Tioughnioga District 1993 Fall Camporee
"Where No Scout Has Gone Before"

Station Writeups


Station A
Jamboree on the Air

Station guide instructions - see the attached sheets for details of the JOTA operation, frequencies, etc.

Visiting Scouts should be given a brief introduction to ham radio and the details of the station and the JOTA. The aim of the JOTA is to get the Scouts on the air as much as possible. Try (consistent with 3rd party traffic rules) to put the Scouts on the mike, even if only to say "hello". They will be mike-shy at first, but should get used to it.

The JOTA game this year involves building a weather map by exchanging weather reports. Find out as much as possible about the weather at the other station's location, and have a Scout fill it in on the map (using water-color markers only!!!).

Give each Scout who talks on the radio a participation certificate.

Camporee scoring: Be sure to note on the score sheet that a patrol has visited the JOTA station. They will get credit for the visit, so long as they get the introduction and stick around for a contact or two. There is no minimum or maximum time, but Scouts should understand that they will not receive any points if they just poke their noses in and leave.


Station B
"Encounter with an Alien"

Patrol Instructions:

Your patrol is hiking in the woods, when you see a bright flash and hear a loud whoosh. You look up and see a space ship, disguised as an unused latrine, landing just up ahead.

Just ahead on the trail you will find the spaceship. One of the occupants of the spaceship is sitting just outside. You must figure out a way to communicate with him and learn as much as possible in the time before he has to take off again (about 20 minutes).

Specifically, you should try to find out:

- Where is he from?

- How long did it take to get here?

- How many are there on his ship?

- What facts can you find out about his background:

his planet and solar system?

his people and culture?

anything else about his world?

 

Station Guide Instructions

You are to play the part of an alien (see the patrol instructions). You may communicate with the patrol only by using the horn provided, and by means of any "alien body language" you can manage. Under no circumstances may you may any vocal sounds or human gestures at all. That is, do not nod or shake your head for yes or no, shrug, etc. You may want to come up with some way to impart lack of understanding. Numbers may be indicated by multiple honks. You should use the following code for "yes" and "no":

1 honk = "YES" 2 honks = "NO"

The patrol will have to figure this out - they will not be told. In order to insure that all patrols are working toward the same set of facts, stick to the following "background". You can embellish this if absolutely necessary, but do not contradict any of these "facts".

- You are from the planet "Tralf", which is one of ten planets circling the star "Polaris" (the North Star). Your planet has three moons, and is mostly covered by an ocean made up of water and ammonia. The gravity on Tralf is approximately half that of Earth, and the days are twice as long. The years are also twice as long as ours. The temperatures during the day are above 0°C (the freezing point of water). At night, the temperature falls below the freezing point of CO2, so that all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere falls in the form of dry ice snow, and the water in the oceans freezes to icebergs, leaving the ocean as almost pure ammonia.

- Your people are called "Tralfans". There are approximately 3 million Tralfans on Tralf.

Tralfans have four sexes - The "blog" takes the eggs from the females and the sperm from the males and incubates them. The blogs give birth to a larval form, which is fed and cared for by the slugs for about 3 years, until they pupate and emerge as adults. If you can get this across to Scouts with honks, you're pretty darn good.

Tralfans live for 200 years. Because they require a high level of atmospheric carbon dioxide to live, they are active only during the day, and hibernate at night when the CO2 falls out.

Your name is "Zaphod". You are a 90 year old blog. You have 3 mates and 15 offspring, of which 4 are girls, 8 are boys, 2 are blogs and 1 is a slug. You are a medical doctor by profession.

The Tralfans live on huts built atop giant weed mats floating in the ocean. These weed mats cover most of the temperate zones of Tralf. Tralf is ruled by a king, who is always male, and a queen, who may be female, blog or slug.

The trip from Tralf to Earth took 2 Earth Years (one Tralf year). There are 12 in the crew.

There are no Boy Scouts on Tralf.

Scoring: 20 points, subjective - give points based on method, teamwork, how much information they get, etc.


Station C
"Logan's Run"

Patrol Instructions:

This is an obstacle course and relay race. Each member of your patrol must run the obstacle course, completing each obstacle.

