Projects

Engineering

Home

About Us

Calendars

Newsletter

Computer
Corp

Self/Group
Determined

Projects

Committees

Mailing Lists

Files

Contact Us

Links

Aerospace & Rocketry

If there is an interest by enough older kids (gotta be 9yo by 4-H rules for this one) then we'll get this project going. Otherwise, it'll be on hold until the interested members are a few years older.

Bicycle

If you read the description, you'll note that actually riding a bike isn't required. I have no idea why and anyone taking this project will get credit for three projects - bicycle, health & physical fitness, and individual & group sports. I myself am a distance cyclist, my longest being a 50-mile ride over what felt like Mt. Everest, though how it got to Solvang I still haven't figured out :) But I'm intending to go with the interests of the members as to whether we'll focus on road cycling or mountain biking. If we go with mountain, there is a national non-profit group that is already willing to lead us on a few structured rides. If we go with road cycling, we'll be doing a couple of organized rides put on in the local area. We'll never do anything as a group that is longer than 10 miles, and we'll build up to that distance over the course of the year, and we will always go at child speed, which is about 7-8 mph sustainable. Outside of rides, we'll get together at least four times during the year for seminars on - bicycle selection, proper fitting and road safety, basic care and cleaning of your bike, basic wrench techniques (wrench is cyclist-speak for mechanic), and one on setting goals for your self and your training and how to meet them. So figure at least once they'll be touching on safety, twice on mechanical engineering type stuff and once on nutrition and health. As for bikes, whatever you got works for us though trikes may not be able to keep up. I personally ride a $70 Huffy gotten at K-Mart two years ago but it's seen about 2000 miles thus far so I'll probably upgrade to the $150 Cosco model soon - translation, you don't need a Trek :)

Electricity/Electronics

My dh is leading this project and is still hoping to find a willing co-leader to help out. He would prefer to start from the aspect of what do the members want to learn to do this year since he recognizes that many will be coming in with skills already beyond the 4-H curriculum for the first two years. Areas I know he'll be covering for certain include soldering, motors, switches and a project he has planned is converting model cars into electric ones. The project will meet monthly with stuff in between for the members to work on and, since dh is leading it, the meetings will be on the weekends.

Safety
This project is generally tied into other projects such as bicycle and electricity. So a lot of members will end up being able to participate in the safety project without almost no additional work. Just an FYI :)