Pioneering poles around the world

Scouting has spread around the world (at last count, every country in the world except for 6 had active Scouts), and pioneering has spread with it, from forests to jungles to polar regions to open grasslands.

This map summarises the timber Scouts use for pioneering around the world. A post on the Ropes and Poles Facebook page, a thread in 1st Facebook Scout Group, and some Google searching were the sources for this map. If you have any information to add from your country, lease leave a comment on this post and I'll update the map.

Flashback: Tekes Esh - Pioneered Fire Sculptures

'Fire Writing' is an Israeli Scouting tradition for special occasions. Details, with instructions and drawings, are available in this post.

Abseiling platform - pioneered deck on a crane

Disclaimer: work at heights is dangerous. This activity was supervised by an IWH certified professional from SA Rope Access. All relevant safety procedures including fall protection plans should be followed for activities involving high structures


Last week I wrote about the tensegrity structures we built at Pop Bolton 2013 in Benoni. One of the other bases involved abseiling from a 16m platform on a crane. The platform was built in much the same way as a raft base would be built, then raised up on the crane arm and secured against the mast like you would against a tree (cranes are much easier to lash onto than trees; they are square and don't need to be protected from damage). The photographs on the left show the construction sequence.

Thanks to Mark Stevens for the photographs, and Greg Gardiner from SA Rope Access for running the base

Bunny Park tensegrity cube

This structure is based on the 6 strut tensegrity icosahedron, and is a relative of the tensegrity gateway I posted here before.

A few tips:
- All ropes should be anchored as close to the end of the struts as possible. If you're using bamboo or cane, it's a good idea to make a notch in the end of the spar so you can hook the cord over this
-If you plan on building this at a larger scale, I suggest practicing on a few scale models first
-Follow the sequence above to build this most easily.
-Keep an eye on the number of connections from each end to the others - when you are finished there should be f ropes from each end of every poles, for 24 in total

I have named this after the Bunny Park, a park in Benoni, South Africa, where 15 teams tested this structure out in one metre bamboo canes, as part of  Pop Bolton, a Rover competition that was hosted by Phoenix Rover Crew in June 2013. At left is a photograph of one of the teams, from Prometheus Rover Crew, with their tensegrity cube.

A one page instruction sheet can be downloaded here. The SketchUp model is here. Amazon has a physical kit for a tabletop tensegrity cube here.