Racing

Today was the Medford Cardboard Canoe races. There were 12 teams entered, and some really nice looking boats. A professor from UMass Lowell had a sleek looking canoe, while a group of younger kids had a small maneuverable hot dog boat. Our two boats looked very good among the competitors, and our students were happy to talk to admirers about the work they had done. Our green boat, unfortunately, had some issues during its first race. These issues mainly arose due to an uneven paddling strategy from the team that led to them tipping over. Tough to recover from that, and the boat was damaged. Our senior boat looked solid and won 2 of its 3 races, although it was on its last legs in the final race. The senior team came in second place, and it was a fun event for everybody. I think we learned a few ways to improve the boats for next year, and hopefully we will again have multiple teams competing.

Boats Are Ready

The final push to get the boats ready happened this Friday. Students put on some finishing design touches, and both boats look great. They are going to be very competitive I feel, so hopefully one of the two teams will come out victorious. Looking forward to Sunday.

The Ant

During the building of the canoe boats, there were apparently some ant explorers that made their way onto the cardboard during the gluing process. Unfortunately, for a few of the ants, the messy gluing technique created slow moving streams of glue that caught these ants unaware, and encased them forever in a sea of Elmers. The students, feeling bad about the situation, decided to commemorate these unlucky souls by creating a large cardboard ant that will be placed at the head of the boat during the races. The last few weeks of school can be a strange. A few photos below.

More boats

Boat construction continued again today. With the school year winding down, students are either helping with the boats or beginning the monumental task of cleaning and organizing the shop. We have several students dedicated just to sorting bolts and nuts – for some reason they seem to enjoy it. We call it a Zen task. A few more photos of the boats today.

Radio

I’ve been making several versions of my bluetooth radio with lasercut frame. Each edition gets a little more streamlined, and I improve the finishing process and wire management. The one pictured below is for my brother Eden. It still needs its internals, which is something I can work on this week. I think the exterior came out well, and it is going to look very nice in his workshop. The paint is a Krylon satin red spraypaint, and the interior face is also a satin blue on the inside of a clear acrylic plate.