The Bloggers
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Following on from Knotmaker , which lets you draw 2d diagrams of knots, is Knottyer3d by Steve Abbott. This windows program generates 3d models that can be viewed or exported, and can even open Knotmaker 2d files and generate a 3d model from them.
For Founder's Day : I came across this postcard in a collection of Scout memorabilia. Drawn by Baden-Powell, this series of cartoons was first published in 1918. More information about the series is available in an article by William Hillcourt .
From The April 3 1952 edition of The Scout, p 549. Drawn by Les Saward
From p702 of the May 29 1952 'The Scout' - "Our recent article on the Kon Tiki Expedition evidently interested the 6th Kettering Senior Scouts who decided to make a model of the raft. Their effort is seen here on shot at the recently held Kettering Scout Exhibition."
Knotmaker 2.1 is a windows program for drawing knotting diagrams. It is developed by Derek Smith and Dave Root, and available as a free download. The software originated from discussions on the International Guild of Knot Tyers forum.
Drawn by Les Saward, from the May 22 1952 edition of The Scout
I wrote recently about the Shiang Yang 219 Kinta's Birds' Nest Stadium which was under construction in December. Construction is now complete, and the structure will be standing until the 19th of January. You can see detailed construction photos on the facebook page , and a day by day account on their blog.
Images courtesy of Facebook page Edmend Leong wrote in with this project being built by Shiang Yang Open Scout Troop 219 Kinta, Perak in Malaysia. The troop has previously built a 40m high tower, and this tower will be the largest pioneered structure in Malaysia when complete.
Here is a montage panorama covering 180 degrees of the interior of the top floor of the treehouse . You can see the following: the two trees (on opposite sides of the treehouse) to the left and the right in front of the right-hand side tree you can see the 'trapdoor' down to the lower floor
looking down the foefie slide Today I fought my fear of heights and climbed the 6m ladder up to the double storey treehouse . The six Scouts who slept there last night said that they were comfortable and felt safe up there last night.
The Patrol Leaders of 9th Benoni Scout Group have completed their treehouse after a week of construction at Arrowe Park . Last night and tonight they will be camping in the trees. There are two levels to the treehouse, one for the girl PLs and one for the boys.
After a break of a few years, the senior Scouts of my troop are building a treehouse in the same two trees we used all the way back in 2005 . Today, they did some technical training on climbing safety, and made short-spliced loops for Prussiking .
I posted a tensegrity tower project a few years ago, based on the tetrahedral tensegrity. Tensegrities are a type of structure where none of the poles touch each other, but are supported by a ntework of cables in tension. This new tower / gateway takes the form of the 6-strut tensegrity , with the pairs of parallel…
Veld lore, Autumn 1984 A few months ago, I blogged about a picture from the 9th Benoni Scout Troop logbook that showed a 120 foot tower . At the time, I didn't have any more information about it other than the date and the venue.
photograph by Chris Turner, 9th Benoni During the recent Jamboree on the Air/ Jamboree on the Internet, the Scouts from my home troop built this catamaran using two open canoes that we own. Although we're not a Sea Scout troop, we are lucky enough to have a hall and a campsite situated on a lake.
The fifty foot monopole tower I posted a few months ago requires five twenty foot (6 metre) poles. I wanted my troop to build 4 monopole, but we didn't have enough long poles. This slightly shorter version only requires three long poles, so should be in easier reach of troops with small pole racks.
The World Organisation of the Scouting Movement published an iOS app during last year's World Jamboree . In the course of the last week, the official Android app has also been released. These apps help you keep up to date with the latest news, pictures and events from WOSM, as well as letting you browse the…
From the Winter 1984 edition of 'Veld Lore', the Southern African Zone Scout Newspaper: A Suspense story... THE BRIDGE! By Andrew Friedemann, S.M. Outdoor Activities, 1st Hillcrest Scout Troop , Natal/Kwazulu area 6 p.m on Friday 30th March (1984) saw 35 Scouts from 1st Hillcrest leave their Scout Hall for a 4-hour night hike, negotiating two…
Three Rover crews from Gauteng built this pioneered biplane that will be on display at this weekend's AAD Aerospace and defense show at Waterkloof Air Force Base in Pretoria. Enigma, Irene and Prometheus Rover Crews spent the weekend building this sculpture which will be part of the Scouting stand this weekend.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems Maybe the last place you'd expect to get use out of the six basic Scout knots is on a multi-billion Dollar piece of equipment travelling across the surface of another planet. However, dfred over at the International Guild of Knot Tyers forum has noticed that the Curiosity Mars rover…
Our Scout troop recently built an obstacle course for the Cub pack to use. Each patrol was assigned an obstacle to build, which made for a good troop meeting, and the Cub pack enjoyed using the obstacle course so much that they have asked us to leave it up for another week to use again.
This three-story towerwas built by First Walmer Scout group in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and is featured on their excellent Youtube channel.
From the cover of THE SCOUT, No 2,313, August 21, 1952 sixty years ago this week: Cambridgeshire Senior Scouts with their entry for a Model Building Competition
Pioneering has always been part of Baden-Powell's vision of Scout training, from the first edition of Scouting for Boys (Chapter IV- Camp life- deals with huts, bridges, towers and lashings). BP would have been exposed to pioneering as a military discipline in the army- pioneers were engineers who moved in front of the main column…
Knoopenzo.nl (Knots etc.) is a Dutch website run by Theo Slijkerman, a member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers . The website has a number of very interesting knotting resources, including calculators for working out the amount of rope needed for a rope mat , a turks head and a braided ring .
