'CatDrill' - quick pioneering with pre-drilled poles and light synthetic cord.

Catdrill 'lashing' details

'CatDrill' is an Italian technique for staving or lightweight pioneering, that involves preparing the staves to be used by drilling a small hole and notching the surface of the pole. Lightweight synthetic kernmantle rope is then used to tie the staves together, using stopper knots on the starting end of the rope, and simple slipped hitches to end the lashings. Their English website has a series of PDF documents that guide you through the basics, from preparing your poles, to the different types of lashings, and some basic projects. The original, Italian site has some more projects that are not yet translated into English, but the pictures speak for themselves.

image courtesy Scout Trento 1

According to the authors, they developed the technique for the following reasons:

CatDrill is born for solving the following problems:

• the price of the building material (wood) and the difficulties found to get it from the forester;
• the price of the rope;
• to avoid the hazard of moving heavy wooden poles (and the tools needed to work with them);
• to avoid ties, joints and toggle realized in the wrong way (we saw them too much times in pictures & co);
• to practice pioneering during our one or two days trip, doing it quickly and avoiding to use the ground both as a chair and as a table;
• to approach how a boy thinks, who wants to see concrete results as soon as possible.

1at Blairgowrie demonstrating Catdrill at Gauteng Region training workshop

Senior Scouts and Scouters from 1st Blairgowrie Scout Group recently introduced me to the technique and demonstrated it at a pioneering workshop at Arrowe Park towards the end of 2015. The technique saves time, produces strong structures and is worth investigating if you have some light staves/laths you can set aside for this technique.

There is a similar, more permanent technique called 'Froissartage' using carpentry jointing techniques which I have written about before.

Hat-tip to ScoutmasterCG and 1st Blairgowrie Scout Group.

Floating School in Lagos, Nigeria: Rafts in architecture

Image courtesy of NLE via their Makoko Floating School press kit.

Makoko is a floating slum neighbourhood in Lagos, Nigeria, built on stilts and rafts across the Lagos Lagoon. NLÉ is a Nigerian architecture firm who designed this floating school in 2013, to provide a teaching and learning space in this very crowded area. The solution wouldn't look out of place at KonTiki.

All images courtesy of NLE via their Makoko Floating School press kit.

While this project doesn't use lashings, it does make use of round laths, plastic drums and plywood, like a Kontiki raft. Here's some information from their press kit:

 The 220sq.m A-­‐frame or pyramid building is 10m high with a 10m x 10m base. It is an ideal shape for a floating object on water due to its relatively low center of gravity, which provides stability and balance even in heavy winds. It also has a total capacity to safely support a hundred adults, even in extreme weather conditions.

The building has three levels. The 1st level is an open play area for school breaks and assembly, which also serves as a community space during after hours. The 2nd level is an enclosed space for two to four classrooms, providing enough space for sixty to a hundred pupils. A staircase on the side connects the open play area, the classrooms and a semi enclosed workshop space on the 3rd level.

The simple yet innovative structure adheres to ideal standards of sustainable development with its inclusive technologies for renewable energy, waste reduction, water and sewage treatment as well as the promotion of low-­‐carbon transport. Furthermore a team of eight Makoko based builders constructed it using eco-­‐ friendly, locally sourced bamboo and wood procured from a local sawmill.

Construction began in September 2012 with floatation mock-­‐ups and testing. Recycled empty plastic barrels found abundantly in Lagos were used for the building’s buoyancy system, which consists of 16 wooden modules, each containing 16 barrels. The modules were assembled on the water, creating the platform that provides buoyancy for the building and its users. Once this was assembled, construction of the A-­‐frame followed and was completed by March 2013. Makoko Floating School is now in regular use by the community as a social, cultural and economic center and recently welcomed its first pupils who now use it as a primary school.

All images courtesy of NLE via their Makoko Floating School press kit.

Skylon Tower mk II- suspended tower by Bothasig Rover Crew

1st Bothasig Rover Crew previously built a suspended tower, which fell a little short of their own high expectations for it. Having conducted a thorough SWOT analysis of the construction, the crew headed out to Hawequas Scout Ranch to build an improved version.

After six hours' work for 16 Rovers and Senior Scouts, the new tower successfully stood suspended one meter off the ground. 

