We had our 2nd Castlemakers meeting upstairs in the Eli’s Books community room last week; it was the official shovercraft kickoff meeting. It started with a video of a simple home built ‘shovercraft’ someone built and then the kids discussed what might be needed to build one.
Then there was a small demo of a simple hovercraft made with a balloon, disposable water bottle, and an old audio CD (with lots of tape on it). The demo was a hit with the kids judging by the number of balloons used!!
The kids involved got to find out their team members (3 teams with now 4 kids each) and their adult mentor for the project who also helps them on the project. There are lots of possible designs and one of the first thing they’ll be deciding includes: what shape (circle? rectangle? boat shaped?), what type of ‘engine’ (or leaf blower), and chair/no chair. Plus lots of other items, including how to decorate it! Each person there got a notebook to draw and keep notes in – the young designers/makers took off from there.
Our next full group meeting will be on July 10th at 7pm to review how the designs are coming, although the individual teams will be meeting between now and then. We now have a goal for completed shovercraft and either a ‘who goes the furthest’ or hovercraft shuffleboard competition on August 16th or August 23rd – depending on our final location. There will be more information and updates later!!