Winter Break Camp Day 3

By Wednesday, we've usually hit our stride here at Tinkering School. We've completed bits of our projects and are ready to move on to next steps. There are often cool opportunities for learning new concepts and new tricks once we've gotten a handle on using the tools and working with others. 

The Sled Team was presented with a big dilemma as we were getting ready to mount our benches. Our 8ft long sled was "banana-ing" (bending) all over when we elevated it off the ground. Since we were planning on mounting the sled on wheels, we realized we would have to do something to make it more sturdy before we could put any weight on it. Why was it "banana-ing?" Why wasn't it as sturdy as we wanted it to be? 

These wonders provided the perfect segue into a mini-lesson on the strength triangles! We built rectangles with scraps from the chop-saw room and quickly noticed how it easy it was to stretch and compress them. Not so sturdy! As soon as we added a piece of wood across the diagonal, the compression stopped and our shape stayed nice and solid. Triangles to the rescue! We next decided to put those triangles to work and strengthen up our sled base!

Wednesday was also a busy day for the bandsaw. A few tinkerers learned how to use this tool for the first time, and one even cut an intricate star for the very tippy top of our arctic tree!

Meanwhile, the building was a-buzz  with lots of other tinkering going on. Stay tuned for more news from Team Iditarod!