Here is an excerpt from the project report, discussing the overall objectives:

"Objectives  

In hindsight, our objectives could have been more precise in terms of how high we could raise the 

tower. Our objective was to simply outdo the Mk I tower in height raised and to do it without 

incident, which we did achieve with a raised height of 1m and no reported accidents. 

Considerations in achieving the objectives 

In the planning phase, it is possible to roughly predict the final height raised based on factors such 

as: 

• The height of the apex of the tripods in conjunction with the distance of the apex from the 

centre tower. These two factors have the greatest influence of the final height raised, and 

the remaining factors will merely maximise the geometric potential of the layout. 

o The higher the tripod apexes, the greater the potential is of the tower to be raised. 

Also, the greater portion of the pulling effort will be translated into a vertical 

component of force to pull the tower up (as opposed to the horizontal component, 

which is destructive in this case and should be kept to a minimal). 

o As with the previous explanation of the height of the apex, the same applies with 

the horizontal distance of the tripod apex to the centre tower. The closer the apex is 

to the centre tower, the greater the vertical component of the effort in the system. 

• The block and tackle ratios should be considered and based on the size of the structure, and 

the size/strength of your team.  

o We used a 3-2 pulley system, and had two people pulling on each of the 4 tackles. 

o This simply diagram should illustrate what kind of mechanical advantage (MA) you 

can obtain from each system. 

  

To work out the MA, you have to count the number of 

lines between the blocks and exclude the running end 

from the count. 

o The greater the MA, the better, but this will obviously 

be limited by the resources available to you. 

o We used a 3-2 pulley system which gave us a MA of 

5:1

• The man power is a consideration and should be maximised, especially if you are resources 

are limited with regards to the pulley system. With this construction, it is possible to have 

the team sub-divided to work on various components simultaneously.  

o If the size of the team is large enough, you can have people placing anchors, building 

the tripods, building the crow’s nest all at the same time. 

o When erecting the central pole, we had 40% of the team hauling on one guy line, 

50% lifting and supporting the centre tower, and 10% holding the opposing guy line 

to prevent any over shooting of the tower. 

o When raising the tower, we had two people per tackle and one person per guy line. 

Then we needed extra people to lock the block and tackles and to secure the guy 

lines. 

o We had between 9 and 10 people to build the structure, and 12 people to raise the 

structure. More would have been better because we had to let one person on one of 

the tackles to let go and run to lock the black and tackle, then tie off the line to the 

anchor, then those two from that anchor could assist everyone else, which is not 

ideal. "

10 years of pioneering projects

This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the first post to this blog. Since that first post, I've met people from around the world, online and in person, and been reminded of how Scouting connects us together despite our difference

Here are some of the most popular posts on the blog over the last ten years:
Step-by-step tensgrity tower
Step-by-step 24 foot treehouse
Enormous pioneered sculptures
Pioneered trebuchet
Friction-lock bridge

Things have been a bit quiet here lately, but there will be some new content coming up over the next few weeks...

Kontiki raft mass calculator

Gauteng KonTiki is coming up next weekend, and the Gauteng Scout Water Activities Advisory  Council, along with Puddle Pirates Rover Crew, has developed this Excel spreadsheet which helps calculate the mass of a raft, and ultimately calculate how deep a raft sits in the water. It takes into account the weight of poles, ropes, barrels, decking boards, equipment and crew to arrive at the total load which it then compares against the buoyancy provided by the barrels.

This tool is being offered for download at the KonTiki website for use by entrants to KonTiki, but hsould be useful to any Scout raft designers. Note that KonTiki is held on sheltered, still, inland waters, so the buoyancy is calculated with that in mind.

The tool is metric, but for rough estimation purposes for Imperial units, 1kg = approximately 2 pounds, and 100mm = almost exactly 4 inches.

Release notes from the website:

Alan Ford has arranged this tool as a safety measure to ensure that the raft being built will have sufficient buoyancy provided for by barrels, before being launched. This will aid you and also ensure that the raft is sufficiently manoeuvrable should you need to be towed by a rescue vessel.  
If you have any questions or would like Alan to review it, please e-mail it to alanford@global.co.za when you have populated the final version or bring it to Kontiki on a memory stick, Alan will go through it at the event.

