12 July 2009
BSA: Eagle Project For The Birds
Posted by admin under: projects .
This weekend was dedicated to my son working on his Eagle Project. In this picture, Matthew is accepting a check from the local Audobon Society (Santa Clarita chapter, I think) to help fund his upgrade of the bird enclosures. The existing enclosures were made as someone else’s Eagle Project, and a great one it was, too, but the Placerita Canyon Nature Center wanted to change the layout a bit. They wanted to make the existing sky-holes which were mesh-covered larger, but keep the same design and then cover them with skylights.
My son couldn’t find a hardware store or skylight company that would donate the skylights. That makes sense because the ones he could find were $400 each and he needed 5. However, on a friend’s suggestion he worked with a dad in the troop who designed a way to build them. Dave was instrumental in the design, construction, and installation of the skylights which you can see below.
That’s four of the five constructed as hinged skylights so they can be kept open during most of the year and closed during inclement weather to protect the birds inside who have been getting sick from too much damp. The project was originally going to be just Sunday, but on the advice of Dave he expanded it to Saturday, also. Good thing, too. He ended up using every bit of the time. Some of his workers had an elastic view of start times.
There was a lot of standing around since Matthew had scheduled everybody he could get hold of, but only had actual work for part of them. Where people could, however, they pitched in with a will and finished constructing the skylights, took out the old window boxes, constructed new ones, made the roof holes bigger, put the new window boxes in, and put in the skylights. Sounded easy, but the project took 16 hours times however many workers he had. It’ll probably be around 200 hours and then a few dozen more for his time setting it up.
I’m glad I don’t have to remind him of his timing on the project any more. Now I just have to remind him to finish writing up the project and getting it signed off by everybody required. With about 3 weeks until his 18th birthday he’s finishing up this and earning his last two required merit badges. Cycling and something else I haven’t figured out. Apparentlyl he has a whole support staff of other Scouts who are itching to go riding with him.
The journey isn’t over yet, but a large hurdle is behind him with the completion of the Eagle Project work. Whew!
- Arson Fire Destroys Eagle Project
- A Dear, Deer Project
- Updated Boy Scout Eagle Project Workbook
- How Much Does a Statue Run, Nowadays?
- BSA: McGrath Beach Campout