Because there is no gravity in outer space, each runner must remain tethered to the safety line using the space clamp. Do not drop the space clamp at any time.

This is a timed event. The clock will be started when the first Scout leaves the start line, and will be stopped when the last Scout crosses the finish line. No Scout may leave until the Scout before him has crossed the finish line and passed the space clamp to him.

The total time for the patrol will be divided by the number of Scouts in the patrol, giving an average time.

Total points will be determined by your patrol's average time as compared to the other patrols in the camporee (top patrol will get 20 points, last patrol 1 point, and the others spread in between).

Station Setup Notes: use a macrame ring or large "D" ring or carabiner the like as "space clamp", run twine through loop. If clamp is continuous, put D-rings on ends of twine, so can easily remove loop at end of run.

Specific Obstacles:
run through tires
follow line around/under trees
climb ladder
toss ball into basket
over/under/through obstacles
balance beam
stick tied through line
water gun through hole into cup
jump chasm


Station D
Engineering Problems - 1

Patrol Instructions:

A. Reactor Fuel

Your spaceship needs refueling. As you are no doubt aware, it runs on nuggets of Purchasite, a highly toxic and radioactive material found only on the planet Lincklaen. You've landed on the planet and found a supply of Purchasite. Note: this camporee was held at Camp Purchas in Lincklaen, NY - change names accordingly.

The fuel nuggets are in a pile in a special breeder reactor, which allows them to be stored in larger than normal quantities. Outside the reactor, however, no more than three nuggets of Purchasite may be carried together. If there are more than three nuggets together they will undergo chain reaction and transmute to pond slime.

The nuggets must be transferred to the reactor vessel in your ship. The refueling station manager will show you the materials you may use to transfer the fuel. You must complete the transfer of as many nuggets as possible in 10 minutes in order to take off within the launch window allowed by Spaceport Control.

Your patrol will earn points based on the number of nuggets transferred, the ingenuity of the method used, and the teamwork and organization shown.

B. Save the AGBear

You are exploring a new world on a survey mission for the Federation of Planets. An AGBear member of your crew has wandered off from the ship. The AGBear are a non-human race who closely resemble Teddy Bears. They are extremely intelligent, if impulsive, and evolved on a desert planet. The AGBear react very badly to the presence of liquid water, which has much the same effect on them as sulfuric acid to a humanoid.

Their internal organs are very fragile. They have no skeleton, but use "stuffing" in its place. This allows them to be soft and cuddly (their only defense mechanism), but also opens them up to injury if roughly treated.

You find the AGBear marooned on an island in the center of a tidal pool. The tide is rising, and the AGBear will be wet in 10 minutes. Save him! You may use any materials provided, or which you have brought along.

You will be rated on speed of rescue, number of attempts required, whether or not the AGBear survived, ingenuity of solution, and the teamwork and organization shown.

Materials:

A. String, can or pot with bail, rocks or marbles or pieces of wood as "nuggets"

B. Teddy Bear, something for the bear to sit on (inverted bucket), sticks or staves, twine or rope

Scoring: Each half, 10 points, subjective as described


Station E
"A Fall of Moondust"

Patrol Instructions:

The surface of the Moon is mostly rock and compacted sand and gravel. However, some areas are filled with a fine dust formed by the heating and cooling of the lava which flowed out from the asteroid impacts which formed the great craters of the moon.

In these areas, a common form of transportation are moon boats, which cruise the moondust much in the same way as hydrofoil boats do on the waters of the Earth.

It is important that the moonboats avoid the obstacles in their way, such as pits under the dust which could swallow a boat, or rocks and dust-free areas which can damage the propellor or foils which suspend the boat. The moonboats must thread their way between the obstacles and along a route through the craters, mountains and rilles (valleys) from base to base under the control of Lunar Traffic Control in a satellite in synchronous orbit.

Your patrol members are the crew of the moonboat Selene, out of the American colony "Luna City" en route to the Russian colony "Novy Leningrad".

The patrol will line up, blindfolded, along the keel of the Selene (an 8 foot 2x4 plank).

The patrol leader is Luna Traffic Control, and must guide the Selene through safe moondust from Luna City to NovyLen, through the craters, mountains and rilles, without coming to grief on any of the obstacles.

