TSO-A-Day 3: Tinker Me This...

The sun shone as bright as the ideas being implemented on the second day of building at Tinkering School Overnight (TSO) camp where juniors and seniors continued working on their golf course projects they had started building the day before.

From ramps to water wheel and windmill to skee golf, Tinkerers continued building project parts. Progress included learning about structural integrity, collaboration, and rebounding post-failure. By end of day, many projects were semi-functional masterpieces.

“It’s done. It works,” Paul says as he puts the finishing touches on the front axle of his golf cart followed by a “Suh-weet!”

Paul works to construct a functional steering wheel and axle for his team’s golf cart.

For the Rube Goldberg obstacle course hole, Tinkerers Angelo, Miriam, and Kiana, worked on devising a functional pulley system to lift a bucket up to a half pipe, a task that proved to be a daylong challenge.

“Okay, it works. Now we just need to…,” Miriam said as Angelo followed with, “I’m screwing it in right now.” The two worked together seamlessly, just like the Rube Goldberg machinery that inspired them.

The windmill team managed to build the top of their windmill frame, install plywood walls, build windmill blades and hub, and construct pickup system parts which will move a golf ball along to the next hole.

“I built the whole crank myself,” Evelyn said, adding that it might not look too complicated but that it took a long time to measure and cut.

Evelyn, Loren and Morgan work to perfect the windmill blades and hub while their teammates Alex, Henry and Luke standby.

For the skee golf team, a backboard and side walls were added to the skee ball structure along with a tee ramp from which to put. As they tested their project, campers and collaborators alike flocked to try a put or two for themselves.

P.K. watches as Lars puts at the skee golf hole.

Towards the end of the day, the catapult-to-platform team was able to flip their large platform over onto the landing from which they worked, constructing a nearly level platform on the first try. They still need to build one more table for their course hole.

“One! Two! Three,” Kyler counts as nine Tinkerers hoisted their table to an upright position before finishing for the day.

“We got it flipped. We got it pretty level and it’s good,” R.J. said.

Check out our photo slideshow and golf cart videos below.