WOW Blog - From Duct Tape to Victory

I love going to WOW.   The first time I went to WOW, I learned to make a water bottle holders and a coin purse from duct tape.  I brought that back to my service unit for our cabin camping trip for cadettes and older girls. The girls loved it!  It is now a tradition that we do this activity at our 6th-7th grade cabin camping trip every year.

And duct tape has pervaded my household.  My daughter, a percussionist, made drum stick holders for herself from duct tape.  She color-codes her folders/notebooks for school with duct tape.  For my son's Star Wars birthday party, we made light sabers and light saber belts out of cardboard tubes, pipe insulation and duct tape.  While on vacation, we used duct tape to make small toy boats to play with in the pool.   My son wanted to make a boat that he could ride in.  So, using two full rolls of duct tape, a piece of masonite and some tree branches, my son (with a little help from us) made a boat that he could paddle around in the pool.  Of course, we had to improve the design because the boat wasn't stable enough to support me.  So boat II used pvc pipe instead of masonite and tree branches.  While boat II could support my son or me, my husband still sank like a rock.  So, boat III is like a catamaran, designed and built by my husband with pvc pipe and duct tape.  Who would have thought that learning to make a duct tape purse would lead to us learning about boat design.

Since you never know when duct tape will come in handy, my son brought duct tape on his 6th grade outdoor education overnight trip.  He attributes his team's victory in the scavenger hunt to duct tape, because they were able to use duct tape to make a really silly hat.  I'm sure you can imagine the types of things that 12 year old boys would tape to a hat.

So, WOW leads you to duct tape which leads you to creative constructions, to learning about engineering/design, and on to victory!

Louisa Ho