Lava World - Day 1 - Week 4 (SF Day Camp)

In one drill practice session, each group created a letter of Kai’s name!

Experimenting with clamps

Monday marks the beginning of another thrilling week of tinkering at SF day camp!

This morning was jam packed with brainstorming our group agreements to ensure physical and emotional safety within the workshop, diving into our four core tinkering goals, and learning the ins and outs of the tools we will utilize to build this week. We then took a long play/lunch break, which we spent at the beach building sandcastles, picnicking, reading, playing soccer, and sharing riddles.

Learning to use the chop saw

Upon arriving back at the Palace, we went on a storytelling journey to discover the week’s project theme. It turns out the floor of the Palace is in fact temporarily cooled lava, and that there is a dormant volcano within the building that is estimated to erupt this coming Friday at exactly 2:25pm! It is up to some of our stellar tinkerers to build a series of forts and bridges for all of us to scramble onto in avoidance of the coming waves of lava. Additionally, we will construct a system to catch and process said lava. This week’s theme is... lava world.

One group began designing a 10 foot tall volcano, envisioning an octagonal base holding a vertical tunnel shaft within which will harness a large fan to launch 100 red balloons into the air on Friday.

One tinkerer took the lead on the forts and bridges design session

Many tinkerers were understandably excited by the prospect of building a series of forts and bridges – for a lot of us, this is a dream come true. We came up with a design to incorporate four different fort ideas, connected by a pattern of bridges in between. Everything has to be at least four feet off the lava floor.

The catchment system team delved into a lawnmower/car design, using wheels to move a platform around which will catch the balloon lava as it all lands. The method of processing (or popping) will be revealed as the project develops.

After spending a good chunk of time on design, we were able to make some first cuts and begin construction on our projects. We are all looking forward to starting tomorrow’s morning build session, to launch our explosive ideas!

For more photos from today, browse our Flickr album!