Sedbergh School makes Swift boxes

Thank you to Tanya & Edmund Hoare and Sedburgh Community Swifts for this story.

Our Sedbergh Community Swifts group was delighted when the Design Technology department at Sedbergh School in Cumbria approached us about a project to make swift boxes. This was a project with a difference however: Firstly, the pupils would make boxes based on the Stimpson design but then dismantle them and repeat the process as a production line exercise, to demonstrate efficiency.

Pupils developed skills using several different machines and techniques, including a table router, bandsaw, pillar drill with Forstner drill bit, jigsaw and bobbin sander.

They incorporated two design features:

1. A recessed concave made using 3D CNC machining: a separate base slots in so that the top of the cup is flush with the floor.

2. An acrylic housing under the box for an amplifier's loudspeaker, to keep it shielded from rain.Staff and pupils really liked the project, it was very different from what had been done before, and they are going to repeat it next year.

The boxes have been donated to Sedbergh Community Swifts so that they can be put up around town. We are choosing prominent places around the town so that the pupils, and everyone else, can monitor what happens.

This picture shows the pupils proudly holding their boxes.