Our newest unusual project?

We are working with Plug 'n' Play Minnesota, who is now working with high school students on the combination of three things:

• A 1938 Ford super ratty truck, with no bed. This may have started life as a grain truck.
• A 1996 S-10 chassis, which gives him a safe basis for a street rod that is excellent for easy conversion to electric
• A WarP 9 motor, WarP Drive controller and pretty much state of the art components with Lead acid batteries.



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John Hodnefield started on this last year, knowing that he would have to raise a substantial amount of money and involve more than one school class. He founded Plug 'n' Play Minnesota, and applied for a Pepsi Challenge grant. He was fairly successful in merging his school program with the local Boy Scout Council, for a Merit Badge weekend called "Innovation Weekend."

He got votes on the Pepsi Challenge web site for months from lots of groups, and ended up getting one of the few Pepsi Challenge grants, based on education, cooperation of various groups, good leadership, etc. That allowed him to mostly fund the project. He has taken in other teachers frpm other districts, who looked to us for sponsorship, and agreed to share the project with their classes.

He has established a web site for Plug 'n' Play that details many of the programs. He has partnered with Scoutmaster Bucky to help promote the program with Boy Scouts of America, and for help with the merit badge portion. Scroll down on Scoutmaster Bucky's Site to see the joint announcement.

Now, John is putting together the chassis. On the weekend of October 7, 8 and 9, he has created the "Northern Star Rumble" with the Northern Star Council, Boy Scouts of America. Using the Council's facilities in Fort Snelling, they are putting on a combination build, using high school students and Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts and interested parties to build the 'rat rod' in front of TV cameras, radio broadcasters, newspapers, national glossy magazine writers, etc. Boy Scouts alone could earn from over 20 merit badges. Some of the merit badges seem like natural fits, but but John and Scoutmaster Bucky have expanded the program to allow scouts to participate in several other ways, so their list of merit badges offered includes:

• Automtive
• Communications
• Cinematography
• Computers
• Drafting
• Electricity
• Electronics
• Energy
• Engineering
• Environmental Science
• Farm Mechanics
• Inventing
• Journalism
• Painting
• Photography
• Robotics
• Safety
• Truck Transportation
• Woodwork

As found, the truck looks like:

He has media, having invited the (Minneapolis) StarTribune (newspaper), KSTP (regional TV), WCCO (regional TV), KMSP (regional TV), QCTV (local TV), CTN (local TV) and KS95 (radio).

His magazine list includes: Hot Rod, Rat Rod, CurrentEVents, Boys Life, Scouting and Popular Hot Rodding.

John has invited the 'Rat Rod Nation' to the event on Saturday for small show.

The Facebook page for the event will be remodeled to better support or website. There will be updates posted and they will encourage all 450+ Scouts to do the same.

PlugNPlay will also post specific/targeted messages to our Sponsor's Facebook page(s) (prearranged with each sponsor) in order to direct attention to their unique level of sponsorship. During the event, they will also encourage use of Twitter and YouTube. Essentially, they plan on exploding virally almost overnight." His registrations were well over 200 Scouts three weeks before the event.

And after the event, what happens? Here is John's response, "Probably one of the greatest examples of recycling.... The original truck will arrive at each subsequent build event and be stripped down to the chassis. The first thing that participants will see is a restored S10 chassis."

"We then lead teams through the process of removing the tires, checking brake and transmission fluid levels, checking brake wear. Engineering teams will learn about the suspension itself and how the compression works and why it is important. Other teams (metal working, inventing, drafting, electricity, photography and journalism) will be assigned other parts of the build."


We're extremely excited in his program, it combines several unique factors:

• Involvement of several community groups that normally don't work together
• Actively involving teen agers and pre teens in several aspects of the program
• Multiple parts of the program are ecologically oriented.
• There is very little additional expense to the students and scouts involved.
• Plans are for an ongoing program, to continue with other groups.

Below is a video combination of some of the scout interviews (as they worked on Journalism and Photography Merit Badges), courtesy of Scoutmaster Bucky, used with permission. .