Origami chess set?

Yep.

A kid from Iowa won a blue ribbon at the Iowa State Fair with her origami chess set.

Pierce, 16, daughter of Jim and Peggy Pierce of West Des Moines, became interested in origami when she completed a fourth-grade class assignment to create 1,000 paper cranes. Since then, the Waukee High School junior has tackled dozens of projects, including creating a turtle, a castle, a dragon and last year's Dallas County Fair entry, a modular, spherical kusudama ball, a type of paper flower ball.

I'd be inclined to think this girl just has too much time on her hands, but I'd be wrong.

Pierce, who is the drum major for the Waukee High School band, is also involved in the vocal music program, plays the piano and the clarinet and plans to start taking bagpipe lessons this fall.

She enjoys demonstrating her origami-making skills for schoolchildren and at tractor shows, but so far has been unwilling to sell any of the creations.

Although she hasn't chosen her next project yet, she's biding her time by challenging herself to see just how small she can fold those paper cranes. The ones she first learned to make had a wing span of 3 to 4 inches. She's now crafting cranes, with the same number of folds, with an-inch wingspan.

"I'm folding with tweezers and a magnifying glass," she says. "I want to see just how small I can go."

Even better, I'd be willing to lay odds she's got ADD:

A known procrastinator, Pierce left herself a few days to create her chess set before the county fair.

"That's just the way she is," said Jim Pierce. "She's a full-throttle kid. When she gets into something, she does it."

Kelly Pierce said she works best with a deadline. "I don't settle for halfway, even if I have half the time."

I've always worked that way, myself. It's just how I am.

Any-hoo, congratulations to Miss Pierce... that's absolutely cool.