian) went on holiday to Australia for a few weeks shortly before the work was completed and displayed in the library. His partner in crime Ed took it on himself to sign it thus:
by Ed X and Ian Y (deceased)
Despite this being an obvious falsehood, the quality of the work was such that it went straight up on the wall in the library, and somehow convinced not an insignificant number of people that Ian had in fact kicked the bucket.
I kid you not, even some of the teachers were fooled.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 9:55, Reply)

Basic.
I did computer studies at 'O' level (1980) and we had to fill in dots on a card with a pencil to write code in Basic.

1 card made 1 line of code. A "For and Next" statement took about half an hour of filling in dots on cards and half a rubber.

Then it got sent to the local Poly to be "run".

Invariably one week later it would come back saying "Syntax Error".

Fuck socks.
( Blackdogmanguitar is out with Fat Larry's Jazz Band on, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 9:45, 10 replies)

Got an A+ on a large GCSE History project.
Shame the whole thing was copied word-for-word from the Readers Digest book "Where Why When and How it happened". *Whistles innocently*
(Virulent, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 9:38, Reply)

lovely birds
Can’t believe I’ve only just remembered this. In my last year at junior school we had to do an art project on garden birds, the best of which would be shown in a display at the library in Bromley and the winners would get a book token. I was quite partial to a bit of drawing and sat in my garden waiting for inspiration. I saw a couple of birds with very pretty plumage on the bird table after a while so asked my dad what they were and then set about copying them (from our RSPB bird spotting book). Was very pleased with my chalk drawing of them on the bird table and duly handed it in at school to be entered into the competition. Had to give it a name, so I jotted that down on the back.

A week or so later the winners were announced. Unbelievably I’d won a prize, so my proud parents took me to the mini ceremony thing after school to see my work proudly hung on the wall. They did a bit of sniggering when they saw it, which I thought was a little rude, but didn’t think much more of it. Then the mayor of Bromley started doing the presentations, reading the kid’s name and then their piece. When it got to my turn, the penny finally dropped about what my parents thought was so funny. ‘Alphabet Soap with A Pair of Great Tits.’ There was a smattering of barely stifled laughter around the room as I went, red-faced, to collect my book token.

My parents have never let me forget it, and I still have the picture with the name label on, framed, hanging in the loo.
(Alphabet Soap boshboshboshbosh, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 9:25, 2 replies)

Santa's Dick
It was playschool. It was Christmas. I was four. Our lovely, pretty, fragrant teacher asked us all to make decorations for a christmas tree and I decided that I'd make a cardboard and cotton wool father christmas. This was probably the day after Sarah had shown me "hers" for a bite on my mars bar - At least, I know that I was recently very aware that boys and girls are different. And father christmas is a boy, right? So I built him as such - a big cardboard cock hung proudly between his legs.

Fragrant teacher came smilingly over to my table, took a look and, still smiling, CUT IT OFF!

I'm nearly fourty now, but my mum still puts the same decoration at the top of the christmas tree, and if a pretty girl smiles at me with scissors in her hand.....arrrgh!3
(Mr Broadtrousers, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 9:23, 1 reply)

Does uni work count?
I am currently writing a thesis, and it is slowly sucking the life out of me.
but, uh, it will involve pictures. so it will look pretty!
yeah, i got nothing *returns to cave of books*
(charlottebronte stalking through the moors, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 8:36, Reply)

I have always been a bit of a bookworm.
I get through 2-6 books a week, depending on what I've got going on. I read approximately 100 pages an hour.
In my 2nd year of senior school age 14 (Newland School For Sluts Girls shoutout!), I read the entire years English Lit reading within 2 months and wrote an essay that got me an A on Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World".
My English teacher put me to a challenge - read War and Peace and write an essay on it. You've got 3 months.
Pffffft, said I, I can read a book in a day!

3 months later, I churned out the essay after slaving away at the fucking book for 2 months and taking a month to go back and re-read what I needed to write. I got a C+ for it.
I got a commendation from the Head of school at the end of the year assembly, and a book token for 25 quid.

To this day, I cannot remember a damn fucking thing about the book, and for my overall English Lit GCSE I got a C.
Although I am proud I did it, and my teacher was even prouder :)
Cocksocks.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 6:18, Reply)

nobtionary
There's that bit in Superbad, where the main kid reveals a secret shame of his childhood. A love of a particular art form, a dark and mysterious technique. He basically drew a lot of cocks. Well my chums, I was that kid.

