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.
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.
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.
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.
The first cardboard boat was completely assembled this afternoon. Now the students need to spend time painting the skin with polyurethane sealant to keep out the water. After it is sealed, they will then paint the boat with some sort of color scheme, and from our discussions it appears they want to try and make it look like a leaf. Should be interesting. The cardboard boat races are just over a week away, so I think they are in a decent place to get it completed and ready for the water. A few photos below.
