Orion Online

 This evening, Scouts learnt how to whip and splice a piece of rope as part of their work towards the Pioneers badge. Scouts learnt how to tie a West Country whipping, a Common whipping and some, a Sailmakers whipping.

Scouts were also shown how to do an Eye Splice. Scouts worked collaboratively to Eye Splice a piece of rope. See below:

Ben applies his knowledge of a Common whipping on his piece of rope...

As you can see, Ben has made a very tidy job of it!

Jack shows great concentration in preparing his West Country whipping.

Scouts enjoyed making whippings so much that some have taken lengths of rope home to tidy up each end.

Jonathan Furness

 The Scouts have been learning how to tie six basic knots.

1. Reef knot
2. Bowline
3. Clove Hitch
4. Sheet Bend
5. Round Turn and Two Half Hitches
6. Timber Hitch

and how to tie two lashings,

1. Square lashing
2. Sheer lashing

To help reinforce some of this work, what better than to build a Sedan Chair and hold a competition. We know that when kids have to tie their own safety knots, it tends to focus the mind a little more. We thought the same might be true if they had to tie their own lashings and then be carried on the chair at speed!

I think the pictures say it all. (NB. Click on each image to get a larger picture)

Scouts at Orion Troop had a fun packed evening discovering that little kids CAN lift big kids. They learnt how to use levers and pulleys to gain mechanical advantage. However, you never get something for nothing so in order to lift something heavy, you still have to do the same amount of work, but it requires less effort each time you move it. With pulleys, you have to pull the rope through the pulleys much further than the distance of the object being lifted. Similar is true with levers. A lever at the lifting end is moved much further than the object being lifted.

These photographs will give you some idea of what we did.

(Click on each photograph for a larger image)