Dissipate - tensegrity tower at AfrikaBurn 2015 festival

Dissipate is a project being planned by a group of architects and engineers (including a few former Scouts) for the upcoming AfrikaBurn Burning Man regional event near Cape Town, South Africa.

The tower consists of an hourglass tower with a tensegrity on top of it, gradually 'dissipating' into the sky. Here's the team's own description of the project:
 Dissipate represents the impermanence of life; how structures, whether physical or notional, tend to move, transform, morph and eventually deconstruct and dissipate.
We will be constructing the primary structure using traditional pioneering technology (poles and ropes). The artwork's main structure consists of two intersecting tripods (each approximately 4 meters in height). This structure is then clad in a series of angled planks that get spaces wider apart as they reach the top at which point the structure changes into a tensegrity (structure consisting of compression members held in space by tension wires) to give the illusion of planks dissolving into space.
The structure physically celebrates structure and the morphing from a primal and very basic structural system into a new and complex structural system.
 You can keep up with the project on Twitter and Facebook. Right now, they're in the last few days of their fundraising drive, so head over to their site and see what they're offering as rewards.

Raft Barrel Lashings

Kontiki season is picking up here in Southern Africa, with Windhoek, Namibia hosting their event this weekend, and the Western Cape hosting theirs next weekend.

The diagram above shows one way of fastening barrels that worked well for my troop. You can double up with a second rope starting at the opposite corners to make it really secure. Apart from the ropes, the spacing of your poles is really important to make sure that the barrel sits securely on the raft base.

 drawn on iPad Mini using Paper app and Just-Mobile AluPen

Merry Christmas from Ropes and Poles

Merry Christmas! If you're celebrating today, I hope you have a great day surrounded by family, and a blessed year ahead.

This tree is decorated with Monkey's Fists, tied in 8mm sisal rope, with eye-spliced ends.

Pioneered Christmas tree by Puddle Pirate Rover crew

Day and night photographs courtesy Akela Joy

For the East Rand District end of year Cub Christmas Camp, Puddle Pirate Rover Crew built this pioneered Christmas Tree. All of the guests at the camp bought gifts which were
used to decorate the tree and these were later donated to a charity.

Gift ideas- knotting and pioneering

With the festive season upon us, I've put together a list of pioneering-related gifts that you might find useful.

John Sweet's Scout Pioneering is a classic reference, and there are a few different editions in print. Your best bet is to hunt one down in a second hand bookshop, but there are a few online options.

The Ashley Book of Knots is the definitive reference to knots, and a great gift for someone interested in pioneering and knotting. Over 4000 illustrations cover everything from the simplest slippery hitch to complex decorative knots, splices and lashings.

Geoffrey Budworth's Complete Book of Knots is a smaller book that is easier on the pocket than Ashley's but still a good general reference.

Knotcraft: The Practical and Entertaining Art of Tying Knots (Dover Craft Books) by Paulette and Alan Mcfarlanis a useful little book- apart from guides to tying knots, it has some practical application tips, magic tricks, history and folklore. Also available as an eBook.
 
A multi-tool with a saw is a pretty useful tool for pioneering. I prefer the Victorinox models with saws- the Farmer , Camper or new Soldier.

The International Guild of Knot Tyers publishes a quarterly magazine and also offers a number of other publications. An annual subscription is available here.

Four resources I'm thankful for

(Although I'm not American, being thankful is something I can get behind, and today seems an appropriate day to reflect on some of the resources that have helped me as a Scouter over the years)

I've been fortunate to have great mentors, from Patrol Leaders as  a Scout, to Troop Scouters, Group Scouters and training team members who have helped me, challenged me and supported me as a Scouter. Today I want to talk about resources that are available to everyone that have been a great help to me.

The Dump
I was fortunate to inherit an extensive library in my Scout group, going back to the founding of the group in the 1940s. These old books have fantastic information, but they are not easy to find anymore. The Dump is a library of scanned PDFs of old Scouting resources, collected and curated by Scoutscan.com. Everything from BP's earliest, pre-Scout writing, to specific merit badge advice, is available here.

