Make It · Book Nine

The one-pin release

Every rig at the Roost comes off the animal wearing it in about a second, with no person and no tool. One pin holds the whole thing on. This is that pin.

Ink drawing of the finished build.
The finished thing, drawn the way the books draw an object.

You need

  • two pieces of cardboard
  • a blunt pencil
  • string
  • two paper clips
  • tape
  • scissors
  • a chair. Ask a grown-up to do the cutting
  • or to sit with you while you do it.

About half an hour. Everything on that list came out of a kitchen, which is the rule these pages are written to.

Steps

  1. Cut a rectangle about the size of this book. That is the pad. It touches the animal, so it never carries anything.
  2. Cut a smaller rectangle. That is the frame. Tape your cargo to it — a sock, a folded paper, something soft. Nothing heavier than a sock, and nothing breakable.
  3. Straighten the paper clips into U-shapes, with the ends pointed away from your face while you bend them. Fold a piece of tape over both cut ends of each one, so there is no bare wire anywhere. Tape one U to the pad and one to the frame, so that holding them together lines the two loops up into one tunnel.
  4. Push the pencil through both loops. That is the pin, and it is now the only thing holding your rig together. Pick the whole thing up by the frame and see.
  5. Tie a foot of string to the end of the pencil. That is the Tug.
  6. Hang the pad over the back of a chair — on the seat side, never over anybody's head, and never off a banister or a bunk. Pull the Tug and count how long everything takes to come off. More than a second means your loops are too tight.
  7. Now do it with your eyes shut, one-handed, with the chair in front of you and nothing else within reach. That is the shop's real test.

Try this

  • The string goes round the pencil and nothing else. Not a neck, not a wrist, not a finger, not a person, not an animal. Ever.
  • Nothing on this page goes over anybody's head, and nothing hangs off a banister, a bunk, a door or a stairway. The seat side of a chair, and that is all.
  • Use a blunt pencil, and keep the end of it turned away from you while you push it through.
  • Tape every cut end of every paper clip before you tape the clip to anything. Bare wire is the one part of this that bites.
  • Nothing heavier than a sock goes in the frame, and nothing that breaks. This is a test of a pin, not of a floor.
  • Do not put this, or anything like it, on a real animal, including your dog. Cardboard is for chairs.