Demo Camp Units: Difference between revisions

DEMOnstrating and CAMPing: a multi-purpose unit

1. With the help of the Democamp units banners can be better seen
2. Democamp units can be laid down horizontally and used as tents during blockades
3. Putting the units together is inexpensive and quick

• Organizing a demonstration for a social purpose is an enormous task. But is has little effect of transferring the message to the public that watch on the paved sidewalk or on their TV's. Banners carried on sticks cannot be read, chants cannot be understood. Demonstrators are dependent on media reporters to deliver their message to the public. A better tool is needed, which is cheap, easy to make, and effective.

• Demonstrators may need shelter during the night or in case of bad or hot weather. Such shelter can have a dual purpose of 1) getting the message across to the media and public, and 2) serve as a temporary shelter. Demonstrators are seldom welcomed by police and the public that may be hostile to the demonstration. It should never be a concern to lose the demonstrating materials or to not have shelter.

How to make the parts for the DemoCamp-units

• Need sticks, crosswire, banner clamps and sheets for Demo Camp-units. To make these parts is not difficult, but it is important to have accurate work!
• Beware! Sloppy work at this stage may result in shameful collapse of towers and constructions at the time of a demonstration, which would otherwise be gloriously effective.
• If you are not sure, make materials for one single prism unit, overload it and see if or how it collapses. Then see if your work is good enough or if you could have done something better.

How to make demo camp units

1. Construct at the site of the demonstration quickly using lightweight towers to expose banners
2. Use the same construction as shelter by attaching covers to the construction
3. Make the construction in advance out of cheap wire and bamboo sticks

A lightweight portable display tower to show banners and posters, high over the heads of the crowd, so they can be seen from a long distance. The display can be assembled in any shape and size from modular construction elements: bamboo sticks and metal cross wires. The demonstrators can do this on the spot of the demonstration.

Sticks [2,2 m long] and steel diagonal wires make up the structure of prisms and blocks, which can be connected to form all kinds of shapes. When the sides are covered, as with a tent, with plastic film with slogans written on them, the potential of "demonstrative camping" is born.

Four people can sleep in each unit, it is tall enough for a person to stand. Constructed not as a prism but as a block it can be used as a temporary office. Such shelters can also be used for emergencies with the use of heat-insulating film behind the plastic cover.

Bamboo is the ideal material to use for the sticks. It’s lightweight, which allows the towers to be carried around by three people, each holding a corner. The towers have so little mass that toppling over is no real danger. The metal wires used as cross wires in the construction are thin. They can be acquired when cut from car tires.

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