Jungle Adventure! Day 5 Week 1 (Mark Day School)

Today was such a great end to a fabulous week of designing, building and testing our Jungle Adventure creations!

I know that each tinkerer is excited to see the airplane crash videos which are at the bottom of this page. I captured many of the tinkerers who went down the ramp but a few did their test runs during lunch when I was supervising up at the park.

For many more photos from the whole week, visit our Google Photos album at this link.

Fridays at camp are always a bit of a sprint to the finish. But we still take our time during morning meeting to share ideas and learn new skills. This morning, we asked “What is tinkering?” and “Why do we tinker?” Our students recognized that tinkering is about experimenting, about observing and listening to materials, about helping each other, and about finding success through skill-building and practice.

After that, David demonstrated how pulleys work to provide mechanical advantage. That knowledge was immediately applicable to the need we had to find a way to slow down our crashing plane.

Part of what we do in the last couple days of camp is to go through a process of safety testing our builds. Though we are driven by questions such as “How much weight can the middle of the bridge hold?” or “How many tinkerers is too many in the rolling cart?”, we begin by running the cart (aka airplane) down the track empty to observe and discuss what happens. We have one kid stand on the bridge and listen for wood straining. Then two. We also build in such a way as to provide structure and strength against forces we know are created by our weight and the pull of gravity. But this testing becomes an integral part of how kids learn to build stronger structures and add reinforcements (lots of talk of triangles this week!).

We have some really powerful moments in camp. Yesterday, for example, the tinkerers ran the afternoon circle by themselves. As the collaborators (adults) were about to sit down, we realized that the kids were going through the motions we’d practiced all week… describing what’s ahead for our day, calling on people who raise their hands to question or comment, and standing back up to “reset” (clean up) our build areas. They didn’t need us in that moment because we had set up good structures and trusted them to work as a team. Part of the reason we refer to ourselves as “collaborators” is that we really do work alongside the students in our camp and we see them as capable young people who will impress us when given the chance.

There was excitement in the air as family members arrived for the project reveal. Although tinkerers weren’t able to ride the plane at that point, they walked over the bridge and checked out the mysterious creature just past the dangerous river.

And just like we do at the end of every week of camp, the last 30-60 minutes is a collective effort to deconstruct all of the builds down to their basic materials: wooden 2x3s, plywood, screws, washers, bots, hinges, and wheels. What we make is impermanent but we hope what we instill lasts a long time in the minds of our tinkerers and collaborators.

See below for many more photos…

…and videos!