ScoutmasterCG.com
Clarke Green has been blogging since 2005 on Scouting, and gives sage advice, shares useful tips, and also has a weekly podcast that is very entertaining and informative. Clarke aims his advice at Scout leaders, no matter what capacity you are serving in, and has written a few books in addition to the blog. The Index is a good place to dive in to nine year's worth of material.

Akela's Cubs
Joy was the Pack Scouter during most of the time that I was Troop Scouter at Ninth Benoni, and we started blogging within a few months of each other. Joy blogged the day's Pack meeting every week for years, and this blog collects these meetings as well as many other ideas for camps and outings for Cubs.

Scouts South Africa library
South Africa was one of the first countries in the world to have Scout Troops, and the oldest group in the country dates back to 1908. This collection of books includes some stories of B-P's adventures in South Africa, great resources for teaching, and a glimpse into how the programme is run here in South Africa. The pro-plan charts are a collection of posters for teaching all of the basic skills in the Scouting programme.

Sandringham JOTA JOTI 2013 Tower

The largest annual Scouting event in the world, The combined Jamboree on the Air and Jamboree on the Internet, starts today. Around 700,000 Scouts and Guides from around the world are participating.

Last year, this tower, designed and built by Sandringham Scout Group in Johannesburg was voted the best JOTA tower internationally out of all the entries for the weekend.

Some more shots from my FormIt model (downloadable here):

Obstacle Course by Carpe Diem Scout group in Arendonk, Belgium

Scouts Carpe Diem Arendonk in Belgium built this obstacle course structure outside, around and over their Scout hall. This timelapse shows the construction process:

While these photos from their Facebook page show the structure in use:

Building your first treehouse

A simple treehouse, 6 feet off the ground in a willow with multiple stems.

Tree houses are a fun and challenging pioneering project (if the safety rules of your Scout Association allow them) that provide a memorable adventure. But starting with a 9 metre high platform isn't easy. This post will discuss the basics of building a treehouse and how to get started.

Choosing a tree
For any tree house, and especially your first one, selecting a tree that has a few branches radiating out at the same level will make things much simpler. For a first treehouse, a tree like a willow that splits low down is ideal.

Building a treehouse
The starting point, and the part that will probably take the longest, is getting your first pulley established to raise everything else up. A heaving line, with a weighted bag, beanbag or other weight with a lightweight messenger line will help you get the first ropes up. You can then use the first rope you establish to Prussik up and place a pulley for raising items up. Everyone working at height should be using harnesses and fall protection measures.

Rigging and raising the first pole is your next task. Once it's in place, and lashed onto the tree using hessian or padding, you can raise the rest of the base poles up and set them in place.

Having established the base, the next task is to get safety railing and any roof or other superstructure up. In my experience, you can expect to spend about a third if your time getting the pulley in place, a third of the time on the first two base poles, and the final third on the rest of the structure.

Hourglass Tower at Oppikoppi festival

Following on from the Belgian music festival last week, Oppikoppi is the largest music festival in South Africa, held annually on Northam Farm.

1st Northam built this tower for the 2014 festival, and the five minute time lapse by Donald van der Westhuizen shows how it was built. The tower was put up by building it completely on the ground (method 1 according to this post) by this team:

Pioneering at Pukkelpop festival

image courtesy Universiteit Hasselt

This pioneered structure at Pukkelpop 2014 in Belgium was seen by thousands of people during the annual music festival. Designed by Jakob Ghisjebrechts, it was built with the help of Gouw Limberg, a regional Scouting organization in Belgium

design model. Image courtesy Universiteit Hasselt

The pavilion was designed as part of the first year architecture programme at Universiteit Hasselt, and was the winning entry by student Jakob Ghijsebrechts. The pavilion was home to Salon Fou, a hair salon for people at Pukkelpop to get a festival haircut. You can listen to an interview with Jakob (in Flemish) on Youtube here.

image courtesy Universiteit Hasselt

(I've already told you that speaking Dutch or Flemish is good for your pioneering skills)

Bamboo Scaffolding- government guidelines for pioneered structures in Hong Kong

Photo courtesy David Boté Estrada

Bamboo has been used for centuries to build scaffolding in East Asia, and is still in use today- everyday pioneering visible in every city. Where there are industries, there are standards, and the Hong Kong government publishes the document Guidelines on the Design and Construction of Bamboo Scaffolds, which regulates every details of how bamboo should be used in scaffolding there.

