Last Day of 4-H Bio-tech Day Camp is Shocking

Shocking might be a slight exaggeration of our excitement on our last day of 4-H Bio tech Day Camp, but we were playing with electricity and solar energy...in other words we playing with power!

Out day started off with some team working games until all the counties got together and then with the help of the Bladen County Ambassadors (under the expert guidance of Kelli Hill) we got down to the wire, circuit, and resistor to put together our attitude selectors. The youth stripped wires, soldered them to the circuit board, worked with capacitors, switches, wire cutters, and a little ingenuity to create their own electric project to take home. They also learned about completing project records, and 4-H Electric Congress which they got very excited about.

After an incredible lunch prepared by Mrs. Penny and grilled by our Robeson County grilling guru Larry Russ, we got refueled with burgers, hot dogs, chips and cookies. After our pit stop it was time to hit the track as we learned about solar energy.

Our youth measured the power from florescent lights, lights through glass and sun light before constructing solar cars. As the teams put their cars together they took them outside to see how they worked. As they noticed problems, such as cars that continuously took left turns, they came back inside to work on the design and fix it so it would travel straight. Of course the ultimate part of this project was the solar car race. As soon as the clouds backed away we dropped the flag on this race. We had one car that travelled off the curb in front of the Robeson County Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Office, into the parking lot and still won the race.

After completing our electric forms, and our camp evaluations we sat back and enjoyed a slide show with a bunch of photos from the week. It was a great time and it looks like we will try it again next year with Bio tech III. We'll let you know as we get closer.