An evening of competitions requiring some pioneering.

A few ideas for challenges:


The Long Wick

Equipment (per team):
6x 6ft Stave (about 1" diameter would do)
1x candle
1x table
1x taper
some tape to fix the taper onto the end of their contraption
some matches to light the taper
as much rope and string as they need

Place a candle on a table at least 3 metres away from a line.
The Explorers must light the candle on the table without crossing the line.

Be warned - wax may be spilt on the table and floor. Ideally set the candle on a disposable plate.



Waste Removal

Equipment (per team):
6x 6ft Stave (about 1" diameter)
2x buckets
1x long rope to act as a boundary
as much other rope and string as they need


Fill one of each teams bucket with the same amount of water.

Place another bucket inside an exclusion zone of about 1.5 to 2 metres in radius (or at least large enough so that no-one can reach the bucket from the edge).

Each team must transfer as much water as possible into the second bucket - nothing can touch the ground inside the exclusion except the bucket that is already there (look out for unscrupulous kicking in of the boundary).

The team who gets the most water into the second bucket wins.

The Trick
Unless they have had a go at this before, they will try and make some wonderful crane contraption.
Once they have spilt their water everywhere, it is time for the leaders to show them how to do it.

It requires only three ropes, pulled with equal tension at 60° from each other.
Once the bucket being carried is over the middle, one of the ropes is slackened so that the bucket tips, and the water should transfer with nary a drop spilt.

There will be protests about how you didn't use the poles - but then, there was never an instruction that they had to :)

Mini pioneering is great stuff, you practice knots individually on a small scale.

One good thing that I did on training earlier in the year is to construct something that would fire a bean bag, or similar as far as possible using garden canes, elastic bands, a small amount of string and a little sling. In small teams, this is a really good thing to do.

I remember, my group made the most ambitious design that consisted two A frames joined together with longer canes and we had the sling on a stick so we could hand fire it. THe other two groups were alot smaller in their design, as most of those groups contained mainly beaver leaders, wo don't do pioneering much - I had not done it since scouts - great fun.

catapults are great fun. you can use bamboo canes and elastic bands to start off with. you then till them that you can make this out of big poles and knots, so it gives them an incentive to learn there knots. worked well with the scouts i tried it out with.

The previous DESC/ESL ran a night of "micropioneering" - using dry spaghetti... the only thing he didn't manage was a trebuchet...

Micro! I thought mini was hard. As for dry spaghetti, we used to have loads left over from camps!

What did you use for the knots?

We've done micro pioneering with the Beavers. Use small marshmallows for the "knots". Stick the ends of the spaghetti into them.

Get the Beavers to try and build the tallest or longest structure they can.

i'm not sure... possibly just string... I'll ask him

Great idea!

missed that - excellent idea...

the only problem with marshmallows i can see is it will degenerate into "chubby bunnies"...

Beavers don't know about "chubbie bunnies" - at least my lot don't.

That was a great thing to do at scout meetings. We always had fun with it. Never did it myself though.

aahhh "chubbie bunnies" that brings back fond memories!!!!!

Something for the christmas party!!