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This little tale began around three years ago when I met a TV presenter called Kevin Mc Cloud who hosts a TV programme called Grand Designs, he was researching projects for a new series they were producing and we ended up talking about what people could do to become more self sufficient and less reliant upon technology, and live a more rustic lifestyle based upon what they could build themselves, he has just had a mini series finish tonight on this very issue. Unfortunately I haven't seen it yet but he kindly sent me the whole series on DVD several weeks ago as I agreed not to do, or say anything until his series finished.

Our variant is for teenage children to construct a shelter or some kind to house four of them for at least a week, it must be built entirely by them on a patch of land I own, and they must live in it for a week. They cannot buy anything and must make it from anything they can beg or borrow, they are not allowed to buy one single item for any aspect of the project, but can utilise any services they can obtain for free and can collect and reuse any items they can get which includes repairing or modifying existing equipment which is scrap or turning it into something else.
They must have the basics to live, this is cooking facilities, heating as it will be used for one year, lighting from whatever they can beg, steal, or borrow; recycling facilities for all their waste which includes toilets, washing and cleaning facilities for themselves and their clothes and utensils, and it must be safe. They have access to my wood for timber for fuel and I have four trees which are ready for felling which they can have if they fell them. They are not allowed any connections to any services so no gas, electricity, or sewage systems are to be plumbed in. They can only use hand tools which can normally be found around an average home and no power tools as they have no mains electricity, but they will be allowed to use cordless drills which they must recharge and once discharged they cannot use them until they take them home to recharge them. We have a stream which runs through our land

To date I have saved one full skip of various metal scrap and offcuts which is plate, various box and girder sections, and pipe, I will donate 20 fabrication hours to them free of charge to make or modify any items they collect.
They have been resourceful and talked a local supplier to donate any screws and nails which come in damaged packaging and cannot be sold and they have two buckets of screws and nails various. They have scoured many local industrial estates and have currently got around 60 pallets which are 8 X 4'and made from 3 X 2" timber, so theres a frame, and a local building site have given them a variety of items ranging from insulation to board materials which were surplus at their completion.
They have a variety of gas bottles which have been dumped, a set of cutlery and crockery from one set of parents who swapped their for new items, and a set of cooking utensils from a local school kitchen, and various kitchen tools they have made themselves.
Tool wise they have a variety of basic hand tools including saws, hammers, pry bars, chisels, wood grenades, spades and shovels, adze, hatchets, machette's, and various other miscellaneous tools; if they break or lose a tool its gone, thats it unless they can find another or have a local supplier donate one.

Food wise they will be allowed to take one weeks supply of food each, once its gone they go hungry, they will have no refrigeration to store anything unless they improvise and make a fridge, and once in there they will have to fend for themselves. They will be allowed access to one camera each with a memory card to photograph the build phase and their weeks stay, and a video camera for two hours per day to make a video diary. Local schools have allowed this to be used as part of their school work if they document it, and will give any participants one week off school to participate.

What they are looking for are ideas and suggestions as to how to construct a suitable shelter which is warm and watertight, how to survive and plan for a week each, and any other suggestions and tips anyone can offer.

They are now beginning to plan and collect as the construction will begin in the new year and they will be living in it for their allocated year from around April 2013.

Sounds like a very good plan, am sure it will work and make better people for the future,
not on a grand scale as what you are doing, when our children were young, we lived in Essex, and lucky to have a larger garden than most, I was a painter and decorator working on sites, used to bring home quite a few odds and ends, for them to use, managed to get 12 sheets of 8x4 sheets of ply, I made a fort and then they with other children they made a den.

Then when we moved to Scotland we had 120 acre farm, they were getting older and made quite a few den's and shelter's,
in the winter with the snow, our farm track was 4-5 feet lower then fields, so in the large drifts they made snow holes and an igloo.

So good luck with the prodject.

As an update to this project, they have constructed their wooden shelter and found it took five times as long as they expected, but found out it was easier to dig the ground when it was wet which meant they got really dirty, they dropped eight oak piles cut from an old oak tree which was felled and managed to get them fairly level by eye and built the floor from the 3 X 2's which they found were too flimsy so glued screwed two together to make them 6 X 2's which are a lot better. They made the frame from the remaining 3 X 2's and found out that it wasn't as easy as they thought and made many mistakes as they worked in metric and the timber is in imperial sizes, they covered this in pallet boards and found they had not laid the frame out correctly so the boards went to the end of the framing instead of sitting in the centre, so a lot of trimming boards to the correct size was required. They decided to throw away all the offcuts until I asked how much fire wood they had, then decided to store the offcuts for the fire as it is their only form of heat for heating and cooking.

They decided to research the designs of various cooking and heating systems and decided on using a rocket stove for cooking as this is very fuel efficient and wouldn't use as much wood as it only uses about 20% of the fuel of a conventional wood cooker and they only needed to light it when they needed it as they wouldn't need heat in summer. They used up three hours of their allotted fabrication time and sourced all their metal from the offcuts I had allocated from the scrap I had saved, their heater was basically a variation of a pot belly stove made from a piece of large bore pipe in the scrap bin and they deemed this as adequate for heating and as with the rocket stove, would only be lit when needed to save wood.

With the roof on which was made from pallet boards, they found it leaked and covered it with plastic sheeting which was old packaging, this prevented the leaking and was used as a temporary measure, but left in place when they decided to use wood shingles to cover the pallet board roof, these were made by hammering a hatchet into lengths of branches from the trees I had allocated for them to cut down and they split them along the grain of the timber. Once split they spent hours with hatchets fettling them to the right shape, then nailed them onto the roof once they had a quantity to cover a reasonable area. Once this was done they found them very effective and they were waterproof. All the offcuts of wood were saved and they scrounged several 45 gallon drums to store these offcuts of wood in so they have fuel, and they covered them with cling film to seal them which I thought was a good idea.

One of the major environmental charities supplied them with reeds and other plants to make a composting toilet and they found an old toilet on a skip from a property refurbishment and the builders let them have it along with all the fittings and offcuts of new plastic soil pipe they had used to install the new toilet, they made a basic outside toilet which now has a cistern and flushes, the waste runs into the composting reed bed, but the cistern has to be filled by hand. They made a basic shelter for their new toilet and used offcuts of timber to fill in the sides for dignity, and actually made a wooden shingle roof for cover, and it works. They dug out the reed bed to the design from the environmental charity and planted it with the reeds and plants they had been given.

With a waterproof structure they deliberated about bedding, and worked out the sleeping arrangements by marking out the floor, they made four bed frames from timber and gathered willow and woven this across the frames to make very substantial beds.

They have gathered some old double glazed windows and removed the frames, they kept the glass and made frames from wood they had left from the pallets and cut the apertures into the structure after they found where the best sides were for morning and evening light, and installed them. They used the insulation they had and insulated the entire roof and about halfway down the walls until they finally ran out of insulation, then found an old double glazed door complete with frame and recycled it. They fitted this and even had the keys to it so it locks. With this installed they lined it with their plywood sheets they had managed to secure from a concrete company working locally who had used it for shuttering on their project, they cleaned them up to remove most of the concrete and put this side to the insulation to give them a partially insulated and
lined building.

Will follow up with regular updates as they happen.

And I would like to think they have had a lot more fun and experience, then playing
computer games.

Glad it is all coming together, our granddaughter this weekend had to find all the materials
and design a boat, she did well, only 8.

Glad to hear it, Grandson only 8 and harangues his mother to bring him up if he knows I'm doing something at home, its the time they learn and become interested in being practical and to think for themselves.