What Do Students Make? 2

Bongo Boards

Lilly's Bongo Board

Many students build bongo boards. They learn several useful skills making them and riding on them can help develop balance and coordination. And there are lots of ways to customize them.

Students start by gluing and screwing end caps and a center strip to the bottom side of a flat board. I enjoy explaining that the end caps have three important functions: to flatten the board, to reinforce it so it doesn't split and to keep the roller from going off the end while they ride it. Students design the corner shapes of the board, which I then cut for them on the bandsaw. The shape can be simple diagonal corners or an elaborate curve. The sharp edges of the board are then softened with a spokeshave. Some students choose to keep shaping the sides of the until the once rectangular board looks like a dog bone or has wavy edges. They may now choose to wood burn the deck with their name, sports logos, or some other imaginative graphic. Some even paint it.

The roller is made by gluing up disks of wood. Students use dividers to scribe eight large circles and three small circles on a board. They drill a half inch hole at the center of each circle. I bandsaw the circles oversize and the students glue together four big ones together on a dowel, clamp it and then knock the dowel out. They glue up the other four and the three small ones too. When dry, I cut the stacked circles out on the exact circle and we glue the three new disks together on a half inch dowel, with the small disk between the big ones to create a groove to ride the guide strip under the board. When the sharp edges of the roller are sanded round, the project is done and it's time for the student to learn to ride the Bongo Board! Unless the student wants to decorate the ends of the roller with wood burning too!

Pond Yachts

Bella's Boat

Think of Stewart Little on that tiny sailboat, navigating the Model Boat Pond (Conservatory Pond) in Central Park (here or here) and you will know what a Pond Yacht is. They are model boats that can actually sail! I got the pattern for our boats from a fellow who taught middle school kids to build them at Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. I learned more about making them in a course at Wooden Boat School in Brooklin, Maine. This has been a very popular project in the shop for years and has really taken off this year! It's one that takes commitment, focus and patience, but is very rewarding.

There is a variety of skills put to use building one of these boats. Carving the hull with spokeshaves and scrapers is the longest and most difficult job but our students turn out beautifully shaped boats, each one unique. They hollow the boat, like gouging out a large bowl, to reduce its weight so it will float higher in the water. The keel design and the imaginative stand to display the boat is unique to each student's project. Instead of using store bought screw eyes, we now make our own wire loops for rigging. Students design their sails and learn to install grommets in them. The boats must be painted to protect the wood and glued joints from water, and this is another opportunity for creativity. Then, they take them home and sail them!

It's a regatta! Where will we put them all?

More Boats

While Pond Yachts are the most popular kind of boat project we do, students often come up with original ideas for boats or ships. We often work from drawings or photos on the internet or from several books of boat plans we keep in the shop.


A clipper ship!	This fine little canoe was carved mostly with a crooked knife.	A Viking ship!	A model Laser.


A plank-built little rowboat with oars!	This is a scale model carefully built from plans for a full size boat.	Another scale model, built from full sized boat plans. This was the second of two plank-built boats that she made.