I say kid, I was probably 14/15 at the height of my career as a pro-nobbler. All the usual stuff; speednob, the heavily-inked-nob-on-rubber-then-stamped-on-someones-face trick, tightly co-ordinated homework attacks just before they were handed in. It was the the sheer volume that was most impressive. During those glory-days I was a pioneer, a rogue nobslinger, people genuinely feared where the next cock was coming from. One beautiful moment came as a teacher walked around class to check on our illiterate stylings.
*teacher approaching at far end of table*
"Ian, if you don't look over there you're gay"
*Ian looks away, rampant and proud felt-tip cock is drawn over Ian's homework*
"LOL"
*utter desolation on Ian's face. Ian looks at cock. Teacher looks at cock. Ian looks at teacher. Teacher looks away. Ian looks at cock.*

So you're getting it. I was into cock. There's really no other way of saying it. But this is meant to be about projects, not cock. Well, I found a way to combine the two. I made The Nobtionary.

It was designed to cover every type of nob imaginable. A referencing aid, or as I tended to think of it, a biblical tome. It started off innocently enough, with some fairly tame deviations from the basic form, as hopefully illustrated below:
*sadly not orginal nobtionary artwork, merely a recreation what I knocked up moments ago - that's right, I still got it*
L-R: nob, inverse nob, hotdog special, mushroom cap, spermchain, wrinkled ranger



These were small variations on a standard theme, and initially you could get about 10-15 on a page. Over time though, things started to get a bit more abstract, a lot more elaborate. It was heavily influenced by popular culture, from childrens T.V. (budgie the little nobcopter, thomas the wank engine), to action films (the sperminator, robonob, rammed-bo). Even Norse mythology was accounted for (thor's wanger). By the end things were getting out of hand, with the hugely technical drawings (ie vein detail) taking an entire sheet of A4 each. Some of these wonders included McNob (bagpipes for balls, wearing tam o'shanter on head), the hanging nobs of babylon (a visual feast let me assure you), and the infamous paedophiles revenge.

I would dearly love to show you all these. I'm genuinely proud of the effort that was put in, by far and away the most I applied myself to anything during school. Sadly I cannot, as after 3 years of dilligent creation, I left my bag at the bustop, where it were kicked and abused by ruffians. The Nobtionary was nowhere to be seen in the aftermath, and the heroism of the book was passed on into myth. After it was lost there were rumours going round that one kid or other had hold of it, maybe a teacher had found it, and it was now passed round in the staff room to alternating reactions of horror and merriment. I miss it. If you find it, tell me. You'll know it because it has 'nobtionary' written on the front, and inside is full of cocks.

ps Joe if there are any truth in the rumours and you are reading this I WANT MY COCKS BACK PLEASE

length? NOB B=====D~~
(bacontrout got ska, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 4:03, 7 replies)

I've always had quite the love for animation
back in 8th grade we read "Animal Farm" and rather than writing a stupid book report or make a poster, I built a set and created all the characters out of clay, and made a stop-motion of the scene where Snowball gets chased out of the farm by Napoleon's dogs. Even Boxer made an appearance! I didn't have a digital camera so I had to use my Hi8 camcorder (nowadays a dead medium) and pressed record twice for each "frame." This may have contributed to my borderline OCD in adulthood.
( AgentMuu hentai coordination, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 3:42, Reply)

Reading this I feel old
Did all of you leave school last week?

When I was a lad t'internet was the stuff of a madman's dreams and a mobile phone would have had you hung as a witch!
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Fri 14 Aug 2009, 0:17, 14 replies)

towards the end of school
We had an escalating competition to see who could pull the best pranks. It got a bit out of hand. Anyway Eric and Dylan won.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 14 Aug 2009, 0:11, 3 replies)

I opened a book I was marking
in my class the other day to find that in the absence of a glue stick a child had used a bogie to stick his work down.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Fri 14 Aug 2009, 0:09, 5 replies)

Dinosaur poos
When I was about 9 my class did a big project on dinosaurs, which basically involved getting into groups and doing big pictures of dinosaurs. Naturally the boys did fierce T-Rexs while the girls concentrated on gentle looking herbivores with My-Little-Pony eyes. Colour schemes were left open to the imagination, so the boys did their creations in greens and camos while the girls' efforts were, well, more girly. This filled us hearty lads with contempt.
One girlosaur was so contemptible - pink, big eyelashes etc - that a nameless boy decided to correct it the next day by drawing a row of round brown plops coming from the creature's bright pink arse. The result was sidesplittingly funny, especially when the teacher found it and went ballistic. She decried the "grubby little boy who drew these silly ... things ... coming out of its bottom."
To which one boy, the culprit I assume, replied "They're not things, Miss, they're poos."

