Yellow Band: by Sea, Weeks 9 & 10

This week, let's check out some of the work we've been doing on our projects! Two of our bigger, group projects this arc have been a tugboat and a crow's nest. Because BOATS.Nathan started this arc with a big interest in tugboats because of the way that they are 'helper boats' in a harbor. These busy little boats are the experts of a port or harbor, tugging bigger boats in and out, and directing traffic through sometimes busy waterways. Which obviously goes perfectly with one of our favorite sayings over here in the Hive, "How can I help?"It was really important to the Red and Yellow Banders that they be able to go into their tugboat, and that it looked like it was above the water, like in real life. This meant that they would need to build a super strong frame to support a floor for a few people to stand on at once. And that meant they would need to use lots and lots of flat brackets. And they really really did it! Even though about 2 weeks of work consisted of just installing these brackets, they really stuck with it.The folks in the Red Band have spent some time learning about the international flag signal code, so Nicole was interested in building a mast of a boat to hang a flag from. And if we're building a mast, we should probably just build the platform to stand on so that we can spot storms, other ships and even land from far away. Ya know, a crow's nest! As we worked out our design, we knew we would need to use something in our space as an anchor, otherwise the crow's nest would need too big of a footprint in order to be stable. One day, paging through the David Macaulay book Underground, I realized that one of the big columns in our space would be perfect. They go down into the basement, making them just like the mast on a ship! This, plus a few tips from Gever (compress anchor beams to the column using ratchet straps, just like when building a treehouse!), and we were ready to turn our ideas into reality.These two projects are so close to being done we can almost taste it! Kiddos are already asking if the crow's nest can be a permanent part of our landscape, and I think it may be so well built that maybe we can say yes!