Day 3 - October 10, 2009

Each team member received a kit and a set of plans for their new project - their own individual tool boxes.



Construction of this project expanded their awareness of various drill bit sizes, rivet sizes and general overall use of the tools needed for the future RV-12 project. At the end of the day, the bottom half of the boxes were complete and everyone was studying the next steps to complete the top of the toolbox, attaching the piano hinge and locking hardware by next week.

The mentors gave a lot of feedback on how the team is really coming into their own and getting used to the handling of drills, rivet squeezers, and deburring tools.

Day 2- October 3, 2009

We now have a full crew of twelve teens in the program. They range in ages 14 to 17. Approximately half of them completed their second training project by the end of the day and the rest are almost finished. They have been learning a lot of the basic fundamentals of sheet metal aircraft construction and during this next week, they will be reading the first construction section of the RV-12 assembly manual as homework. If all goes well, we are only a few weeks away from working on real airplane parts!

Day 1 - September 26, 2009

Today, all teens (Team) arrived with their family members at 9:00am and got acquainted with the program, the mentors, and the upcoming project.



By 11:00am the family members headed out and the team started on their first project. Building their own name tags. This project consisted of a small piece of sheet metal, a pin back with 3 holes in it, and rivits. The project was developed to get some experience in de-burring sheet metal edges, drilling and riveting. There were no instructions provided, so the benefit from this was to start team members discussing the best options and tools with their mentors. Everyone completed this project within an hour's time.

After lunch, the team started, but did not complete, their second project. This project consisted of two different thicknesses of sheet metal, and rivets. However, this project also came with a set of plans! The plans are written in the same format as the upcoming RV-12 project and should be a great launching pad for when they start that project. The team ended the day halfway through the project and was given a homework assignment to study certain pages of the plans in order to be prepared to complete the project at the next work session scheduled for October 3rd. I don't think that anyone knows yet what it is that they are building on the second project......fun!