Disclaimer: It wasn't me. I wish it had been.
(mudskipper, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 23:57, 3 replies)

I was in the spackers class...
With all the rough lads and 'hard nuts' of my half of the school. When they weren't burning each other with the soldering irons, putting hands in vices, or threatening to belt sand each others fingers mafia style, they were talking about how their "well 'ard mates had kicked in" some poor fool for the heinous crime of looking at them.

Suffice to say we went through 3 teachers (2 mysteriously left between terms, citing 'personal' reasons. We all know that means 'nervous breakdown'). The 3rd teacher however, was a young woman, and not too bad a looker either. Things picked up for a while, and we were allowed a stereo in the class, which inevitably had "Garage Massive 2000" or some such blaring at all times.

Sadly, things descended back into juvenile violence, namecalling and petty squabbles again not long after, so I spent a lot of my time in the class next door talking to my mates, who had a teacher who could control his class. I've never been very good at bringing my ideas to life, and even though I envisaged an outstanding Playstation storage box with flip down lid and such, it never came to fruition.

I did help the tech teacher in my mates' class next door solve a problem he had with a go-kart side project he was making though.

Of course this had no bearing on my own course and so I finished with a D. I don't remember the circumstances surrounding my being put in that class but I'm pretty sure it cost me a level or two in GCSE.
(Spackles Made sexual advances in your general direction on, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 22:29, 1 reply)

Hyman travel award
A couple of years ago when I was back in sixth form, my school offered two travel bursaries allowing small groups of teenagers to go anywhere in the world provided they submitted an anonymous proposal to be reviewed by the committee in charge of the money. The bursary was a prize of £500 for each person, but the catch was it had to be related to the subjects you were taking for A Levels. So, educational.

We were told of this wondrous prize back in November, but being lazy sixth formers we forgot about it until the day before the deadline - February. Suddenly spurred on by the news that our bitter rival Laura (the bitch) was submitting a proposal to somewhere like Rome, we thought we'd go one better.

Cue a mad evening trying to plan itineraries, suggest sample flight costs and budget proposals, us four girls managed to clobber together a wordy project that miraculously combined some of our studies: French, English, Media, Psychology, Photography etc... (our school/sixth form was a bit crap, obviously).

So, we handed it in all slap-dash and tried not to think about Laura winning the money. Commemmoration Evening (think Founders Day/Prizegiving) arrives and we eagerly await the announcement of the Hyman (fnar fnar) travel bursary. Never thinking we'd be in with a chance, considering as Laura had started her proposal the very day it was suggested, I can remember having the biggest, most ridiculous smile on my face as the headmaster read out the winning destination: New York...

So, 6 months later, when one of us was 18, off we went. We had flights, accommodation and spending money courtesy of Mr Hyman. Our amazingly convincing proposal allowed us to take helicopter rides, visit Macy's, ascend the Empire State building at night and just generally play in New York City at the age of 17.

All thanks to some pretty pictures, my use of the words 'gastronomical delights' and plenty of glitter. And Laura hasn't spoken to me since. Score.
(meowmix is a voodoo child, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 22:14, 3 replies)

I should never be allowed to run a business
Picture the scene - High school business project, everyone in the year does a little quiz to see what position they should have in a company, they are then all assigned to random companies and filed into a large hall
Each company has a chequebook, a managing director, and company signed badges for everyone, the objective is to use the money you are given at the start to make the largest profit by buying raw materials and designs and selling products to a panel of different people masquerading as things like military officials or fashion gurus.
I was the managing director of Airbus, and in the 6 hours we spent in the hall, I spent not a penny of our money, I instead stole half of the chequebooks and random badges from each company, spent all of their money on planes, made my workers build them, and personally smuggled them across the "Border" into the area where we could sell them
Somehow I didn't ome out top, but I did drive several businesses into bankruptcy.
(annhialus hasn't had an accident since, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 21:53, 3 replies)

Using Initiative
In primary school once we were put into groups and told to make a water-mill. We were shown how to do it, basically a cube shaped wooden frame with a wheel in the middle. Sounded very easy in theory however we were allowed to choose our own groups so I was with my 2 best friends and we wern't too focused on getting it done. In fact we were doing terribly we'd only managed to get half of the wooden frame to stick together so we had a tripod of wood and that was all. Time was running out and the teacher had now announced there was a prize for the group who made the best one and presented it best. So I came up with a suggestion of just calling it a pyramid watermill. So we stuck the wheel in anyway drew some pyramid style walls to stick on the side completely making it like we'd used some great initiative rather than the fact that it was actually only half done. We danced and made a song about it in the presentation and won the prize, I was so proud.
(Plog, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 20:30, Reply)

Cheating at Volcano's
As I mentioned in my other post I decided to play mini-dictator than give my geography project the attention it deserved. I wasn't going to take geography next year anyway! I had enough of learning about sheep farming and the highland clearances, I craved more death and destruction that only history can provide. Time slipped on by and while Hitler cried over my wonderful battle plans my project on volcanos had been gathering dust, if I had even started on it that is. No problem thought I and I cheated for the first and only time in my life. The school used the same projects every year and my brother was a year older than me. Great I thinks, I can get his project off the computer, swap the sections about and slap on a better front-cover to boot.

