We Own Adventure

Scouting News for the DC Metro Area

Eagle Project

The Importance of Bees

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Robbie S. of Troop 2012 in Sterling, Virginia, had taken an interest in his father’s hobby as a beekeeper. Watching him work taught Robbie the importance of bees in the environment. He learned that bees and other pollinators are vital to plant reproduction and biodiversity. While learning more about these pollinators, he also learned that honey bees are at extreme risk of extinction due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) which is caused by various factors such as pesticides and poor nutrition. Robbie knew that for his Eagle Scout Project he wanted to raise awareness about pollinators and help the local honey bees out with some new bee boxes.

Robbie needed to show his Troop and his community the importance of pollinators to their ecosystem. So he began to research all he could about honey bees, mice, tracheal mites, and other pollinators, and how they help spread pollen. While Robbie was enthused to have found so much information, he was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of it and he had to figure out how to condense it into a slideshow. Once he had completed his slideshow, he recruited some volunteers to begin the process of building bee boxes. They were able to get their hands on a few kits with the help of Robbie’s father and they began their work. After finishing two beehives, Robbie was ready to show his work and spread awareness about pollinators to his community. He explained their importance to biodiversity, and ways they can help on an individual level, such as not using pesticides on your lawn.

Now that he completed his project, Robbie was able to not only learn more about pollinators and how to build bee boxes but how to effectively communicate and organize. There were many steps to this project from emails and agendas to keeping Scouts organized and keeping track of dates which led Robbie to quickly build his communication and organization skills. Even though it was hard work, it was all worth it in the end for Robbie because he was able to spread more awareness about the importance of pollinators.

If you’re interested in learning more about pollinators, you can check out Robbie’s slideshow here!

New Theatre, New Props

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I absolutely love theatre, and I actively partake in it. So when I learned there was a new high school opening up a theater program in my area, and with a director, I had worked with in the past, I felt that fate had called me to help them out and get them started by building something for them. I felt that making them some set items would help them so they had something to begin working with when they went back to in-person learning.

After contacting the director, I got a solid plan of what was needed and what he thought would be some useful objects to build for them. In the end, we decided on four advertisement sandwich boards, four set-piece black boxes, and one industrial prop table. I set a date to go and purchase all the wood I needed for the project. Then with the help of my neighbor and his woodshop, we were able to sort, measure, and cut all the wood into the pieces we needed so that the next day when the Scouts came to my house we could just set everything up and put it together.

The tricky part of my project was mostly getting all the wood cut, measured, and sorted because everything had to be exact or else it would not work. When putting the boxes together, we discovered that the measurements for one piece were an eighth of an inch longer than it should be, so that meant that every piece based on those measurements was now an eighth of an inch longer. It was frustrating to spend so much time making sure that it was all perfect just to have something not right. Still, one of the Scouts who came to help happened to be the technical director at my school’s theatre company, so I knew he had tools in his car. Luckily he had a saw that we were able to use and fix the problem.

After the build day, we moved on to painting everything matte black with two coats on each box, board, and table. A little while later, the director and I set up a date for us to meet at the school to transfer all the materials from my house to the theatre room, and at that point, we were finished.

My favorite part of the project was planning the workdays. Two days for building, and two days for painting; however, we had more Scouts show up than I thought on the first build day, and we were able to knock out everything with hours to spare. I was able to take the extra day to go over everything and make sure it all looked fine and then spend some time cleaning up and prepping for the paint day.

Once the first paint day hit, we had many younger Scouts eager to help show up, so the painting went extremely fast. That day it was super hot and sunny outside, which helped with the drying of the paint, which allowed us to put on the second coats very quickly. This also allowed us to finish early on the painting day as well, which meant we did not need the second painting day that was planned. I was glad I had the extra days built in just in case, however; not needing them was a huge relief and a favorite part of my project.

I have never been the type of person to start and lead a project and then sit back and let everyone else do the work, so it was difficult to sit back and only be used as a resource when help was needed, and not one of the people working on the project as well. But all in all, my biggest lesson learned was that sometimes letting go and letting things happen is a good thing. It’s still my project that I planned and started, and if they needed me, they would ask; it was a whole new take on being a leader, and I think that learning experience was a really powerful one for me.

Temple Benches

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Nathan T. of Troop 904 in Arlington, VA, has always attended Van Hanh Buddhist Temple. His family has been members there for 30 years. It is a welcoming place, and Nathan enjoys attending services there. But during holidays and special events, the temple became so crowded that many people had no place to sit and would have to stand for hours; this was especially challenging for elderly members. Nathan saw this and he knew he had to help. So for his Eagle Scout Project, he decided to build four new benches for the temple so that everyone would have a place to sit.

First, Nathan spoke to the temple’s leadership and showed them sketches and plans of the style and size of the benches. Once his plan for the benches was approved, he was told he could start in April. But unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nathan had to postpone his plans to August. In the meantime, he was determined to keep working as much as possible. Nathan gathered the necessary materials and volunteers for his project. They began their work by measuring and cutting the wood. Then they moved onto assembling and painting the four benches.

Nathan couldn’t have been more proud to see the four benches in the temple after the hard work he and his volunteers put into it. It was exciting to see the project completed because Nathan knew how many people these benches could help.

Clearing the Path

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One day I walked my dog down this path in Rock Spring Park, and I was getting extremely frustrated with the path. It had rained recently, and the path had become more like a small muddy river than a path. And that’s when I got the idea that I could perhaps fix this path for my Eagle Scout Project.