The patrol leader must remain at his location in synchronous orbit, and may not follow the Selene or touch any part of the boat or crew at any time.

This is a timed event. You are competing against all of the other patrols. Each time the Selene touches an obstacle, 10 seconds will be added to the time.

Good Luck!

(Based on the book "A Fall of Moondust" by Arthur C. Clarke)

Materials: 8 foot 2x4 or equivalent length pioneering pole, blindfold material. If available, a pair of walkie-talkies.

Station Guide Instructions: Do not let the patrol leader leave his position or touch the group. If you have walkie-talkies, give one to the patrol leader and one to a Scout on the moonboat.

Scoring: Record total time for each patrol (including actual time plus penalties). When all patrols are through, give 20 points to lowest time patrol, fewer points to each succeeding patrol.


Station F
"Different Worlds for Very Different Folks..."

Patrol Instructions:

All creatures on Earth evolved to fit into their Earthly environments. As different as you may seem to be from a shark or an eagle (as opposed to an Eagle, which you might be), you are more like them than any inhabitant of Earth would be like a creature which evolved on Mercury or Jupiter.

You will be presented with a number of planets invented by various science fiction authors which present very strange environments.

Choose at least four of the planets and work through the following general questions for each:

You may divide up any way you like, or work on the problems as a team. You will be judged on the thought and creativity shown by your answers, and your patrol's organization and attitude. Scientific knowlege beyond what is given in the problems is helpful but not essential. When you're done, you will get a handout to compare your solutions with those the authors who created the planets came up with.

Science-Fiction Note: Sorry, Star Trek fans, but Mr. Spock's earthling mother Amanda and Sarek, his Vulcan father, could no more interbreed and produce Leonard Nimoy than you could produce purple children by marrying an eggplant.

P.S. The afternoon station "After Man - What?" is concerned with the same general subject as this station. You may wish to consider this when choosing your afternoon activities.

Planet 1: From Cycle of Fire, by Hal Clement

The planet Abyormen is in a double-star system in the Pleiades. It occupies a very elliptical orbit around the red dwarf star Theer, which itself orbits the larger blue giant sun Alcyone. The planet thus has a "short year" around the dwarf, with the usual seasonal changes, and a "long year" of about 65 Earth Years in length.

For half the "long year" (or about 32 earth years) at a time, the planet is more or less Earth-like in climate, although it can get fairly cold at the most distant part of its orbit. However, as the planet approaches the giant star in its orbit the temperatures rise well above the boiling point of water for 20 earth years.

 

Planet 2: From Close to Critical, by Hal Clement

The planet has an average daily temperature of 212°F (100°C) - the boiling point of water. During the day, the temperature is 220°F-240°F and all water is gas (steam). At night the temperature drops to 190°-200°F and all water condenses into liquid.

 

Planet 3: From Mission of Gravity and Starlight, by Hal Clement

The planet Mesklin is very large, and thus has a very high gravity - 700 or more times that of Earth. However, the planet spins very rapidly about its axis, so that a day is only 90 minutes long. This means that the gravity is that great only at the poles - centrifugal force lessens the gravity as one approaches the equator, so that the gravity at the equator is only about three times Earth's. Its oceans are methane, and it snows solid ammonia.

Points to think about: How might the Mesklinites view their strange world? What effect might these conditions have on Mesklin's weather patterns? What about the Coriolis effect on such a rapidly spinning body?

 

Planet 4: From the "known space" universe by Larry Niven, including the novel Ringworld and various short stories.

The "Outsiders" live in the vacuum of outer space. They travel from star to star following the "starseeds" and trade information with the cultures they meet along the way.

Questions: How can the "Outsiders" live? What kind of structures might they build?

Planet 5: From The Ship Who Sang, by Anne McCaffrey

The planet Beta Corvi is a gas giant planet much like Jupiter. There is no solid surface at all, but just a very deep atmosphere of methane and ammonia and other gasses. The atmosphere gets increasingly dense and hot as you approach the center of the planet. Although the various gasses in the atmosphere will tend to separate into layers, tremendous storms (like Jupiter's Red Spot) can occur and mix the gaseous layers together. The gravity at the center of the planet is very high - many times Earth's - but at the edges of the atmosphere there is very little gravity.