I handed it in a little nervous over what I had done. Each time the teacher mentioned my name during the next few days I thought my time was up though it never came to be. Instead I got a C... a fucking C! My brother got a B for the exact same project from the exact same teacher. Unless there was some miraculous breakthrough in volcanic science in the last year which I had omitted this project should of been a B. And so I had to face my brother make fun of me for "beating" me at the project as sadly if I had told him the truth that he had only beat himself my grandmother would of been the one doing the beating. It only goes to show that teachers either have too much work to handle or at the end of the day just don't care that much over what mark they give. I remain puzzled over which one it is.
(Brydie, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 20:05, 7 replies)

How I defeated the Nazis
Second year history and we have the end of year project to do to prove if we are capable of carrying onto standard grade. The topic was the same as every year - you had to imagine yourself as a leader of the Nazi armies and Blitzkrieg a town. A map and troop detailing were provided, the rest was up to yourself. I ignored my geography project, a post on which to follow, and opted to focus all my energy on making Hitler proud!

It bewilders me that they gave such a topic to kids as I scarily got into the mood of pillaging this town. Troop details were provided but weapons had not so I divided my troops into three - flamethrower, riflemen and snipers. A division of the Luftwaffe's finest were to dive bomb the enemy trenchs creating a distraction for my mobile infantry flanking round the side of the town. I even outlined how spies were to infiltrate the town a week before the invasion to serve as my fourth column, cutting off the town's electricity and phone lines when they heard the start of the bombing.

After the bombing tanks rolled on in ignoring the trenches who were left for my division of flamethrowers - no quarter given! Tanks were to aim at any non-essential buildings to trap any awaiting troops inside. The mobile infantry and the rest of my troops coming in from the side to move quickly and secure the town. The trenches clear snipers took position at the river bed to snipe off any fleeing to the hard to reach port on the other side. I went into such detail I even outlined the buildings to be spared as Nazi headquarters and a prison for any unfortunate saviours to be interrogated (and shot) in.

If I outlined such a devious Nazi invasion plan how did I defeat them you may ask? That came in the form of my Uncle an addict for all things WWII. My cousin was in the same class as me and to say the least wasn't interested in formulating plans of mass murder so my uncle stepped into help. Surveying the documents he quickly realised they were the details of an actual battle and went about studying his library of information. So it was that my month of genocidal warmongering was pitted against the actual battle plans and events from history that the Nazi's used!

The fateful day for receiving marks arrived and upon my sheet it read A++. A++! Such a mystical mark had been whispered as existing by the geekery of the school but no one had even been able to produce one... until now! My uncles, ahem, I mean my cousin's? B-! The reason why? "While it goes into a lot of depth regarding tactics it flounders upon being too fast compared to what would be realistically possible". So it was my teacher exposed her ignorance of actual history and claimed the real battle plans which worked weren't "realistically possible" and I got a better mark than my uncle.

Instead of viewing this as the result of an incompetent history teacher I regard it as my intellectual victory over not only my uncle but the Nazis themselves!
(Brydie, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 19:52, 8 replies)

DG: Young signwriter and poster-maker for hire.
It was the second year of middle school (ages 9-13 for those not familiar with the three-tier system). For some reason, I had managed to get myself a bit of a reputation as a person who was pretty good at free-hand lettering, something I probably learned from my mum's bf who moonlighted as a signwriter for years. Most of the pub signs around the North East were, at some point, done by him as he'd established a fairly lucrative contact within Scottish & Newcastle Breweries after they'd seen some of his work. So guess I learned a fair bit from him, just by watching.

Mr Ferguson was an English teacher in the school, and was also in charge of the running of the library. He'd heard about my AWESOME SKILLZ with lettering, and asked me and a mate to do a few posters advertising the library, to try and entice a few people into it and remove books from the shelves so the cleaners could make a proper job of dusting them. "You'll be well rewarded lads", he remarked.

Sold!