First, I reached out to my fellow Scouts within my troop for help with repairing this path. They agreed to help, which made the project go smoothly thanks to all their hard work. When working, I found the most challenging part of this project was probably getting it all organized beforehand and during the actual work. But once it was all organized, fixing the path was smooth sailing from there.

My favorite aspect was probably seeing the finished product and how surprisingly fast it all happened. I learned a lot about planning out projects, mostly because I need to anticipate what might be required. I was also able to learn more about the managing side of leadership. As a leader, I’ve realized it’s more about guiding the people you lead and directing the labor they do, rather than doing all the work myself.

Back to School

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In 2014, I graduated from Arcola Elementary School. Arcola means a lot to me; it’s where I created some of my earliest and most cherished memories, so I wanted to give back to my former school. I recall there are multiple courtyards located around the building. Teachers like to use those courtyards for specific, hands-on lessons. However, the courtyard on the open-ended, left-wing of the building was a mess and unusable. So after talking with the principal, I devised a plan to clear out space and construct four picnic tables for the classes to use.

First, I created a group chat with nine veteran Scouts in my Troop, whom I trust, to assist me in this project. I wanted to keep the project simple and complete it as quickly and efficiently as possible. I communicated with my volunteers when and where the project was taking place and what I needed them to bring. Since it was summer, I reminded them to beware of the heat and reminded them to wear sunscreen and stay hydrated as we created the picnic tables. By some luck, we ended up with excess funds which meant we could accommodate some last-minute touch-ups around the courtyard. And we managed to complete the construction portion of this project within five hours.

I felt I learned a lot about leadership throughout the project, like how to keep people engaged and when to step in and help others. It was very satisfying and cool to watch my project come together so well and know that my hard work had paid off.

A Safe Hill

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As someone who has always had a soft spot for community service and a passion for engineering, I felt that my Eagle Project was a perfect opportunity for me to make a meaningful impact in my community while also developing personal skills and knowledge. For my project, I built a new path alongside a hill in my community, but it involves the risk of skidding and falling down the hill into shrubs while walking tangent to such a steep slope. My goal was to fix this issue and create a more convenient and safer path for everyone.

After I had submitted my proposal and done all the necessary planning, when I was about to begin my project, the COVID-19 pandemic began. For months, BSA had also shut down, and I had little to no communication with anyone who knew what I should do. Because of COVID-19, my project was already on a limited schedule. Moreover, the pandemic forced many lumber mills to shut down, thus creating a shortage in the availability of wood and rental trucks in all local stores such as Home Depot and Lowes.

Ultimately, I had to drive half an hour to Aspen Hill to rent out a truck and drive that truck for an hour to Chantilly, Virginia – the nearest place where I found a store that had the wood I needed in stock. The wood was being sold out so quickly that I became worried if it would still be in stock when I reached the store after the long commute. Furthermore, it was also tough to find wood chips. Local retailers either sold them in small bags or in mass quantities, which were too much for what I needed. Other companies didn’t offer shipping, and even those that did only would deliver in dump trucks instead of prepackaged bags, as I preferred.

But once I had received the wood chips, the project was back on track. Although we still had to be careful while doing this project due to COVID-19 and the summer heat. Since the nearest parking lot from the worksite was atop a steep hill, it was too strenuous and dangerous to transport all the wood chips from the place where the wood chips were dumped down the hill to the worksite. On top of this, there was a 107-degree heat index reading, which put everyone at risk for heat strokes and dehydration. Frequent breaks were necessary as everyone was exhausted and out of breath since breathing was limited through masks, and shade was scarce. This limited the amount of work that could be accomplished per day, and the project was ultimately extended into a third day. Lastly, the inherent risk of COVID-19 was another major issue related to the project, and several precautions were put in place to mitigate this.

Apart from these major issues, I also had some technical issues regarding the project. I had to make sure that the rebars and spikes I hammer into the ground don’t hit the utility lines directly underneath. Hammering in rebars was also incredibly difficult. Due to the rocky soil, the rebars would sometimes hit a stone a foot underground and not go down any further. This made it very hard, and time-consuming to get rebars into the ground and ultimately led to last-minute shopping runs to buy smaller sized rebars and spikes, costing us more time. Despite all of that, we finished the project. The primary process of the project started with clearing out shrubs. Then we dug out part of the hill to make stairs, leveled the area at the foot of the hill to create a path, and edged the path and stairs with woodblocks. Finally, we laid weed blocking fabric, connecting the stairs to the path, nailed down the wood with spikes (while making sure the spikes don’t hit any utility lines), and finally covered the path in wood chips.

My favorite part of this project is that it is related to my passion for engineering. I learned so much about leading a team under pressure and gaining experience designing and executing engineering plans. It was also humbling to see so many volunteers willing to donate tools or come and help out. Companies like Ace Hardware, which donated tools for my project, Mainscapes, donated, and delivered all the woodchips I needed. Many of my friends who volunteered in the project (some of whom were not even Boy Scouts themselves) were essential to my project’s success. Moreover, one of the workdays was during my 18th birthday, and it was very satisfying to spend the day that marked my adulthood, giving back to my community that made me who I am. This project taught me a lot about planning, delegating duties to people based on their strengths, learning to accept the unexpected, and understanding that you can’t be prepared for everything; impulse decisions under pressure will always be needed. I also learned to think and work like an engineer, worry about how the structure will hold up in various weather conditions, react to wear and tear, and understand the importance of adhering to all safety regulations for any construction.