Super Chunk

The unplugged project theme for last week was mechanical.  I thought about making my kids fix the gate for me, which wouldn’t have been all that difficult except that it would have required the use of the drill.  And then we decided to make some spool racers using these instructions.

We used empty thread spools (I was surprised to find that I *had* three empty thread spools, considering how much not-sewing I’ve been doing in the last few years), rubber bands (mainly gleaned from produce), pencils, toothpicks, flat washers scavenged from the toolbox, and a twist tie.  Goofy kids are also a plus, though you’ll have to procure your own. (Click to enlarge photos.)
The directions make the process pretty clear, and we had a fairly easy time once I identified the steps we were skipping (1. break the ends off the toothpick so the spool can roll, duh; 2. use a washer to facilitate rolling). We did find that the larger rubber bands were a little thick to push through the center of the spool, so we used a bent twist tie to pull them through.  Worked like a charm.  The next picture shows each end of the spool racers (minus the pencil) — toothpick at one end, washer at the other end with a loop of rubber band that will hold the pencil.

We never did get these to work exactly the way we expected them to.  They did a lot of hopping, because we are prone to overtwisting the rubber bands, and they did a lot of sitting there because I-don’t-know-why.  We found that a lot of our rubber bands were too long and ended up tying knots in them to shorten them up.  So, I don’t know, this project was just moderately satisfying.  The racers did stay on the dining room table for several days, where we tweaked them at every opportunity, but I sort of hate it when things don’t just work.

Tell you what, though: this whole business is a rather pointed lesson in the difficulty of running a project and photographing it at the same time.