So, over a week or so, me and my mate would get dispensation to stay in over break times and use his class to produce our masterworks; a dozen posters in all, A4 in size and all painstakingly hand-lettered with pride. The argument over which typeface we should use nearly saw us decommissioned before we started; I wanted to use something classic and easy to read, he wanted to use a flump style typeface. Eventually we settled on an arial-ish font, but with rounded ends. Artistic temperaments, eh? All the paper was provided for us, as were all of the pens with which to colour in the letters to make them stand out as much as possible in the gloomy light of the school corridors.

We grafted determinedly, occasionally howling in anguish as we discarded efforts when we realised after getting to the last line that we'd spelled 'library' incorrectly. We did that "sticking your tongue out the side of your mouth" thing as we concentrated, determined not to make any more stupid mistakes like getting the opening times wrong. Eventually, we finished, and proudly presented our work to Mr Ferguson, who beamed enthusastically as he observed our handiwork.

"Nice work, lads", he told us, causing our already inflated sense of importance to swell majestically. Nay, imperiously. "I'll get these up around the school immediately", and he turned around.

Our hearts sank a little at this point. "He's bloody forgotton what he said", my 12 year old mind thought. I didn't expect much. That old school prize staple of a book token would be nice, or perhaps a packet of those pens we had been using all week. They were good, they coloured in nice and even and didn't leave streaks; I'd have loved a pack for home.

"Ah yes, just remembered", Mr Ferguson said as he turned back around, stuffing his hand in his pocket, "Your reward".

HE'S PUTTING HIS HAND IN HIS POCKET! WE'RE GETTING PAID! Oh the glee and pride at actually getting paid! This is my career sorted!

"Here you go lads, hold out your hands". We did as we were told, minds racing as the possibilities whirled before our eyes... The coinage dropped into my palm, my anticipation rapidly turned to dejection and more than a hint of pissed off-ness as I observed what lay forlornly in my hand, glinting feebly under the strip lights.

The value of our efforts? Twenty. Fucking. Pence.

Each.

Little wonder I ended up in the public sector after that brush with private industry.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 13 Aug 2009, 19:51, Reply)

school project
Having forgotten about a primary school project about animals, I hastily sellotaped one of my mam's earrings to a button (the things I had in my coat pocket, basically) and told the class my mother made jewellery for dogs. Looking back, I shoulda maybe made a full time career out of it. (dog jewellery, I mean. Not lying.)
(Undrinkable_Ham, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 19:32, 2 replies)

RE year 11
we were learning about abortion, the pros and cons and the whole religious views on it.
we were split into groups and told to organise a debate then hold the debate in front of the other class.

so our teacher left us to it
and as a class we decided to do it like an episode of jeremy kyle.

our teacher was a little surprised especially when the debate about abortion span off into a whole
"who's the dad let's take a DNA test" storyline.

we even had one member of the class playing the pregnant girls gobby mum.

.
(stitched, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 19:05, 3 replies)

Ah yes... Them...
Wind your minds back to the heady days when the digital computer was operated by a chap wearing a collar with wings to make an airliner jealous. When the government was run by a woman slighly more right wing than hitler. When health and saftey meant putting your fag out before sprinkling highly inflamable weedkiller onto playgrounds.

The young Duke was in the Design and Tech labs, putting the final touches to the carefully drawn engineering diagrams required to submit a design for an A-level D&T project. A 12th scale reproduction of a twin cylinder marine steam engine.
Why ? Because I like shiny brass and steamy pipes, I'm just that kind of guy.

Deadline day, hand the folder to the course overseer , Steve "interesting" Titlow, and was promptly told that I'd wasted the last month doing the drawings (with him looking over my shoulder making corrections to the design) as the school had no suitable brass bar in stock, and no I couldn't order it.
Get out, think of a new project and start again.

Brief wander round to find out what other people were building* and I get told that a telecope didn't require enough "construction" a series of wooden automata as per these demonstrated no technical skill, and a model boat hull was too difficult for an A-level project.
So I asked what did he suggest, and was told "A robot, every year some idiot tries to build a robot, and they always fail. I reckon that's right up your street."
Oho, thinks I. A challenge!

So, having a passing realisitic idea of what kind of robot I could actually build, and a fair knowledge of simple electronics, I began.
Perspex body, two driven wheels with optical encoders to track distance, and bump sensors front and rear made a mobile chassis. A z8 microcontroller for a single chip programable brain and we're ready to play. But the piece de resistance, the thing that made my robot special. A steerable gripper arm attached to the front of the chassis. Oh yes, my robot could pick things up and carry them.**
Take that, Turtle!

Being a vastly simpler piece of kit than the steam engine I had the thing physcialy built well inside the deadline, still some bugs in the "find the ping pong ball and bring it home" program by the time the day came but the machine worked well enough.

