Headlines from the special report from the Maker Faire: Unarmed oiler kills light cruiser! Ping-pong ball armed PT boats thrill children! Two new battleships, three new transports fight first battle! 22-year-old USS Alabama sunk! USS Iowa sunk for first time since maiden voyage! Dunkirque DIDN'T sink! Adventure, Excitement, Big Steel Balls, Hot Air, and more! Reports from the Maker Faire will start trickling in, but the basic idea is that it was a huge success, possibly even better than last year. Sample video of the last battle on Sunday (multiple parts): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPy1Phx7HJY
I misread that as 'Ping-pong armed PT boats drill children' I think more caffeine is required for my Monday mornings.
Congrats on the good showing guys! What you guys are doing looks like a ton of fun and is great for the hobby, so keep up the good work.
It was an absolute blast! Photos are slowly being sorted and uploaded, so I hope to have some photos up this evening. Last year we were not able to run events very often, and we wanted to have more for the audience to watch, so we made up a game for the kids to play. Ping pong balls were selected because they are safe for us to let non-members operate. The club built six 1/32 scale PT boats and armed them with a mousetrap powered launcher for the balls. The event involved six children from the audience driving the boats and trying to shoot the balls into a hoop while their parents loaded the boat. Although there was some confusion at first over the children's events and the battle events, that was soon cleared up and everyone enjoyed the "Race and Shoot." We ran five combat events over the two days: three on day one, two on day two. Over the two days, 8BB, 7CL-DD, 6TR, and 1BAT fought. The participation in each battle was as follows: 5BB 6CL-DD 2TR 1BAT 5BB 6CL-DD 3TR 1BAT 4BB 6CL-DD 5TR 1BAT 5BB 5CL-DD 2TR 1BAT 5BB 5CL-DD 3TR 1BAT I'm still working out all the details of the battle. I already mentioned on another thread that the 22 year old Alabama was sunk. We also got to see the feared Iowa sink for the first time since her maiden voyage (when she was struck by two submarines after getting caught in a bush; she has never sunk since I have been in the club). I performed a daring rescue of a cruiser that got stranded on the superstructure of the sunken Dutch Battle Cruiser that succeeded in the last thirty seconds of combat as the crowd started to count down (earned a huge cheer from the crowd). There's so much that happened that you'll have to be patient while Carl and I write the AAR and analysis of the Prinz Eugen.
Hmmm maybe next year can outfit a Sodak with Mousetraps to fire mulitple volleys of pingpong balls into the hoopnets.
More good news: apparently we've been invited to put on a battle on the deck of the USS Hornet during their Splashdown event celebrating the ship's participation in the Apollo missions. There is some discussion of the wind on the deck, the cost of the water, and how to dispose of the water afterward. Also, Carl wrote a report about the last battle on the second day (by far the most interesting battle I have fought in recently) for the Scuttlebutt. You can look forward to a tale of adventure, excitement,bloody combat, and a daring rescue on the high seas, complete with photographic evidence. We'll see if we get around to writing an analysis of the performance of the Prinz Eugen (especially after the next battle in two weeks) and a full description of the whole event.
