Pictures from the Boys Life Magazine, Boy Scouts of America

Pinewood Derby

Well, its pinewood derby season, so we thought it might be useful to give you a list of links you might find interesting when you build your pinewood derby cars.  Remember be safe when working with tools.

• Try this cool tool from the Boy Scouts of America, a Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby Design tool.  This tool will actually print out a scaled plan for you to work from.
  http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/CubScouts/Youth/PineDesign.aspx
• Find some design help here! http://www.pinewoodpro.com/pinewood-derby-howto-design.htm
• Where do you put those weights, ckeck out this link for more information. http://www.pinewoodprofessor.com/weight.html
• 5 Keys to Pinewood Derby Performance. http://www.maximum-velocity.com/fivekeys.htm
• How about a little hard core help, find it here! http://pinewoodfreak.com/
• General Information at Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinewood_derby

Do You Tinker?

Tinkering is focused exploration or activity with the right materials in the right environment that can lead to great new inventions by building self-confidence and fostering critical thinking skills and attitudes that increase interest in science, technology, engineering, and math. It teaches people that they can not only dream up an invention, but they can actually build it!

The hobby industry offers many products across a broad spectrum of interests that foster tinkering. Plastic model and robot building, model railroad scenery, dollhouse making and many other hobby projects cultivate this type of activity. If the hobby industry can find an effective way to promote tinkering they can increase sales of related product.  There are many supporters and programs out there that encourage this activity. Gever Tulley, founder of the Tinkering School, promotes tinkering at his summer camp, appropriately titled, ”Tinkering School.” Click here to read the Web Comic and get a look at some of the projects these campers have completed.

Exploratorium | The museum of science, art and human perception at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco has an entire “Tinkering Studio” where kids can explore, create and build. Two industry related projects offered at the museum are the Paper Airplane Launcher and Shadow Box and Lightroom Painting.  What can you do, as a member of the hobby industry, to bring this much needed pastime back to the forefront of children’s activities and get them away from the electronics and video games that occupy much of their free time?  The article below ties tinkering to the industry and highlights the decline of interest and participation in these types of activities.

To learn more, Click Here.

Ernest P. Checka, a 74-year old metal detector hobby enthusiast, knows the thrill of the hunt and the pleasure of returning long lost treasures to their rightful owners. Recently while seeking a cheerleader’s lost necklace, he stumbled across a buried gift ID bracelet that had been lost for 41-years. The owner nearly fainted when the bracelet was returned to him.

Other metal detector finds include a sterling silver gift bracelet lost just after WWII, a copper penny from the Civil War era, class rings, wedding bands, pendants, coins – the older the better, knickknacks, locks, and buttons. He hasn’t documented his collection, but estimates that he’s made hundreds of metal detector finds. Mr. Checka tracks down the owners of class rings and bracelets through yearbooks from the highschool or town library. He’s considered a walking lost-and-found within his community.

The Metal Detector Hobby

Metal detecting is a hobby enjoyed by all ages, suitable as an exciting adventure for the whole family, whether at the beach, the park, a picnic or on a camping trip. You can go detecting alone, with a mate, or join a club and add the fun of making new friends. Besides the thrill of the hunt, many find detecting to be relaxing – a stress free walk in the great outdoors.

Many Treasures are Less than a Gallon Away

With fuel prices continually high, many metal detector hobby enthusiasts are re-discovering treasures within just a few miles from their home or office. Kevin Hoagland of Minelab, a leading manufacturer of metal detectors, said that he found and recovered a number of valuable items very quickly within five miles of his home, at a location that looked like it used to be a park or meeting place. The most valuable was a man’s gold ring, valued at more than $600, and at least 90-years old. His metal detector finds from that one day in that one location amounted to $800, and cost him about $1 in fuel. It’s a safe bet that there are thousands of spots to go detecting in your hometown.

To learn more about the metal detector hobby, visit Minelab’s Introduction to Detecting.

Article Sources: Telegram.com and Minelab

Photo Credit: Treasure Hunter by Elsie_esq. on flickr

Interest in launching a homemade rocket can start at any age. What’s not to love about this hobby? Launching a homemade rocket is an adrenaline rush. As you watch the rocket rise several thousand feet, it feels like your own mini-NASA launch!

“It’s exciting … It keeps your mind real active.” says Rick VanVoorhis, an electronic forklift mechanic from Pflugerville, Texas, who sent his rocket “HyperGammaSpaces” 17,300 feet with a motor he designed and built himself.

Launching a homemade rocket can be simple or technical.

Advanced rocketry requires a high degree of planning. It’s one thing to launch the rocket, but another to recover it. Some electrical and mechanical engineering skills are required to begin, but real prowess in these areas develops over time with experience. Yet simple starter rockets are easy and fun, with no special skill sets necessary to build and launch.

Many enthusiasts participate in competitive rocketry events, one example being the CanSat rocket competition, recently held in Amarillo, TX, where each launch and recovery was required to meet specific criteria. Each rocket carried an electronic payload about the size of a soda can, which determined altitude and GPS positioning during its descent. It also recorded ground temperature after landing. Teams were awarded bonus points for including an onboard camera or for using solar power.

Rocketry is a fun activity enjoyed not only by advanced hobbyists and engineers, but also grade school students and families who love the thrill and challenge of building, launching and recovering rockets of their own. Whatever your age or skill level, this hobby proves that you can have fun with math and science.

Rocket kits are available at most hobby stores. Visit your local hobby retailer this summer to learn more about the exciting hobby of homemade rocket building.

You can build scales models of just about anything your imagination can come up with. Look at all of the models created to be used as special effects in Hollywood. The Tri-Corder (Star Trek), the advanced enemy stealth fighter (Firefox), and other first-of-their kind models, began in the builders’ imagination before being brought to life as scale models.

As scale modelers, we have the ability to apply our imagination and artistic impressions to our projects. Whether it be a fictional railroad short line, custom street rod or an aircraft with unique modifications or markings, the idea evolving from within our own imagination, can be scratch built and created as a three dimensional scale model. The picture at the right shows a finished model that began as a P-47 Thunderbolt, but was transformed to an Ariel Fire Fighter Director’s plane.

Let your ideas become the reality of tomorrow through scale modeling.