From page 168 of the 1953 Scout annual, a tackle for anchoring and tightening an aerial runway rope. This appears in the same column as the other rough and ready tackle published here . John Sweet says: "An old friend of ours- 'Skip' of the 186th Bristol - has sent us a description of rough-and ready tackle…
Like the Bristol tackle , this is an alternative tackle for tightening ropes, from page 169 of the 1953 Scout annual. John Sweet writes: "Another idea based on the same principle would be to make a second rope fast to another tree at right angles to the runway and then throw a loop around the main…
This design was used by Northern District for their 2009 Pioneering competition (click the image to enlarge). The original link from the Gauteng Scouts website is broken, so I'm posting a copy here. The monopole is a 'bundle' of poles lashed together with round lashings (of the Dutch , German or conventional varieties) and guyed with…
A good multitool comes in very handy in many Scouting (and every day) situations. The difficulty lies in balancing between having a large tool that prepares you for every possible eventuality, and a lighter tool that includes most practical tools.
From the April 23, 1953 Scout magazine (page 681): In camp in Kirkcudbrught, Scotland, the TL of the Stamfordham village Troop built a catamaran and navigated it successfully across Brighouse Bay Brighouse Bay looks about 300 metres / 300 yards across , but it was still a brave Scout who crossed it on something like that.
images courtesy www.urbanrun.co.za The Nelson Mandela Bay Urban Run takes place in September in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Last year, the Scout groups of Nelson Mandela Bay built two obstacles- a monkey bridge and a tripod-based bridge , pictured above. They have been approached to build obstacles again for the race this year.
Pictures and notes from a summer camp, recorded in The Scout Annual, page 53 of the 1953 edition, dated 24 July 1952 (60 years ago last Sunday) "Summer camp is here again- so let's make a bridge! Senior Scouts of Culford School Troop bridge a stream at their camp site.
These drawings record four gateways from the Welsh Jamboree held at Picton Castle in August 1952. Drawn by G.R. Duce and published on page 200 of the 1953 Scout annual. Click the image to enlarge .
After the preview and the construction photos , here are some of my pics of the completed Isengard tower and a press release from Gauteng Scouts : SCOUTS showcase their skills at Gauteng Outdoor Eco Adventure and Travel Expo From the 8th to the 10th of June SCOUTS South Africa will be showcasing a 19m high tower…
View International Scout Rafting Map in a larger map Gauteng Kontiki is just one of many rafting events that Scouts hold around the world. This map attempts to summarise them. I've added the ones I'm aware of - please click through and add any more you know about.
The Isengard Tower (from Friday's post ) is well on it's way to completion, with the lowest two levels largely complete. All that remains to be completed tomorrow is the flag pole which will stretch to 18m in height. In addition to housing the Gauteng Scouts stand for the Eco Expo , three Rovers from Orion Rover…
Gauteng Scouts will be building a 12 meter high tower this weekend, which will be an attraction at the Gauteng Outdoor Eco Adventure & Travel Experience next weekend. Led by Terrence Vrugtman and Kent Jennings, this project has a website here .
Arrowe Park and the rafts of Kontiki 2012 as seen from the sky
UPDATE: the official results are available for download here . Ropes and Poles coverage of Kontiki 2012 at Arrowe Park : The main stage Pioneering project by First Benoni Sea Scouts On the Water First photos from the competition Swinging Derreck Rover construction project From the Air Photos taken by helicopter, and links to other blogs covering…
The fog rolled in at Arrowe Park this morning, and Koen Broumels from Phoenix Rover Crew caught these great pictures of the rafts in the mist - very appropriate for the Viking theme this year. All the rafts are now off the water, and troops are heading back to their halls after a great weekend.
Rafts at Arrowe Park, 10 second exposures...
Hennie, who manages the grounds at Arrowe Park , was lucky enough to arrange a helicopter flip over the lake this afternoon, giving him a great view of the rafts on the water for Kontiki . Closer to the ground, Joy was at the grounds running a challenge base, judging competition meals and watching the rafts on…
North West District Rover Crew built this project,a classic from John Sweet's Scout Pioneering book.
Thirty six teams are on the water at Arrowe Park for Kontiki 2012. After a navigation and mobility competition this afternoon, the teams are moving their rafts up to a sheltered bay for the evening. More pics to follow..
Kontiki 2012 is underway, 36 teams are busy building their rafts down at the waterfront at Arrowe Park , and will be launching on Saturday morning. I'll post more about the rafts later, but there is a structure down at the waterfront that I'm featuring now.
Gauteng Kontiki is coming up at Arrowe Park this weekend - here are some posts from previous years with a few last minute tips: Construction sequence drawings help everything to run smoothly on Friday night. Moving your raft around using paddles, oars, punting poles and paddle wheels.
1st Bothasig Rover Crew in the Western Cape, South Africa, have been trying out some new pioneering projects. Here is a scaled-up version of a Skylon flagpole that aims to be large enough to have a crows-nest / deck on top.
The Camel Raft is the simplest steel drum raft, using just two poles and four ropes. This project joins a series of two barrel camel rafts with poles and decks to make a floating bridge. The first module would have two barrels at each end, and would be anchored to the shore.
This photograph comes from on old Troop log book, and is from the 1984 Transvaal BP Parade. The note says "Northern world record tower" and it looks to be in the region of 40m / 120 feet high. Does anyone have any more information about this tower?
Today is Freedom Day in South Africa, a commemoration of our first inclusive elections in 1994. Here's a classic flag pole flying the South African Flag, which flew for the first time 18 years ago today. This 3m (10 foot) lath flag pole is suspended from four stakes (we use 20mm steel stakes, but you…
