Weekend Catch-up!

Its been a little while since I blogged so here is a catch up!

Two weekends ago we took the Black Forest Guides down to Sandringham to the Guide Scout Sailing Centre. It was a really cold and windy day, but Meg didnt let that stop her! She played with the canoes and paddle boards, and went sailing and for a ride in the Rubber-ducky rescue boat.

This weekend we went up to Maryborough with Tom's school to participate in the RACV Energy Breakthrough competitions. The Breakthrough is an exciting program designed to provide opportunities for students, teachers, parents and local industry to work together to design and construct a vehicle, a machine or innovation in technology that will represent an energy breakthrough. The program encourages participants to examine and use the latest technology while considering its impact on the environment and the way people live locally and globally. Tom's school had teams entered in the Pushcarts, Try-athalon (with human powered vehicles) and the Technology Innovations, which is the team that Tom was part of. They had to build a macro invertebrate that could travel along a trough of water under its own power (no batteries, fossil fuels etc). It also had to be able to transport a full can of soft drink.

Tom was appointed Team Captain which was a huge thrill for him, and made us very proud! He took the responsibility very seriously and did a great job! We tested the spider in the trough for the first time on Friday afternoon and discovered that it wasn't going to make the distance. It was powered by compressed air, but it couldn't hold enough air to make the distance. The team took the disappointment really well and were keen to continue and do their presentation etc.

There were apparently about 35,000 people in attendance for the weekend- and most were camped on 2 ovals! It was the tightest most jam packed camping I have ever done- and was not helped by the hole in our lilo which went flat the minute we blew it up- or the not friendly weather! Check out the clouds in these pics of the tent city on the oval!

There was a carnival set up next to the oval and all the kids had taken spending money so we went over and had some fun in between the rain periods!

On Saturday at midday Tom's team presented their Spider and presentation to a group of judges. They did very well, and then at 2pm they raced their spider in the time trial. There were several halts to the proceedings due to hail storms! Their spider made it further than it had in the trial, but stopped about halfway. Tom and Emma used their initiative and blew it the rest of the way- a technique adopted by many of the teams that followed them!

Despite the weather- Tom is keen to go back next year- and cant wait for his chance to get into the hybrid invention and take part in the 24 hour endurance event!

And now for my Scrapping post.... All of these feature the fantastic American Craft Papers and Thickers which are the MAN of the month at Scrap Therapy this month- and are all 20% off till the end of November!!