My Gold Award

Why Did I choose NSCD Moves?

The National Sports Center for the Disabled was where I learned to ride horses and eventually began to volunteer. Working with the NSCD's horses taught me some of the most important leadership skills and qualities with me today. After volunteering and seeing how the program helps so many people and knowing how much their programs have benefited my family and me, I wanted to be able to help them in the best way that I could, providing a new program that they can offer in the mountains. By making an NSCD Moves Course I will be able to provide them with a program that is portable and easy to set up here in the mountains. They will be able to have a program that they can take around to all the schools, gyms, and any flat outdoor space to challenge both large and small groups of people.

My Project

Since there was already a course down in the Denver Metropolitan area, I went down and saw the course that they run there. As I watched, there were obvious and easy improvements that I was going to be able to make to this course. I started with a list of all the obstacles that I would need to build. To put this plan into action I will develop a blueprint for each piece and them build them. The building will include many power tools and hammers. We will not need a building permit to construct the obstacles as they are all relatively small and easy to build. The obstacles that I would need to construct were Acid Rain, Spider Web, tip boards, Ninja warrior steps, a tunnel, under and over obstacle, balance beams, and up and over walls. I also needed to find a box trailer for the course so that is was mobile and so that it was easy to transport.

Funding My Project

I estimated my total budget at $2250. I budgeted $2000 of that for the box trailer. I left $250 for materials needed to build the course. I found a box trailer that sat exactly at the budget that I had set for it. To get the money for the trailer, I wrote a grant through Mountain Parks Electric. They gave me the $2000 in full and I was able to purchase the box trailer. For the other materials, I asked Country Ace Hardware for paint and painting supplies, which they donated to me. For the PVC pipes for the other obstacles, I asked Fraser Ace Hardware, and they also donated them to me as well as some spray paint for the PVC obstacles. All together both businesses donated materials to me at a value of $202.43. I came in at an ending budget at $2202.43 which put me $48.57 under my original budget estimation.

Building My Project

I had an amazing team that helped me in the construction of the project. The team that helped me was my troop, NSCD Interns, Scott Olson, Toby Davis, and Dylan Cormican. With this team of twelve people, we were able to split everything into three separate work days. In one day, we built all of the PVC obstacles, the next we did most of the wooden obstacles, not including the up and over walls which we built on the next day. The days that we were able to build were more random because living up in the mountains the weather is unpredictable.

Obstacles

Obstacle Course Set Up

Up and Over Boxes

There are two of these, one is 4 feet tall and the other is three feet tall. The picture is when we built them.