Alright, I've been stewing on this one for a little less than a week now.

In English class on Monday, my teacher showed us a lecture on you tube about making a change in the american education system, the basic point of the lecture being that as the U.S. enforces standardization in schools, kid's creativity and attention span dwindles. The professor gave the example of a case study in which a number of kindergarten students were asked to see how many uses they could find for a paperclip. 98% of the students tested were within the range of creative geniuses. Every five years after that test, the students were asked the same question. Unsurprisingly, the percentage of students who maintained their creative proficiency quickly fell as the students aged and progressed in school.

It is with this that I set out a new challenge: the Paperclip Challenge.

The objective is simply to come up with as many uses for a paperclip as your mind can conceive. But their are a few restrictions and guidelines that I dare present:

1. The task must be your own. The point isn't to see if you and a group of friends can come up with 200 uses, but is a test of YOUR OWN creative capacity.

2. The challenge must be completed in 24 hours, ideally in one sitting. Any moron can come up with 200 uses in 200 days, thus the time constraint.

3. Each use must only use a single paperclip, or in other terms, a paperclip chain jump rope is not considered a valid use.

4. The paperclip does not necessarily need to be small and metal like most would assume.

5. Uses are encouraged to be enthusiastically imaginative, as long as a (somewhat) believable explanation is presented.
ex. "Using a paperclip as if it were a quill, I can write the next great American novel."

and for grins, I thought I'd add a little grading scale, to measure yourself up to:

0 uses = Vegetable in the head

1 - 10 uses = The Average P.E. Teacher

11 - 25 uses = Some Random Street Guy

26 - 50 uses = The Average 10-year-old (surprisingly a compliment)

51 - 100 uses = Imagineer

101 - 200 uses = Black Belt in Paperclip-ology

201 - 999 uses = Creative Sevant

**1000+ uses = Paperclip Mastermind

**the exception to rules 1 & 2 are in this case: When attempting to think up 1,000, you will be given a week to complete the objective, and minor assistance from friends is acceptable, but not fully encouraged.

And with that, I leave the internet to accept my challenge... >:)