Horizontal traverse and paper catamarans
This week, the Cubs tried out the new horizontal traversing wall at Gloucestershire County Scouting Centre, conveniently located in Cranham.
A traversing wall is a good activity, since it builds on the skills of indoor climbing, but since the objective is to get along the wall rather than up the wall, and there is never more than a metre’s drop to the soft ground, there is no need for complex safety ropework, and no fears of heights to overcome.
We started with a practice climb, then split into two groups for a timed competition (well, if you made it all the way along the wall your score was based on your time; otherwise it was based on how far you managed to get!).
After sorting the results by time, then adding those who didn’t get all the way onto the end of the rankings sorted by distance attained, then computing the average ranking position for each Six (thus compensating for the differing numbers of Cubs from each Six present), the overall results were:
- Blue six
- Yellow six
- White six
We awarded a point to Blue and half a point to Yellow, but since one of the Yellows made a stunning performance of confidence and skill by crossing the entire wall in just over thirty seconds (the next best was over a minute), we gave them an extra half point on top.
Then the Scouts, preparing for the upcoming Cranham Paper Boat Race, experimented with some paper catamaran designs, producing several prototypes and testing them.