Ran our first workshop

How to have useful construction workshops.
Post Reply
mebetree
Pine Head
Pine Head
Posts: 60
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:26 am
Location: Holtsville, NY

Ran our first workshop

Post by mebetree »

I brought a drill press, band saw, table sander and the associated tools for straightening the axles, drilling axle holes and cleaning up the wheels. I gave away every "secret" I had over the course of a four hour workshop. About half the pack showed up.

The good news is that for the first time every single car made it all the way down to the timers. Normally we get a couple of stragglers stopping short from axles being so badly out of alignment.

The bad news is that I watched a few parents do 100% of the work as their kids ran around not paying attention. I was a little shocked that they would openly work on the cars in front of anyone without involving their children.

Still, it was a good workshop and it showed on race day.
User avatar
Darin McGrew
Pine Head Legend
Pine Head Legend
Posts: 1825
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:23 pm
Location: Knoxville, TN
Contact:

Re: Ran our first workshop

Post by Darin McGrew »

mebetree wrote:The good news is that for the first time every single car made it all the way down to the timers. Normally we get a couple of stragglers stopping short from axles being so badly out of alignment.
We saw a similar change when we started providing drill presses at our workshops. The improvement in everyone's alignment pretty much eliminated the DNF (Did Not Finish) results, and made most of the finishes closer and more exciting too.
User avatar
Nitro Dan
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 327
Joined: Fri Jun 02, 2006 3:11 pm
Location: Felton, PA

Re: Ran our first workshop

Post by Nitro Dan »

I usually do a 20 minute orientation at the begining of my workshops, designed to show the parents how their boys can partisipate at each station. This usually gets everyone involved at the start, but a young boys attention span can only go for so long. To help compensate, I offer three workshop days for the pack (6 hour sessions). Some come for just one day and stay till they finish, but others come for a few hours at each session. I feel it gives the parents more flexibility.
I'm impressed that you got 50% of your pack to attend on your first workshop. My fist workshop only drew about 15%, but after doing this for six years, we now draw over 90%. Once the word gets out that the winners are coming out of your workshop's everyone will start wanting to attend.

-Nitro Dan
Take good and make it great. Take fast and make it faster. Performance drives success!
Post Reply