Imagine, if you can, a sunny warm Sunday morning in the quiet town of Chase Terrace, the Dawn chorus is pretty much the only sound gently floating across the slumbering neighbourhood. Lovely isn't it, that is, until Bracken, Spider and Oak try to gain entry into the scout HQ to prepare for the Great egg Race event, at which point we managed to set off the scout hut alarm and woke everyone around for a mile. What a great start. MORNING CHASE TERRACE, WE HAVE ARRIVED!!.
The Dads and Beavers start arriving and get greeted by the serene and calm looking leaders, little did they know of the behind the scenes issues our intrepid leaders were dealing with. Who? I ask you, forgets to buy bread when they are meant to be serving Bacon butties to around 40 hungry bellies, well, actually that may have been me, but hey ho, there's loads of shops open at 9am on a Sunday morning, isn't there? ;) So with tea and squash in hand, our beavers and dads ceased to be individuals and were forged into teams, allow me to introduce you.
With a short safety Brief and a description of the challenge our Teams set to work. Their Challenge was to build a vehicle from Junk, powered only by an elastic band to carry an egg, safely as far as possible. They were to be judged in Three Categories,
Distance - the winner would be the team whose vehicle safely transported the egg the furthest.
Aesthetics - The most beautiful of the team's creations would be lifting the cup for this category.
and Innovation - The team that tried something a little different or more complex would be taking this title.
The game was on and our Teams of Refuse Recycling and Assembly Technicians Rose to meet the challenge. This must be how it looks at Formula One Development Centres.
Distance - the winner would be the team whose vehicle safely transported the egg the furthest.
Aesthetics - The most beautiful of the team's creations would be lifting the cup for this category.
and Innovation - The team that tried something a little different or more complex would be taking this title.
The game was on and our Teams of Refuse Recycling and Assembly Technicians Rose to meet the challenge. This must be how it looks at Formula One Development Centres.
After a short refreshment break, where our engineers (note the promotion from technicians) were fed top rated brain nourishment foods (bacon or sausage butties, WITH BREAD, oh yes, and sauce, well known for their cerebral enhancing abilities) the teams knuckled down to some further assembly. Towards the end of our challenge time we found many teams were satisfied with their creations, so most of us moved outside to partake in some particularly difficult mind challenging, problem solving. (Basically, how to catch someone crawling around under a parachute on their hands and knees. (It's difficult, ok?))
After the particularly taxing time of Cat and Mouse, we all moved back inside to start the judging, with me acting as Master of Ceremonies, that left Bracken, Oak and Fox to judge the entries.
The first Category was straight forward, it was distance. Each team took their turn to step up to the line and launch their creations; Team Fendi took an early lead, and held the lead through the first leg. Notable entries were Team Tadpoles, who unfortunately were disqualified after trying to use a ramp they had created to assist the vehicle, and team Go - Go, who created the Polar express, which, although being our only articulated vehicle, were unfortunately disqualified due to trying to surreptitiously pull their vehicle along using fishing line, as found by our team of eagle eyed judges. Due to some false starts, bearing issues and brake problems our judges decided to allow a second leg to the challenge. Team fendi fell slightly short of their previous distance, but the earlier run still stood, the excitement was tangible, would they be beaten? most teams took their second attempt with only a couple retiring from this category. Unfortunately for team Fendi at the end of the second Leg, Team Jammy Doh-nuts took the lead after sorting their initial technical issues. They lifted the cup, with runner up going to Team Fendi.
The first Category was straight forward, it was distance. Each team took their turn to step up to the line and launch their creations; Team Fendi took an early lead, and held the lead through the first leg. Notable entries were Team Tadpoles, who unfortunately were disqualified after trying to use a ramp they had created to assist the vehicle, and team Go - Go, who created the Polar express, which, although being our only articulated vehicle, were unfortunately disqualified due to trying to surreptitiously pull their vehicle along using fishing line, as found by our team of eagle eyed judges. Due to some false starts, bearing issues and brake problems our judges decided to allow a second leg to the challenge. Team fendi fell slightly short of their previous distance, but the earlier run still stood, the excitement was tangible, would they be beaten? most teams took their second attempt with only a couple retiring from this category. Unfortunately for team Fendi at the end of the second Leg, Team Jammy Doh-nuts took the lead after sorting their initial technical issues. They lifted the cup, with runner up going to Team Fendi.
Our next category to be judged was the Innovation category, our judges took a stroll around each "Pit" area and took a closer look at each vehicle, they were taking the performance into account as well as any more subtle design features, after much deliberation our technical "expert" suggested that the runner up award should go to Team Swarm as, although they may not have worked, they did fit wings to their vehicle to reduce friction on the road. The judges decided there was only one contender for the first place prize, and that was Team Jammy Dodgers, for their WORKING! detachable drive unit. A genius idea which performed something like it was designed to.
Our final category was aesthetics, the judges had taken close looks at all entrants, and it turned out this was going to be the most difficult to judge, many of the entrants were fantastically decorated with many bright colours and many were sporting bows. It turned out to be so difficult to judge; our judging team sent out for extra runner up prizes and decided to place a tie for runner up. They were team Go-Go, who although didn't put in a working drive unit, definitley did put so much effort into the appearance of the Polar express, articulated egg carrier. They drew with Team chocolate star, who produced an egg carrying minibus of technicolor dream coat, design. In first place came Team Dinosaur Duo, whose entrant sported a beautiful fluorescent orange paint job, and dinosaur accessories, they even went to the effort of "gaining sponsorship" from a leading chocolate creme egg producer, for the vehicle. Well done guys.
I certainly hope that everyone that attended had as much fun as I did; I believe they did and from the look of sheer excitement on all those faces when I mentioned the possibility of next year's competition, I think it will, more than likely, be happening again. Although I think it is fair notice to say, next year will be a different challenge. ;D so until then,
Happy Fathers Day
Happy Fathers Day