WFCF Farm Day
We had a great time at Farm Day, hosted by Waltham Fields Community Farm in Waltham, MA! Some pics of the event below:
The poster that we used at the event.
It was fun to find WFS on a chair!
I redid the 'energy comparison' poster from the previous Waterbear workshop to include a more reasonable amount of diesel (5 gallons, rather than 1/2 cup). Really gets across the relative energy densities! A PDF of the poster is here.
One of the first public trial runs of 'the nibbler' -- a nice little device for cutting sheet materials. Hoping to set this up in a more stable configuration soon!
Folks really liked playing with the 'solar-powered car' (left of picture). You can also see the 'electric wheelbarrow' prototype next to the chalkboard. More on that soon!
Folks really got into making solar-powered vehicles.
We repeated our 'Solar 101' trick of using a greenhouse side-roll-up motor to lift my backpack over a pulley. Here, we're powering it with a battery ...
And here, we powered the roll-up motor directly with a solar panel ... so that someone standing in front of the panel controlled it with their shadow. Fun!
I'd brought along a few hand drills, and kiddos found them and started using them immediately. Need to remember to have them always on-hand!
More fun walking the little 'solar car' (which is connected via wires to a solar panel).
Intense use of drills.
More hand-drill use.
Someone suggested that we could make a 'solar-powered boat' after seeing the little wooden boat prototype on the table. There was a search for a propeller (alas, I hadn't brought one).
Chris had meanwhile set up an amazing bike-powered apple masher and press. Stopped by quickly to have some apple cider!
The state of things post-event. Materials beautifully scattered everywhere by all the awesome experimentalists who stopped by ...
A little walk-through of the site.
Not very elegant, but lots of good material for prototyping!
'Join our skill-share co-op'!
The trailer packed back up at the end of a great day. Thanks WFCF!