In the Wild: photographs of Ropes and Poles projects

Most of the projects posted on Ropes and Poles have been tested in working conditions, mainly by my troop. Here are some photographs of projects that have featured here in the past.

The large image above show the camp 'couch' designed by Scouts in our troop. In the photograph, Rovers from our District Crew are 'examining' the couch at a local competition camp.








The pontoon ferry is modelled on a project I built as my final Springbok construction project, way back in 1997. In this (pre-digital) photograph, my Scouts and I are ferrying the examiner across the lake.












Before entering the lightweight racing raft into a competition, we held a test weekend where we built the raft, and also attempted to sail with it. Without a centreboard, however, we didn't have much success.















Finally, the portcullis gateway is pictured, as it was used on an inter-patrol competition camp in 2005.

Two Coracles (1953 Article)

Coracles are lightweight, dish-shaped boats, that have been used in Britain since Roman times. John Sweet's article from the Scout magazine in 1953 describes the construction of 2 different types of coracle.

To make an ancient British coracle you require a tarpaulin or outsize groundsheet with eyelets round the edges.
Cut yourself a few pickets and a large quantity of brushwood. Drive one set of pickets into the ground to make a circle about five feet in diameter, and describe another circle of pickets a foot or so outside this one. Using this as your "jig", pack brushwood between two sets of pickets to make a sort of hoop.
Bind the brushwood with sisal, and when the hoop is quite well self-contained, lift it out of the jig and lay it on the groundsheet or tarpaulin. Draw up the canvas round the brushwood and lace it in position. If there are no eyelets in your canvas, sheetbends become the order of the day. Your fledgling Tenderfoor Scouts will love applying their new-found knowledge in a practical way.
A really well-made coracle will take three Scouts quote comfortably. Everything will depend, however, on the skill with which you balance each other's weight. The idea is to sit on the edge of the craft and breathe in unison. One unguarded movement and the whole bag of tricks will turn turtle, to the great joy of all beholders. I wish I had a half-crown for every Scout I have seen go overboard in this way.

The Boyne coracle is constructed on the same general principle but is a much nattier job. If you operate in an area where willow withies are plentiful it would be a shame not to make use of them.
Cut yourself about a dozen long, whippy willow-wants of roughly the same size. With two of these make a pair of hoops, as per diagram. Pin these down with willow "sparrows" and lash them together with sisal. Now, with a sharpened stake orcamp "dibber" go round this piece of elementary basketwork, making a series of holes in the ground, as indicated in the diagram.
Stick the butts of your withis in alternate holes and bend over the tips so that they can be slipped into the corresponding holes opposite. While they are thus held in position lash the withies to the twin-circular framework. Now weave latitudinal withies through these cross-pieces and bend them down so that the butts and tips can be lashed to the framework fore and aft. Lift up the completed framework, and when you have cleaned up the protruding bits with knife or saw, place it on your tarpaulin and bring up the sides as before.
It sounds a lot of fun, but never having built one of these myself I cannot speak from first-hand experience. I should imagine that they are very skittish in the water, and I wouldn't advise anyone to embark by taking a running jump into the coracle from the river bank. On the other hand, there is nothing to stop you trying to persuade one of your firends to do so. It ought to be a sight worth seeing

-'Seconds Out' John Sweet p.600 "The Scout" March 19,1953

Paper Tensegrity Task Lamp

Tensegrity structures have fascinated designers since they were invented by Kenneth Snelson in the 1940s. Robbert Spikman, studying Industrial design at the Technical University Eindhoven in the Netherlands, designed this LED desk lamp using a tensegrity tower, and made from paper structural members (with the help of the step-by-step instructions from Ropes and Poles).

Robbert writes:

I used just one power cable to let the spine work as a mechanism to let the light stand up.
By changing the tension of this "spine" cable, the light can move up and down.
The foot of the paper model can pivot within 100 degrees.
My initial idea was to put the light tube stuck to one of the paper tubes, so it would not stick out(like you can see in the picture with the orange background).
Because I had to put the light 600 mm from the foot I decided to put an add-on at the end with a light in it.
There was still enough force though to put another block at the end (with the light stuck to one of the tubes).

Feel free to contact Robbert here.

Cloverleaf Hourglass Tower

Hawk from Australia sent some photos of an hourglass tower with 4 legs, that was built as part of a Ropes and Spars training course, run by West Australian Scout Pioneering, a team formed to help train Scout leaders in pioneering skills. The tower uses the cloverleaf lashing developed by Ploeg Technieken Rover Crew in Belgium.

Guitar String Turk's Head Woggle

Other than Scouting, one of my hobbies is music: I play bass guitar (like this one, and recently the one I made as well), and the other day when I changed bass strings I made this woggle (neckerchief slide) for my Scout scarf out of the thinnest string from my bass.

The knot is a Turk's Head, tied using the 'round the fingers' method which is commonly used to tie woggles in leather or cord.

Unlike leather or cord, steel wire tends to slip and jump open. It's worthwhile to make the first round of this woggle a little smaller than you intend it to be, as it will widen while you are weaving the following layers through. Steel is also difficult to fasten (superglue does a great job on leather), so I have twisted the two ends of the knot together with pliers.

Pioneered sculptures on the 49th floor

Dor Posner has reported on some enormous Scouting structure before (like these), and has been busy again, this time to celebrate the 90th year of Scouting in Israel, and the centenary of the founding of the city of Tel Aviv:

 

40 scouts (ages 16-18) built a model of the land of Israel on the roof of the Azrieli Towers, over 2 days.

the model includes four special things: the Underwater observatory in Eilat, the Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv, the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem and the Golan Heights wind farm.

Over 900 poles had to be raised to the roof of this 193 metre (633 foot) tower before construction could begin. Thanks to Dor for these photos - the Israeli Scout Association also has a photo gallery (and a writeup) here (machine translated from Hebrew).

JOTI pioneering- the router lashing

I've featured a few JOTA towers, but no JOTI pioneering.. until now. :)

We were relying on a wireless internet connection this weekend, so the modem needed to be placed high up for good signal. So here is the modem, securely lashed to the wan router, both suspended from a window in our Scout hall.