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Introduction to my project

My Gold award has been approved!

I am going to start building for the Exploration Station.

What this entails:

My gold award project is to show communities that they can make an inexpensive play area and all the benefits to that.

I will be testing my idea on a nearby church. For this church I will be making: a rope bridge, some hanging bells made of stainless steel bowls, a wooden box to hold paper, drawing materials, and sensory items, a water drawing tablet made of black slate, and a DIY hut made of bamboo.

Here are my original drawings that I drew when planning the Exploration station.

Plans for making the Bowl-Bells
Plans for making the slate drawing tablet
Planning for the sensory box
Planning for the rope bridge

How to make your own Exploration Station (Building)

Now that you have all the materials here is how I built everything:

Rope Bridge:

1) Add the foot rope by using the clove hitch knot or bowline knot to tie to one tree then streach across to the other tree and tie it again.
2) Then starting from one tree get the hand ropes and tie it a bit higher than the foot rope. take the hand rope and wrap it around the second tree before bringing it back to the first tree and tying it off.
3) cut small sections of the support lines and starting at one hand line tie it off then streaching down to the foot rope, and wraping around the foot rope before tying to the other hand rope.

Natural Hut:

1) Collect bamboo from some source that you can get bamboo from.
2) Clean all the branches and leaves off
3) Attach the 2X6X12 to the tree using some line.
4) stack the bamboo on either side of the 2X6 to make a hallow space under the bamboo
5) Or lets the kids experement with the bamboo and making their own shelter

Bowl Instrument:

1) drill a hole in the top of the bowls
2) take the string and thread it in the top bowl then tie a knot big enough so the bowl doesnt slip through.
3) Thread the next bowl in and depending on how far apart you want to bowls to be, tie a knot to keep them at that length. Repeat until all the bowls are on the string.
4) take the spoon and drill a hole at the end.
5) tide the spoon to the end of the line after all the bowls are on with enough length to reach the top bowl.

Slate Drawing Tablet

1) Bolt the edge pieces to the base pieces
2) Put the slate into the frame
3) Bolt the scrap pieces to the frame
4) Bracket the shelf to the frame

Sensory box

1) Bolt the Shelves together
2) Bolt the sides together
3) Bolt the back piece together
4) Bolt the door together
5) Bracket the back to the side pieces
6) Hinge the door to the side pieces
7) Slide the shelves into the box
8) Bolt the roof together
9) Bracket the roof to the box
10) Add front pieces under and above the door

How to make your own Exploration Station (Materials)

This post has all the instrutions on how I built everything in the Exploration Station.

Materials needed:

  • Bowls instrument 
    • Set of 5 stainless steel mixing bowls
    • String or rope
    • Drill of some sort
  • Storage house
    • Fence pickets
    • Nails and or wood glue
    • Sensory items
  • Small shelter
    • Nails and hammer 
    • Stump
    • String or rope
    • Sticks (bamboo)
    • 2×6 pressure treated
  • Rope bridge
    • Rope 
  • Slate drawing pad
    • Piece of slate
    • Cup and brushes
    • Fence pickets

Here is where I bought or picked up everything:

Bowl Instrument
I purchased the bowls from: Amazon

And the thin colored rope is: Home Depot

Storage house

The wood used was cedar. Cedar does shrink, so if making repairs use older wood from off your own fence. You can replace them with new picket boards purchased from Home Depot or Lowes.  

Shelter

I used a pressure treated 2x6x12 to build the foundation, and it can be purchased from Lowes or Home Depot. The bamboo was donated from various garden homes in the Houston area. 

Rope bridge

The footrope was purchased : Hercules bulk ropes

The handrail rope was purchased: Amazon

Slate drawing tablet

The slate is just a piece of slate floor tile. I made a frame around it out of cedar fence pickets and tied it to a tree. Cedar does shrink.

Slate: Floor and decor 

All cedar from: Home Depot (fence pickets)

Delivery time!

I had finally finished the bells made from stainless steel bowls and the rope bridge! I delivered them to the church and people seem to like them already.

the bowl bells hanging from a tree with a wooden spoon as the mallet.
Me, posing in front of the completed rope bridge.

I’m excited to get working on the other pieces of the Exploration Station.

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