Figure 1 from Guidelines on the Design and Construction of Bamboo Scaffolds

Amongst other things, this regulation controls:
The type of bamboo-

The commonly used bamboo types are Kao Jue and Mao Jue. They should be 3 to 5 years old and air-dried in vertical positions under indoor condition for at least 3 months before use. The nominal length of both Kao Jue and Mao Jue is 6 m. 

Shear lashings for joining poles-

the distance between two knottings on the overlapping portion of the bamboo members should not be greater than 300 mm, and the tail of one bamboo member should be connected to the head of the other. Diagram 9 illustrates the proper connection of bamboo members for bracings/rakers, ledgers, posts/standards used in a bamboo scaffold.

And even inspection for quality control- 

Bamboo is a natural material and it expands and contracts as the moisture content changes. Proper workmanship, close supervision and frequent inspection are required to ensure the structural integrity of the bamboo scaffolds.

 While these regulations might not apply in your country (and might even allow for structures that are illegal/not suitable for Scouts in your country) they are an interesting read if you are looking at building large pioneered structures. 

WASP - West Australia Scout Pioneering

West Australia Scout Pioneering is part of Scouts Australia's West Australia Adventurous Activities team. The team runs a pioneering course aimed at Venturers, Rovers and Scouters, and also offers their services putting structures up at community events. I have featured the pioneering course before, with some photographs of an hourglass tower built by them, but the video below of the Perth Royal Show shows the bridge they have built here for the last few years (around 2:50)

WASP are active in Western Australia, Ploeg Technieken teach pioneering in Belgium- are there any specialist pioneering training teams active in your part of the world? Tell us about them in the comments

9m (30 foot) abseiling tower on the Tropic of Capricorn

Photos courtesy 1st Polokwane Scout Group

1st Polokwane are a Scout troop in Polokwane, a South African city right on the Tropic of Capricorn. This 9m abseiling tower is a Springbok Scout construction project led by Courtney, one of their senior Scouts. These photographs show the construction process during the recent South African school holidays.

Photos courtesy 1st Polokwane Scout Group

Safety standards in your Scout association may not allow this type of construction ( for example, the American BSA Guide to Safe Scouting limits pioneering project platform height to 6 feet). Note that in all the photographs above, Scouts working at height use harnesses and a fall protection plan)

1st Polokwane have been competing in Gauteng KonTiki for the last few years, and also have a few Scouters who are also radio amateurs, so they take part in JOTA/JOTI every year. Listen out for their callsign ZR6PS

Pioneering as community service: permanent bridge by 1st Blairgowrie

Today is Nelson Mandela's birthday. Over the last few years, South Africans have been encouraged to spend 67 minutes of the day serving the community- signifying the 67 years Mandela gave in service to the country. This post looks at a permanent pioneering project that serves the community.

I was running through Delta Park, a large municipal park near my office, a few weeks ago when I noticed a Scouts South Africa notice pinned to the foundations of a bridge.

1st Blairgowrie Scout Group are responsible for this project, which is being led by James, a Springbok Scout candidate. The bridge is being built to offer an additional crossing point for the stream that flows in this part of the park, making it safer for the cyclists and pedestrians using the extensive trail network: the park is very well used, especially on a Saturday morning. Work has progressed in the last few weeks, and as you can see, only the decking and access ramps remain to be completed.

A few things are noteworthy:

• the materials for the project are being funded by donations from the local community, who are active in assisting with improvements to this park.
• the poles being used are stripped and treated gum poles, from local eucalyptus plantations. These are the cheapest and most widely available pioneering poles in South Africa.
• bolts have been used instead of rope to make this structure more permanent. Is it still pioneering? I think so.
• A final piece of trivia that links this bridge to Baden-Powell's friend, Rudyard Kipling, who wrote the Jungle Book: the stream it crosses is a tributary of the 'great grey-green greasy Limpopo' from the Just So stories.

UPDATE: Further down the same river, 1st Bryanston Scouts have just opened a bridge for pedestrians and cyclists- photos courtesy Johannesburg Parks.