Mr Interesting was, of course, less than chuffed. Where was the failure he predicted, where was the half arsed attempt at an android he thought he'd stuck me with? All he could see was a little white rectangular box that crawled slowly around the desk and went beep every so often. But since the lab techs had marked my actual course work as acceptable there was nothing he could do to prevent me turning the project in to the examining board.

Two days later, we all slouch in to the lab for one last session boxing up our toys to send them off to the temple of tweed jackets, leather elbow patches, and foul smelling pipes that is exam headquarters.
In to the locked room where these things were kept between lessons, to find on my section of the shelf two sections of little white plastic box. Neatly, oh so neatly, sawn into two exactly equal pieces, right down the centre of the processor chip.

Two lab techs utterly livid, me confused and upset, Steve Interesting Titlow quietly smug.

"Told you you'd fail if you built a robot. Can't say I didn't warn you..."

Cunt.

*Some body panels for a robin reliant, a camera tripod, an electric guitar body, a new case for a computer, and a chess set still stick in my memory
**May include randomly dropping on floor.
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 19:01, 11 replies)

The only time I won anything at school
During my school days I always considered myself as someone who possessed above average intelligence, and as such was too far up my own backside to see that in fact I was not as clever as I thought. However I did manage to be the best at something once, which whilst not strictly speaking a school project did take place at school.

The educational establishment at which I was educated at held a job fair thingymajig in which various employers would set up stalls and send leaflets and unlucky employees as a way to attract soon to be school leavers to their workplace. Local businesses, the police and even the RAF were in attendance, however I spent most of my time checking out a civil engineering company.

'So what has this got to do with a project you wanker?' I hear you mutter to yourself inside your mind. Well at the stall of this civil engineering company there was an activity for pupils to try out, anyone who was interested was charged with creating the tallest and strongest tower capable of securely holding a can of carbonated beverage (which must have been flat from the number of times it would have fallen from inferior constructions). The construction material? Those flexi-straws that you can buy in bulk for kids to drink sugary drinks through and good old sellotape.

Remembering how the triangle is a good shape to use when providing strength to a structure I got to work shoving straws inside one another and occasionally taping them together when necessary. In total I used a mere eight straws and a small amount of sellotape to build a secure plinth on which the can could proudly stand atop. It may not have been the tallest but this was judged not only the best construction built by any of the kids who attempted one, it was also the most materially efficient.

This rare flash of genius resulted in me both feeling vindicated and netting a £15 prize for my efforts. This was actual real money, not the book tokens they usually offload onto kids and to someone who had only done 14 laps around the sun this was an absolute fortune. In addition my architectural ability so impressed those attending the stand it helped me score some work experience with the company during the school's mandatory work experience week.
( R.Soul hmmm, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 18:55, Reply)

Being the plebs we were...
... my family couldn't afford to send me on the school trip one summer, so myself and five other unfortunates had a week of very happy busywork at school. Apart from making suspension bridges out of spaghetti and cranes out of newspaper, we were asked by the tech teacher to make a device for throwing polos into a tray from a distance. Three teams of two and the winner got a roll of polos each. Battle was joined.
The two other teams plumped for a barely-developed put-a-ruler-on-the-table-and-hit-it type of catapault, but this was no good for me, oh no.
We scrounged some nuts and bolts, bits of wood and half the school's supply of rubber bands. In the end, it was like some kind of super-powered trebuchet that worked sideways. Come the final demonstration and the other two teams had landed one polo in six into the tray. We, however, had built a weapon that placed three polos into a five millimetre circle over five meters. The only way you could tell where they had landed was that there was a small white chalk mark, the rest of the polo having been instantly pulverised by the impact to give a minty cloud of dust.
All very good and polos were delivered to us as promised. My partner on the project decided to take the polo death machine home with him. The next morning, he came into school looking a bit depressed. Turns out he'd earnt the hell of a bollocking for having put a penny through the fence panels in his garden with the thing...
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Thu 13 Aug 2009, 18:22, 1 reply)

My unofficial school project
There is a school project I have gained infamy for, however, it was one very much unofficial and non-condoned by the school. When I was a younger lad and still at school I would have likely been described as "quiet", "shy" or "timid". I hardly spoke to anyone in my year and would keep myself to myself. I would get good reports noting my conscientiousness and all the other trappings of a prized swot. Fate one day struck me and knocked me off my current path and into new territory though.

What could it have been that sent me on such a divergent path? Why of course the internet my friend. Having convinced my mother to upgrade to broadband and entrust me with setting everything up I became delighted to learn of there being 10mb, a whole TEN!!!, worth of webspace that came with the account. I pondered many a day and tested as many designs; my mind churning over what I could create. I needed something that drew people back again and again, something different, personal and funny. After two weeks of pondering I struck gold and thus...

