{"id":290,"date":"2011-06-02T15:15:32","date_gmt":"2011-06-02T21:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/desertwind.us\/blog\/2011\/06\/whatever-floats-your-boat\/"},"modified":"2011-06-21T13:36:42","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T19:36:42","slug":"whatever-floats-your-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desertwind.us\/blog\/2011\/06\/whatever-floats-your-boat\/","title":{"rendered":"Whatever floats your boat!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alternatively entitled, \u00e2\u20ac\u01531001 Uses for Old Taekwondo Boards, Use #1\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Our son, like every other child in his Taekwondo class (so I hear), has an under-bed full of these boards. The sheer joy derived from breaking them evidently grants the boards immunity from ever<\/em> being discarded. This leaves us with a lot of boards which, incidentally, float.<\/p>\n

Materials for Propeller Raft:<\/p>\n

\n
Lightweight wood, such as balsa wood, or if you happen to be so lucky,\u00c2\u00a0board-breaking boards from Martial Arts class.<\/li>\n
Straightedge, such as a ruler. We used the edge of an envelope. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcCuz we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re flexible like that.<\/li>\n
Propeller \u00e2\u20ac\u201c ours came from the Party store, and is the type you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d find for 5\/$1.00 at the dollar store.<\/li>\n
Rubber bands<\/li>\n
Glue<\/li>\n
Screw Eye\/ Eye bolt<\/li>\n
Pocket knife, exacto knife… something sharp but non-lethal.<\/li>\n
Straw<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cutting a groove for the propeller in both sides of the wood (we used the straight edge to make, well, a straight edge for the groove):<\/p>\n
$\"IMG_0477\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
After Experiment #1 (aka Friction, or, Will the propeller shaft\u00c2\u00a0move more smoothly inside the wooden groove, or inside a straw? Straw, totally.), gluing a straw into the wooden groove:<\/p>\n
$\"IMG_0497\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Missing steps include (and not necessarily in this order):<\/p>\n
\n
Insert a screw eye into the end of one of the wood bits. If you look closely, you can see the screw eye underneath the straw in the above picture.<\/li>\n
Loop a rubber band through the screw eye.<\/li>\n
Glue, and when the glue completely fails to hold, rubber band the two bits of wood together such that the straw cannot come loose.<\/li>\n
Insert propeller shaft\u00c2\u00a0into straw<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/p>\n
Here, Andrew puts the rubber band around the propeller blade:<\/p>\n
$\"IMG_0504\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Twists, and then lets go:<\/p>\n
$\"IMG_0516\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
And to the tub, where we try for experiment #2 (or, Which will go faster, the raft with a truck, or without a truck?), and find out that Murphy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Law ALWAYS applies to experiments (it was very difficult for Boo to wind the propeller and balance the truck at the same time). Lucky kid, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t learn that lesson till grad school.<\/p>\n
$\"IMG_0555\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alternatively entitled, \u00e2\u20ac\u01531001 Uses for Old Taekwondo Boards, Use #1\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Our son, like every other child in his Taekwondo class (so I hear), has an under-bed full of these boards. The sheer joy derived from breaking them evidently grants the boards immunity from ever being discarded. This leaves us with a lot of boards which, &hellip Continue reading »<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[45,16,44],"tags":[89,90,97,88,87,95,86,96],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desertwind.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desertwind.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desertwind.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desertwind.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desertwind.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/desertwind.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desertwind.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desertwind.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desertwind.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}