 

Planet 6: From "Flare Time," a short story by Larry Niven

The planet Medea is in a triple star system: the red giant star Argo, and two red dwarfs. The planet's rotation matches its year around Argo, so that it keeps one hemisphere (the "Hot End" - temperature above the boiling point of water) toward Argo, and the other hemisphere (the "Cold End" - cold enought to freeze carbon dioxide) always in darkness. Air and water are heated in the hot end, flow constantly to the cold end as high-altitude winds, and then cool and flow back at the surface. Humans can live in the twilight zone between ends, where it is always about as dark as a moonlit night on earth. The planet's libration (wobbling in orbit) allows Argo to rise a little above the horizon and set about once an earth week, and the two dwarfs rise and set conventionally. However, at unpredictable times the dwarf stars have enormous flares. During a flare, the star becomes many times brighter than Earth's sun for a period of less than a day.

 

Planet 7: From "Nightfall", a short story by Isaac Asimov

The planet Lagash orbits six suns. There is always at least one sun in the sky at all times, except for one day every two thousand and fifty years when all but one of the suns sets, and that sun is eclipsed by Lagash's moon. For this one day, the world experiences night.

Points to consider: What effect would the one day of night in two millenia have on the inhabitants? What would they think of the stars, which they otherwise could not see?

 

Planet 8: From the West of Eden trilogy, by Harry Harrison

"The first dinosaurs appeared on Earth just over 205 million years ago. By the time the first sea-filled cracks were appearing in Pangea 200 million years ago, the dinosaurs had spread all over the world, to every part of the first giant continent that would later separate into the smaller continents we know today. This was their world, where they filled every ecological niche, and their rule was absolute for 135 million years.

"It took a worldwide disaster to disturb their dominance - a ten-kilometer-wide meteor which struck the ocean and hurled millions of tons of dust and water high into the atmosphere. The dinosaurs died. Seventy percent of all species then living died. The way was open for the tiny, shrew-like mammals - the ancestors of all mammalian life today - to develop and populate the globe.

"It was galactic chance, the dice-game of eternity, that this great piece of rock hit at that time, in that manner, and caused the global disturbance that it did.

"But what if it had missed? What if the laws of chance had ruled otherwise and this bomb from space had not hit the Earth? What would the world be like today?"

Station Guide Instructions:

Let the patrol choose four planets. Have them imagine the inhabitants of each, and encourage them to draw what they might look like.

This is a thinking exercise, and there are no right answers. Be prepared to discuss the possibilities with the patrol, if they appear stuck - but don't telegraph answers. Guide them into thinking, don't think for them.

Scoring: 20 points, subjective - give full credit if they gave serious thought to the problems, deduct for easy outs, skipping work, disorganization, etc.

Handout Text: The following describes what the authors came up with for these worlds. To be given to each patrol after they complete the problems.

Here is how the writers who created these worlds solved the problems:

1. Cycle of Fire (Hal Clement): There are two completely different forms of life on Abyormen. One is more-or-less humanoid, and lives during the cool times. Almost all of them are the same age, because they all die off when the temperature rises above a certain point. The only exception are the "Teachers", who survive the hot time in ice caves near the poles, to pass on civilization to the next generation. When the hot time comes, the cool weather types die, and from their cells arise a starfish-like six-tentacled hot-time creature. They, in turn will die when the cool time comes again, except for their own Teachers, giving rise to the next generation of humanoids.

2. Close to Critical (Hal Clement): At nightfall, the atmospheric water condenses, and fills in all the low points. The natives become dormant at night, staying under the pools of water for protection.

3. Mission of Gravity (Hal Clement): The Mesklinites are expert sailors and traders on their methane oceans. They are fifteen inches long, and crawl on thirty-six legs. The enormous gravity as they head toward the poles makes the concept of throwing anything hideously dangerous. "If I were to throw anything at home it might very well land on someone - probably me. If something is let go - thrown or not - it hits the ground before anything can be done about it," says Barlennan, a Mesklinite ship's captain. If a Mesklinite from the Southern Hemisphere were to throw something, it would curve sharply to the left because of Coriolis effects. The same effects result in vicious storms as sinking air flows from the equator to the poles. The Mesklinites only live in the Southern Hemisphere - they believe they live in a great bowl, with the pole at the bottom.