"Wanker of the Week" was born!

The premise? People could vote for someone they thought had been a wanker and the reason why, votes would be tallied and the supreme wanker would be announced at the end of each week. This was back in the day before social networking so a quick e-mail to everyone on my msn account got the ball rolling. There were over 100 votes in the first week. Soon enough my whole year of school knew about it and were regularly voting. At the end of each week I also struck on the idea of making a Certificate of Wankership for the weekly 'winner'. This was sprung on them Jeremy Beadle style after waiting for them outside of their classes.

The webspace was HTML and M$ Frontpage only unfortunately so no fancy code could help make the tables for me and I had to each night tally the votes and update it myself. This did not bother me however as there were many gems for the reasons section - "Johnny Davis - by Waffles the dog - 'he hits me with his tennis racket and makes me lick peanut butter off him afterwards'" and "Charles Baker - by [his girlfriend] 'he makes me take it up the arse and it bloody hurts'". The genius behind that one was even though the girlfriend didn't know about the website he still fell out with her because of it!

As the popularity grew people began to demand more and more. After adding a guestbook which acted more like a forum I was receiving daily content to add. This included what was to be my downfall - edited pictures of members of the teaching staff including the headteacher in a bunny suit chasing children. I was falling behind with updating the website and not producing enough content to met demand so I had to take on helpers. In the end the website had - wanker of the week, history of wanker of the week with running commentary, guestbook, page making fun of the teachers, pictures of teachers, porn pages, jokes pages, cheats page and a page of "the white home-boy" raps done by a guy in my class that were only included because they were so shit. One rap in particular which will be mentioned again later was him talking about killing the teachers with an AK rifle. I even had two people listed as "photographers" for the website.

I knew things had gone too far when I walked into my graphics design class late and saw every computer screen on my website. Some of the younger school kids who had started to get involved had apparently been telling the "sound" teachers about the site and it was only a matter of time before I was caught. Vigilant of how fast things were progressing I decided one morning enough was enough and I would delete everything once I got home. Fate is a cruel beast and that was never to be. During the graphics design class one lad complained his internet had stopped working, he called the teacher over who explained that people caught on the website were having their internet cut off and would have to meet with an assistant head to get it restored. Fucksocks!

Break came at 11am and my website team and myself gathered to discuss what was happening. I decided if nothing was heard by lunch I would skive the rest of the day. The period before lunch was Physics and there I sat quivering over what was to happen. Five minutes were left to go and the "white home-boy" turned to me and proclaimed "we're free!". At that moment however I heard the distant sound of a door creaking open in the corridor. The air grew thick and I was only conscious of the slow sounds of footsteps reverberating in my head.. one by one they came and seemed to go on forever. Suddenly they stopped along with my heart as it was replaced by knocking. The door slide open and there was the assistant head!

"Brydie?"
I raised my hand, my mouth didn't want to work - I had never had a punishment exercise or detention never mind the trouble I was to find myself in.
"Come with me!"
I got up and was edging round the desk when I heard the words that struck home how serious the situation was...
"AND BRING YOUR STUFF!"

I proceeded behind him through the corridors towards the office, him every now and then turning round to say "this way" or "come along". Entering his office I was informed to sit down and he assumed his place behind the desk.
"You know why you are here"
"emm, no" I squeaked, I was praying it was something else, please god you miserable bastard please!
He sighed and turned his computer monitor round to show me the website. There staring back at me was a picture of a teacher being sodomised by another, I had to face facts - I was as fucked as he was.

"We know it is yours it is registered in your name" A lie! It was in my mum's name and I have a brother at the same school as well as a common surname so it could of been plenty of people. I had a list of team members on the site but they were all handles, no-ones real names were anywhere to be found. It transpired he had all the names of those involved. How? I'm guessing it was the lad caught on the website though he denies it to this day. I don't blame him, I would of done the same as apparently he was told if he didn't grass he wouldn't be allowed to use the school computers thus by default failing two of his subjects. I myself am as guilty as him as I sat there defeated confirming the names of those the assistant head read out one by one.

Eventually after my initial grilling I was moved to the waiting room where two of the team members were also. We were told to sit in silence and we stayed there for ages before again my name was called. I went for the assistant head's office but was shouted at and directed to the head's. Inside they both sat and I made to opposite them. His face burned red.
"What possessed you!" He screamed as he turned the monitor to show the picture of him in a bunny suit. The surrealism of it was unreal , I felt as if I could pass out at any moment. Nothing was said for a few seconds, me visually shaking and him gritting his teeth in pure anger.
Finally - "I was going to take it down" I protested
"Well its too late for that, your grandmother is on her way to collect you. You are to be suspended pending the police's advice it may become an expulsion. Furthermore, some of the teachers may wish to press charges so you'll be kept informed."

