A new week of Tinkering School is upon us! New campers rush into the conference center where they are greeted by inviting faces, warm cookies, and slices of watermelon. While we wait for everyone to arrive, we play around with tinkering kits, lock picks, and new games. Campers settle into their yurts (this week named after Hogwarts houses), and they prepare dish bags for the week. There is a shared excitement in anticipation of the coming week.

Mads and Olivia explore how to light an LED.

Vince frees himself from a cuff made for lock picking and Hunter attempts to crack a pin tumbler lock.

Savan presents a paper crane to Kaitlyn (one of collaborators).

We discover a typewriter, but unfortunately only some of the keys work. Luke and Spencer troubleshoot the issue, and they decide that opening it is the best option for fixing it.

Zachary takes a closer look at the problem.

Once all the campers have arrived and settled, we enter our opening circle where we do introductions and review the 3 rules of Tinkering School:

1. Don't hurt yourself or anyone else.

2. If you see a piece of fruit and you want it, you must eat it.

3. Roshambo with no funny business (dynamite, gun, dog, rocket, etc.).

6. We don't talk about it.

With the rules understood, we grab hats, water bottles, and sunscreen and walk up the hill to our build site for tool training.

Upon arriving at the top of the hill, we split into four groups to rotate between:

Tour of the build site
Drill training
Drill practice
Clamp training
Chop saw training

Onion and Hunter play around with clamp positioning while trying see how many pieces of wood they can extend from a post of the shop.

Olivia and Arianna add to the collection of pieces of wood down the line.

Mads practices using a driver to make a strong connection.

Onion lines up two pieces of wood, attempting to achieve the perfect fit.

Spencer makes a practice cut on the chop saw.

Jasper focuses on making his cut.

After all the campers have practiced with the tools, we head back down the hill for dinner and an evening challenge. A raging river stands in the way of the campers. The river is filled with turtles that sink when stepped on and stones that don't (both represented by masking tape Xs), but the campers don't know which are turtles and which are stones. They must work together to find a safe path across the river.

Alice takes the first step into the raging river.

After our evening challenge, campers get a chance to play and wind down before it's time to sleep. We make hot cocoa and homemade whipped cream as an evening treat. Tomorrow morning we'll reveal project groups and the project provocation.

TSO-C/D - Day 1 - Rules and Tools