The squirrels could understand the power of the tools we presented them. The slingshot, the catapult, the trebuchet, and were adept at building them given their nimble little fingers and vestigial thumbs. At first they were reluctant to use their large store of nuts as ammunition, but when they realized they could retrieve their nuts (after being used to disperse a murder of crows, for instance) they were very excited.

We began like a little start up at the top of a tree. They didn’t know geometry. Hardly knew math. But after we were able to show them what it could do…