I saw my future slip away from me. I was raised to expect to go onto university and now I was being told I could be expelled and given a criminal record. If I was kicked out there was no chance another school would take me if they heard why I had to leave this one! These thoughts and more bounded round my mind as I trailed home with my grandmother - the whole 20 minutes it took to walk home in complete silence.

Believing the game was up I whenever no one was paying attention packed a rucksack which I hid inbetween times in my cupboard. I was later to run out armed with it and two bottles of spirits... that though is another story ;-).

In the end eight people were suspended with at least 11 people having been called in to be interrogated. One tried pointing out that the welcome page had a message proclaiming "if you are a teacher or member of staff at any high-school you agree by clicking to enter to give me £10,000,000,000,000.01" as his defence which apparently didn't go down well. The White-home boy was made to sit while the headmaster read over his raps asking him what caused him to be so perverted and that charges may be brought against him as well. His defence of having spelt the teachers name wrong meaning it actually referred to fictional people worked and instead of being suspended he was sent a letter home informing his parents it may be worthwhile if he was to receive therapy.

After I was caught and dragged back home the police wanted to talk to me, not as a criminal but because I had been a missing person for two days. They informed me that they had seen the website and actually found it quite amusing and that in no way was it going to be viewed seriously. "Its like when I was a lad you'd write things on the toilet wall and cut the teachers heads out and glue them onto others". The school reluctantly let me back and I completed my education with a cloud ever loaming above my head... and that my friends was my unofficial school project.

Apologies for length and lack of funnies - its my first time after all!

P.S. the last comment in the guest book before the site was removed? "Tut tut you naughty fourth years - good site though :-D"

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to include the part about prize giving! I think the website and being suspended happened around March-April time and then June of that year was prize giving. As I said I had normally got good report cards etc and this year I was to be given both the computing and accountancy & finance prizes. What happens is you are given book vouchers in advance to buy a book, hand it in and then get given it back by the headteacher infront of everyone's parents. I'd love to say I bought a book entitled "Advanced Web Design" but sadly I did not; instead I got "C++ an introduction". I swear I still saw the headteacher take a double glance at it though before having to shake my hand and give it to me.
(Brydie, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 18:15, 20 replies)

The first of many to come Im sure
A-level Physics this time, and part of our coursework was to give a 5-10 minute presentation on ANY topic of our choice, relating to physics obviously, and we were paired up for this incredible task, I choose my best friend, and worst lay-about homework dodger, Josh. We didnt really discuss it other than, 'this should be fun' before really getting back to doing fuck all.

So 2 weeks pass and the deadline is in the afternoon, 1pm, and we still havn't researched, written, posterised or even powerpointed a single fact. Or even chosen a topic for that matter! So in an incredible rush we spend 1 hour looking at topics surrounding faster than light travel. Futuristic, check. Physics related, check. Possibly so complicated that the teacher wouldn't have read anything about it... check.

So we walk in, with no material in hand, and continue to give a great presentation with amazing board drawing supplied by myself and an explination about how if you generated dark matter, space time would curve and psuh you through space, much like when you swallow food down your throat. Needless to say it was a shambles and I think I stuttered most of it.

So our suprise comes when the teacher, who really I think had the hots for both me and Josh, gives us the best mark in the class. Needless to say the shock actually made us concentrate for the rest of the course, although it didnt really help much...

Length? Well if space and time is infinitly expanding as time passes, I think I'll measure it later
(Golden_guns247, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 18:14, Reply)

Grade 9 or 10 science class
The teacher was discussing acid rain, and how combustion products of sulphur combine with water in clouds to form sulphuric acid. He then challenged the students to come up with a way to collect the smoke from a sample of burning sulphur.

At this point the class dero, who has spent most of the year either absent or in a THC-induced daze, steps up to the plate by constructing the perfect device to isolate smoke.

A bucket bong.

The teacher had no idea what it actually was, of course, and gave him a commendation for his "original thinking".
(oball needs Satan more than he needs me, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 18:08, Reply)

Under siege
I did a unit on medieval Europe in Grade 8 social science. I illustrated my cover page with a picture of a gibbeted peasant above the caption "Serf's up!", and for our major project my friends and I constructed a castle out of cardboard and then filmed ourselves assaulting it with miniature onagers and ballistae made from pens and rubber bands, before dousing it in kerosene and setting it alight.

We got an A.
(oball needs Satan more than he needs me, Thu 13 Aug 2009, 18:00, Reply)