Hi, my name is Hyrum, and I live in Nauvoo, Illinois.
My house is right on the Mississippi River.
I like fishing and kayaking in the river.
And I really like experimenting with different things.
I want to make a kayak of my own,
so my dad and I looked on the Internet
about finding a kayak made out of plywood and fiberglass.
Since we had never done fiberglass before,
we decided to make a model first.
Soon we will get busy on the real kayak.
I'm also interested in rockets and airplanes.
I wanted to make a rocket-powered airplane.
So I got a Styrofoam glider and put a rocket motor on it.
The first one went all crazy and blew off
the tail of the airplane.
I fixed the tail and put the motor
on the bottom of the airplane.
This time the plane just spun in one place.
Finally I mounted the rocket motor on the tail of the plane,
and it took off from the porch and went almost straight up.
Another time I was launching a rocket in a farmer's field.
When the nose cone came off to let the parachute out,
it broke off and blew away.
I thought we'd have to give up for the day,
but I decided to try a piece of corn cob for the nose cone.
It worked just fine.
A few winters ago, I read about making maple syrup
from sap of maple trees.
In the summer, when the trees have
leaves so you can tell the maples from the oaks,
I put ribbon around seven maple trees.
Then in the winter, when the sap runs in the trees,
I drilled holes and put taps in the trees to collect the sap.
I collected four gallons of sap.
My mom boiled it down, and we made
about one cup of very sweet maple syrup.
My name is Hyrum, and I'm one in a million.
[MUSIC PLAYING]