"better (much) late(r) than never"
Complied by Dave Armstrong
Dave introduced him self as the colony contact Scouter of the 6 th North Park Scout group. He mention that Trent Kulbida was also a colony scouter. Both deal with Beavers primarily. Beavers are youth ages 5 to 7. Cubs are aged 8 to 10 and Scouts ages 11 to 14
Beaver Buggies
Dave showed a bare Beaver Buggy. They come as a kit with 5 wheels, 5 nails, a base with routed slots for axles (nails) and for a Beaver cutout.
Beavers primarily decorate their Beaver Buggies.
When finished Beaver Buggies should weight close to but not over 142 grams. This often requires added a significant amount of weight. Trent had taken our Beaver buggy kits and routed cavity in the bottom to allow for easily adding weights.
Kub Kars
Dave showed us a variety of Kub Kar built in past years.
Dave mentioned that the cubs design their own cars, usually scouters cut the wood block with a bandsaw or scroll saw. The cubs finish the cars up with paint.
The Kub Cars come in a kit with a wood block routed for axles, 5 nails and five wheels.
The Cubs are instructed to draw their design on the side of the block for the side profile and on the top for the top profile.
As an example one of our first year cubs wanted to make his care look like this pokemen character.
The first attempt a getting the profile would have resulted in no place to mount wheels.
So a piece of paper was taken and the side profile and then the cub drew the profile and top down view as show in the following image, refining the design until it could be built.
And here is the finished result.
Kub Kars have a maximum weight of 142 grams, most will need extra weight, sometimes the weights are hidden underneath and sometimes are exposed.
Kub Kars also have a maximum outline, for this purpose a "garage" that the car must fit into is provided.
Scout Semis
Scout semis are Scouts rendition of a semi tractor and trailer. The materials come in a kit, mostly flat panels of 1/8 inch material, and sufficient wheels and nails to build a semi. The maximum weight of the scout semi is 900 grams. It must articulate and the trailer must be able to disconnect from the tractor.
Some examples of scout semis are shown below.
Racing
All three kinds of vehicles have the same wheel track spacing, all race on the same tracks and mats. There are typically two elevated tracks, one for speed and one for distance, The there also mats that challenge the youth to push their vehicles to achieve a certain goal. The quality of the build and the youths skill have a significant effect on the results.
The scouts groups from around the city met in Lawson heights mall on the Saturday after this meeting to race. A good time was had by all.