4. Ringworld (Larry Niven): The Outsiders appear in a number of Larry Niven's books. "The Outsiders were traders of information... Their trading ground was the entire galactic whorl... Presumably they had evolved on some cold, light moon of a gas giant. Now they lived in the gaps between the stars, in city-sized ships whose sophistication varied enormously, from photon sails to engines theoretically impossible to human science. Where a planetary system held potential customers, and where such a system included a suitable world, the Outsiders would lease space... Half a century ago, they had leased Nereid (Neptune's moon). Nereid was an icy, craggy plain beneath bright sunlight. The sun was a fat white point giving off as much light as a full Moon; and that light illuminated a maze of low walls...". Speaker-to-Animals, hovering hugely behind Louis, said "I would know the purpose of the maze. Defense?" "Basking areas," said Louis. "The Outsiders live on thermoelectricity. They lie with their heads in sunlight and their tails in shadow, and the temperature difference between the two sets up a current. The walls are to make more shadow-borderlines."

5. The Ship Who Sang (Anne McCaffrey): The Corviki look like giant manta rays. They swim in the dense atmosphere, and live on the tremendous surges of energy caused by the temperature differences in atmospheric layers. They have developed powers to control energy expenditure, and use it recreationally.

6. Flare Time (Larry Niven): Every few miles, the ecology of Medea changes as one travels from the Hot End to the Cold. The dominant intelligent life form in the twilight zone are the "fuxes", which are vaguely centaur-like. They are born female with two arms and six legs. At between 7 and 18 years of age, they give birth for the first time, shedding the hind-most pair of legs to form a "nest" for the young. They will give birth one more time after they are 18, shedding the next pair of legs and becoming roughly humanoid males. When the suns flare, most Medean wildlife burrows into the ground or otherwise take cover. Some lifeforms become more active, breeding madly while the energy flows from the suns. They will form spores or eggs which survive until the next flare time. Some plants use the added light to grow and seed, and some smaller lifeforms emerge to eat the seeds while the flare lasts. The "balloons", creatures much like jellyfish, generate hydrogen from the energy and rise high into the air. (See also the novel "JEM", by Frederic Pohl, for a picture of a similar world).

7. Nightfall (Isaac Asimov): "The Cultists said that every two thousand and fifty years Lagash entered a huge cave, so that all the suns disappeared, and there came total darkness all over the world! And then, they say, things called 'Stars' appeared, which robbed men of their souls and left them unreasoning brutes, so they destroyed the civilization they themselves had built up..."

8. The Eden Trilogy (Harry Harrison): The dinosaurs evolved to form the Yilane', the dominant intelligent lifeform on Earth. They walk upright on two legs, but they are still reptilian and cold blooded. Their food is not cooked, but pre-digested in enzymes. They are masters of biological engineering, and have created a number of larger types adapted for different tasks. Their speech is partly oral, partly gestures and postures. Humans have evolved, too, calling themselves the Tanu. They occupy the fringes of the world, in the north where it is too cold for the Yilane' to live. The Yilane' hate the Tanu, and consider them animals to be exterminated.

Other books you might enjoy by these authors:

by Hal Clement: Eye of a Needle, Iceworld, Rimworld

by Larry Niven: The Mote in God's Eye, Tales of Known Space, All the Myriad Ways or Convergent Series (short story collections), The Integral Trees, Footfall (with Jerry Pournelle), Dream Park (with Steven Barnes)

by Anne McCaffrey: Dragondrums (one of many in the Dragons of Pern series), Dinosaur Planet, Get Off the Unicorn

by Isaac Asimov: over 200 books, including I, Robot series, Foundation series, The Caves of Steel series, The City and the Stars

by Harry Harrison: The Stainless Steel Rat series, Make Room, Make Room! (became the film Soylent Green)


Station G
Paper Airplane / Stone Skipping Contest

Station Guide Instructions and Scoring:

A. Paper Airplane Contest - give each Scout sheet of paper. When entire patrol is done, have fly-off. Mark farthest travel. Scouts may try any number of times, but each airplane may only use one sheet of paper. (0-10 points by rank)

Then repeat for longest time in the air. (0-5 pts by ranking)

B. Stone Skipping - let patrol skip rocks - record best # of skips. (0-5 points by rank)


Station H
Finding Your Way by Satellite

Patrol Instructions:

The space age is here. More and more, surveyors, aviators, sailors, soldiers are using satellites to find their position. In the Gulf War, individual squads of soldiers found their way through the trackless Iraqi desert using the Global Positioning System (GPS).

