Session 1 – Diary
Sunday – chores, arrivals, tinkering, games, dinner, acting lessons. We manage to pack a full days events into just a few hours. This is how it starts.
Monday – workouts, guitars, movie making, deconstruction, freeze-tag – just another day at Tinkering School.
Tuesday – all boats, all day.
Wednesday – we try our hardest to make big pinhole cameras, but the sun refuses to shine, and, we have underestimated the toll our day of boating has taken on the whole group (instructors included). Nevertheless, we manage to have some constructive fun.
Thursday – in a stunning recovery from yesterdays lethargy, we jam a whole days tinkering into one busy morning session and then head to San Franciso to have some fun in Adobe’s green screen studio. It’s specialeffectsalicious.
Friday – ok folks, it’s 3am here at the ranch and I’m just not capable of completely captioning the days media. I’ll try and get to it later today after the tinkerers have all been picked up by their parents. In the meantime, enjoy these scenes from our day building an eight person bicycle. Updated! I’ve fixed the broken video links (thanks for the catching that) and finished the captions. One of the cameras had the wrong date, so some of the pictures are out of order – we’ll get that fixed too…
Saturday – the finished movie preview, the working TinkerMobile, the sad farewells. Thank you all for watching. Stay tuned for Session Two starting Sunday.
How-to: Make a Bottleboat Submarine
One of the most popular boats at the Maker Faire Tinker Challenge was the submarine. Since the submarine is also the powerplant for many boat designs, we offer here, for your tinkering pleasure, the step-by-step instructions on how to make a submarine from recylced materials and a few simple tools.
Step 1. Collect your materials and tools.
 You’ll need: scissors, wire cutters (don’t be tempted to use your scissors – that’s just asking for trouble), pliers (for bending wire), utility knife (although it may be possible to do the cutting with your scissors – mine just don’t have a sharp enough point), a rubber band (make sure it’s at least big enough to stretch the length of the bottle), a piece of stiff wire, and a juice bottle.
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Step 2. Make a hole for the propeller shaft.
 Using the point of the utility knife, drill a hole in the center of the cap. This takes a little bit of practice, so don’t feel like you have to rush. Place the point of the knife where you want to make the hole, then lay the thumb of the same hand that is holding the knife on the flat side of the blade – this will help you brace the knife and give you a better “feel” for the work. Now, while applying light pressure, twist the knife back and forth. Don’t press too hard, just enough to get the point to “bite.”
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  As soon as the point comes through the cap, turn the cap over and widen it from that side as well. Remember, the hole is for the propeller shaft, so it only needs to big enough to poke the wire through.
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Sessions are all booked up!
Session 1 and Session 2 are officially booked up (with waiting lists!). Despite all of the flattering requests, we won’t be adding any more sessions this year. We are planning some one- and two-day events, but we haven’t settled any of the details yet. Thanks everyone! It’s wonderful to see such a demand.
Session 1 confirmed attendees: Nikhil, Piper, Fiona, Theo, Winslow, Harlo, Ozzie, Tywen
Session 2 confirmed attendees: Tyler, Sam, Theo, Azra, Hanna, Keegan, Maxine, James
Minimalist Design Wows Crowds
Adrienne wanted to keep her boat as simple as possible.
She started with two floats, like everyone else, then realized that one would suffice. Once she had one float, the larger pair of rubber bands was replaced with a single smaller band, then filled the motor compartment (juice bottle) with water and set a session record with her pared down design.