The station guide will show you how to use a portable GPS receiver, and will give you a position to navigate to. Find the spot, and follow the instructions on the card you find there. You must hit all waypoints in order, and mark on the scorecard the word you find at the waypoint.

Materials: GPS receiver(s), set up course with waypoint markers (see below).

Station Guide Instructions:


Station I
"A Shocking Mission"

Patrol Instructions:

Your patrol is an "Away Team" from the U.S.S. Enterprise, sent to investigate why a Science Station has failed to send in its last scheduled report. Subspace radio has failed to raise the station, and you have taken the shuttlecraft Galileo down to check out the situation.

You enter the station, to find all of the scientists are gone, vanished. You explore further, finding lots of nothingness.

To make matters worse, Chief Engineer LaForge has chosen this moment to take the Transporter off line for its 100-hour inspection, so forget beaming any victims back up.

Station Guide Instructions:

After the patrol has read their instructions, feed them the following scenarios, one at a time as each is completed:

1. One member of your patrol (chosen by the station guide) has accidentally grabbed the 2,000 volt high-tension wire running through the station. Quick - rescue him and treat him.

2. Once he is stabilized, you notice that he has broken his leg - transport him to the shuttlecraft.

3. The planet is very cold. The hike back to the shuttle is very long, and the thermal controls in your patrol leader's suit and boots have failed. He has begun to shiver uncontrollably. He cannot talk coherently. You finally understand that, among other things, he can no longer feel his toes.

4. While you are loading the shuttle, a member of the patrol is bitten by a bee-oid. He has an allergic reaction, exactly like the reaction a Scout on Earth might have to an earthly bee.

Scoring: 20 points, subjective - deduct for poor bedside manner, disorganization, mistakes in first aid procedure.


Station J
"Planetary Survey"

Station Guide Instructions:

This station will comprise a number of individual problems. The patrol can choose to do these any way they wish, either by dividing up into pairs/individuals or as a patrol. The total score for the station will be a combination of the individual scores on each part.

Patrol Instructions for Each Problem:

I. The View From Space

The first step in exploring a planet is a photographic survey from space. This is most often made up of many individual photographs which must be pieced together by skilled photointerpreters.

You will be given a photograph of this part of New York State, taken from Spacelab. Put it together correctly. This is a timed problem (0-5 points based on relative time).

II. Acoustic Survey

Once you've made a basic overview of the planet from space, you'll want to check out the surface conditions. Before you land any humans on the surface, you'll send down robot probes which can send information back. The tape in the player in front of you has the sounds relayed back to your spacecraft from this planet. How many can you identify? (Note: for full credit, you must make an accurate identification - "Crow", not just "Bird"). (5 points)

III. Remote Sensing

It's always difficult to figure out just what you've got when you can't use all of your senses. What's in these boxes? (5 points)

IV. Message to the Stars

Once our space probes explore their planet, they continue to fly off into deep space, forever. Someday, maybe someone will find them. We'd like to think that these distant beings will be friendly, and the probe may outlast us, so this may be the only contact we will ever have with them. How can we communicate with these far future races? They almost certainly will not look like us, and writing will be useless. Design a plaque we can attach to our probe. When you're done, you'll be given a copy of NASA's solution to this problem, sent out with the Voyager spacecraft. (5 pts)

Materials Required:

I. Aerial Photograph, glued to photo mount board and cut up into jigsaw pieces

II. Tape containing 10 minutes or so of assorted sound effects - leave a 5 second gap between each. The sounds we used in '93 were:

1. Scream 14. Jet Airplane

2. Subway Train 15. Dogs

3. Chainsaw / tree falling 16. Machine Tool (saw, router)

4. Owl (Barred Owl) 17. Brazillian Guiros

5. Fingernails on a Blackboard 18. Spring Peepers

6. Wolves 19. Green Frog

7. Breaking Glass 20. Goldfinch

8. Ping-Pong Game 21. Calculator (Adding Machine)

9. Roller Coaster 22. Tambourine

10. Satellite Signal 23. Bats chittering

11. Hawk 24. Siren

12. Sparks 25. Boiling Water

13. Horses

III. Five boxes with something in each. One might have a hole cut in the side with a glove glued to the opening, so the scout can feel but not see what's inside. Others could have things which make noise, or are particularly shaped.

IV. Paper and pencil.


Station K
Flying Saucer Olympics

This event is a frisbee golf game. Set up at least 10 "holes", make sure each Scout participates in at least one hole. Total number of throws for patrol. Score 20 points ranked (20 for lowest total throws to 0 for highest)

Possible Holes:

1. Over high pole

2. Under low pole

3. Between two poles

4. In basket on ground

5. In horizontal basket on tree

6. In basket on pole

7. Through hoop

8. Land in distant zone (roped off)

9. Bounce shot off wall through obstacle

10. Over one pole under another

Note: all throws must start at "green". To avoid taking forever, set maximum of ten tries at any hole. Patrol can keep own score.


Station L
"Mars Rover"

This station will simulate the NASA "Mars Rover" exploration mission. Choose one or two of the members of your patrol to act as the Rover Team, the rest will be the mission controllers. The station guide will send the rover team where they need to go.

The Mars Rover has been sent to the Red Planet to explore and send back scientific information on a small area of the planet. Unfortunately, the video transmitter on the Rover has failed, leaving the data link as the only means of communication with the astronauts in the Rover.

Mission Controllers: You must try to make as accurate a map as possible of the widest area possible during the next 20 minutes. You may use the data link to communicate with the Rover Team in any way you wish, but only the data link (for obvious reasons, runners will take too long to run from Langley to Mars, and are likely to die from lack of air). They will not take any action on their own, but will wait for instructions from you.

Rover Team: The Rover Team should act only in accordance with orders from Mission Control, and may not wander around or observe on its own. The area in front of you is the "planet Mars" for the purposes of this exercise. The model Rover will let you keep track of where you are in this model world. The Rover may move, if commanded by Mission Control. You may communicate with Mission Control only through the data link (for obvious reasons, runners will take too long to run from Langley to Mars, and are likely to die from lack of air). You must limit your reports to what you can see through the viewscreen on the Rover.

After-action note: this station wound up being something different than we'd planned. The general idea was to set up a teletype at each side of a building, and have the scouts type instructions to guide the rover team, and the rovers would describe where they wound up by typing back. We couldn't get the equipment, and wound up using a TV camera and walkie-talkies. At a later camporee (based on something I did at the 1997 National Jamboree) we set up a radio-controlled truck with a TV transmitter on it. The patrol had to steer the truck by looking at the image on a TV screen, and find "aliens" scattered around the mess hall floor (the patrol was outside the building). See http://www.lightlink.com/bbm/k2bsa97.html for a picture of the Rover.


Station M
Model Rocket Demo

The demonstration should last 15-20 minutes, if possible. Scouts may stay as long as they like, but any staying excessively long should be reminded that they will need credit from other stations to be competitive in the camporee.

Scoring: be sure to note the patrol number on the score sheet so the patrol will get credit for attending the station. Patrols should only receive credit if they stay for at least a major part of the demo (i.e. they should not just arrive, get signed up, and leave).


Station N
After Man... What?

Patrol Instructions:

Extinction has always been a factor in life on Earth. Most of the species which have ever occupied our planet have become extinct after a greater or lesser period - the dinosaurs are gone, the giant Ground Sloth is extinct, as is the Dodo bird, and I don't feel so good myself.

Whenever a species becomes extinct, its "ecological niche" - the function it performs in nature, or the particular spot in which it lives - becomes empty, and some existing animal evolves to fill its place. Perhaps changes come about in the environment itself because whatever the lost species used to eat may now multiply unchecked, or whatever other animal eats that species may now starve. Plants which formed the diet of a plant-eating species may now run riot, or may die off because they depended on the species to spread their seeds.

It is now the distant future. In the last years of the 20th century, due to an error of the Postal Rate Commission, postal fees were eliminated on all third class mail. The resulting flood of junk mail led immediately to the destruction of civilization, and, ultimately, to the extinction of mankind by the year 2020.

Your patrol has been sent from another planet to explore the earth. You have landed in an overgrown park area surrounded by ruins in the center of a long, thin, island between two rivers. While puzzling over the cryptic inscription you find engraved on a particularly interesting ruin (it says "TRUMP TOWER"), your patrol is startled by the appearance of a strange animal!

What does the animal look like?

You have been supplied with paper and markers - draw the animal. You have 10 minutes. Consider the following:

Your animal surely must have changed drastically to adapt to this unnatural environment after the extinction of mankind. To decide what kind of animal might fill the ecological niches left empty when man leaves, you will have to think about the following points:

1. What animal existing in 1993 might this one have evolved from? Was the passing of man a good or bad thing for this animal, and how?

2. How did the extinction of mankind affect the animal's environment? What effects would this have on this new species?

3. What does the animal eat? Where does it live? How would these affect its structure?

4. What are its natural enemies? How would this affect its appearance or behavior?

Based on Dougal Dixon's book, "After Man", with a nod to David MacCauley's "Motel of the Mysteries".

Scoring: 20 points, subjective.

Materials: Paper, pencils / crayons / markers


Station O
Engineering Problems - 2

Patrol Instructions:

A. Pipeline

Your patrol must build a support for a pipeline across a liquid metal stream on the planetoid "Vesta". The pipeline will carry the air supply for an astronomical observatory which has lost its air generators.

Divide your patrol into two groups. Each group will go to one side of the gorge (as marked off).

No member of your group may set foot in the gorge at any time, nor may any materials touch the surface of the liquid metal.

The pipeline may not hang free (it has no strength on its own), but must be supported at least 5 feet over the surface of the liquid metal.

You have 20 minutes, after which all of the astronomers will die if you have not completed the pipeline. You will be judged on the time used, ingenuity of the solution, teamwork and organization. One minute will be added as a penalty if anything or person falls into the liquid metal.

B. Boats for Atlantis

The settlements on the water world Atlantis are built on floating platforms, as there is no land at all. As might be expected, water craft are necessary to the survival of the Atlanteans.

Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to build ships using traditional materials such as steel or wood - mines are impractical, and, of course, with no land there can be no trees. The Atlanteans have made a large supply of enormous plastic sheets and adhesive tape from the seaweed which covers the oceans. They have determined these will make an ideal naval construction resource. Unfortunately, these sheets are extremely expensive, so we must conserve on them.

You have been supplied with miniatures of these sheets, and rolls of scotch tape. Your assignment is to construct a scale model of the new cargo ship we will build for the Atlanteans. It must be able to carry as many "marbles" as possible (the marble is the egg of the Babelfish, primary product of Atlantis).

You have 10 minutes. You will receive credit for each of the marbles your craft will carry without sinking. Because of the cost of materials, though, the number of marbles will be divided by the number of plastic sheets you use, so do not make the craft too large!

Materials:

A. Pioneering poles and rope, twine to mark off an area if there isn't anything natural to use.

B. We used discarded microfiche - 3x5 cards will do fine, adhesive tape, marbles.


Station XY
Videos

The videos to be shown, and the show times, are as follows:

Morning: 9:00 "To Fly!" - The first IMAX film from the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum
9:45 "The Dream is Alive" - Video from and about the Space Shuttle
10:30 "Flyers" - A young stunt pilot learns about flying
11:15 "Wings of Thunder" - Exciting air show video set to music

Afternoon: 1:30 "The Right Stuff" - the Navy flying team in performance
2:15 "The Dream is Alive"
3:00 "The Eagle Has Landed"
3:45 "To Live and Work in Outer Space"

Be sure to sign patrols in on the score sheet. Note that patrols can only get credit for two videos, no matter how many they see.

If a patrol seems to be spending too much time watching videos (i.e. more than three total), suggest that they go out and work on the other stations in the camporee. Remind scouts in morning session that two of the videos are repeated in the afternoon, if they are staying to watch a second video in a row.

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