The Sunbeamer Camp for 2017

By Bixyl Shuftan

The Relay Weekend is the high point of the Relay for Life fundraising season every year, and although some of it's areas are "designer sims," most of what people see on the track are the various exhibits of the teams. Since the members of the team meet up at these places, they've gotten the name "campsites." While some are often nature scenes, often they're buildings or something else.

Made up mostly of members of the former Passionate Redheads when starting out, since 2013 the Sunbeamers, the team of Second Life's Sunweaver community, have been part of the Relay. And every time, several of the people have come together to build an exhibit. Over time, the Newser has written about most of the camps in 2013 (2014 picture), in 2015, and of the 2016 camp which won an award for it's educating the visitors while telling the story of a farmer's daughter discovering she had cancer. So how to follow up on an award-winning build? That was the challenge the team, notably the top builders Shockwave Yareach and Cynthia Farshore faced.

"Shocky was the head builder for this year," Cynthia Farshore told me, saying it was "his idea to make an airport terminal, and he laid out the model on my dinning room table. From that we then took things to a build platform the same size as this camp over (Farshore Field),  about two thousand meters, and began piecing it together. He was able to get the size and placement worked out before it came to here." The camp would be at RFL Celebrate (185/130/22).

Around the main build was a parking lot with a few cars, and a couple airliners and a baggage carrier. The entrance would have people going through a security checkpoint, which included an x-ray machine. Before going in, there was a HUD for a game they could pick up. "Gives a passport," Cynthia told me, "You look for the stamps around the camp, Most are in rooms." One stamp, that of the Sunweavers, was somewhere in the entrance area. Past the entrance, there was a round concourse with a number of rooms around it, as well as one in the center. In each a stamp for the game was placed. Finding all of the stamps would get the resident a small prize.

On the walls were a number of posters of locations, but only a handful were what one would expect to find at a real airport, "In true Sunweaver fashion, we just couldn't put up straight posters." One of New York city was a cartoon picture of someone in a taxi getting robbed and two grinning people looking over a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge. Another showed a "Star Wars" Stormtrooper in an icy place, inviting people to vacation in Hoth. Still another "Greetings from Baghdad" showed a plane dropping a bomb as it flew behind two unknowing tourists. There was also a poster titled "United," which made me think of the airliner which had gotten in trouble a few months ago for forcing a passenger off it's plane. In between the comedy and comedic references were more serious statistics, stating how much money various activities in the treatment of cancer took.

Each of the six rooms represented a real-world location: New York City, Bejing, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles, and Mexico City. In most of the rooms, information about cancer was placed appropriate to the setting. For the traffic scene in New York, there was information about carcinogens. For the sunbathers on the beach in Rio, there was information on skin cancer. For the nude male statues in Rome, there were facts about prostrate cancer. For the food and outhouse in the Mexico area, there was information on colon and rectal cancer.

There were a couple details from previous builds. One was the prayer tower, which launched balloons towards heaven, people able to place names of those they wished to honor. There was also a memorial garden, with a pink fox statue for Artistic Fimicloud, a resident of the Sunweaver community whom had passed away nine years ago. There were a couple smaller pink foxes in the fountain in front of the airport as well, which when clicked gave some information about "Fimi" as she was called.

They were limited with how much could be built, "land is misleading, shows (it) supports 4687, but turns out they limited us to, what is it, 2500? Guess need room for all the million prim furries that will be coming through." Some last minute work on the build, such as placing another couple panels, was postponed until after the judging of the camps due to Cynthia and Shockwave's real-life work schedules, "when I got on I was so tired after doing an all nighter and working all day. Shocky was no better, so we said we're done." Still, they were happy with what they had accomplished. So was team captain Rita Mariner, "I am happy with the way the build came together. I think our builders did a great job and had some fun doing it."

Skylark Lefavre commented, "I think in my own honest opinion this is the best one we did in a long time. Its in it's own rights a competitor, with teams like 'Aliens Love Tatas Too.' It's not only informative and educational, its also entertaining and visual, something you can participate in, almost like a tour. Using the airport take the tour is a nice touch since an airport represents a way into any part of the world it also shows the education of cancer prevention and treatment can reach any place as well."

As it turned out, others would be impressed with the campsite too. It would be awarded second place for "Best Themed Decorated Campsite." Rita was happy, "Second place and fun doing it." Shockwave was very pleased, especially considering the quality of some of the other camps, "Against THIS level of expertise? I'm ecstatic! Couldn't have done it without all of you!"

And so, once again "the little team that could" made a big impact in the Relay for Life in Second Life, thanks in part to the skill and persistence of it's builders.

Addition: Wildstar Beaumont took several pictures of the exhibit, which can be seen here. 

Bixyl Shuftan

RFL Camp Reports: Relay Wizards for Spunky Team

By DrFran Babcock

This is a true story about a Relay for Life Camp that came together in through the input, creativity, and hard work of a true team.

When the Status Quo Gets Disrupted

Relay Wizards for Spunky Team Captain Shawna Montgomery planned for her team’s sixth year without a care. She had a solid team, and a builder who was renowned throughout Second Life™ for her skills: Anhayla Lycia. Last year, Anh won the award for the Best Designer Build during 2012’s Relay for Life. So, everything was sweet. That is, until the Relay Committee asked Anhayla if she could do a second build, because they had another parcel available. Shawna did what any competent leader would do, and asked Anh if it would help not to have to build The Relay Wizards campsite this year. That was when she looked at her team roster and decided to ask if I could build the campsite. Oh, and the sims will close to building on July 10^th, less than two weeks from the day the request was made! 

Putting Together the Team

This was a situation that called for quick action. Team member, HALEY Salomon, skilled motivator, but not a builder, volunteered team member Thickbrick Sleaford to provide scripting services. I remembered that my friend Catboy Qunhua was running around SL10B volunteering to help people the whole time. I figured I would ask him. 

The hard part was to decide what to do, and I thought about it, until it hit me. I was still thinking about how wonderful SL10B had been, and what wonderful exhibits I had seen. Chaffro Shoomaker had given me a tour of the Raglan Tinies build, and I was struck by the moving platform they had in the air, that Chaffro told me had been scripted by the amazing Panacea Pangea, and used a new function Linden Lab had added to the Linden Scripting Language (LSL)—one that allowed a prim to move an avatar just by standing on it!

Here I Come to Save the Day!

Catboy said yes to my request to build, and quickly demonstrated his Mighty Mouse gesture of rescue: "Here I Come to Save the Day." Thickbrick was excited to try the new scripting function. We decided we wanted to do something that related to history, because it was the 100^th anniversary of the creation of the American Cancer Society, and something that used the people mover script. That was how the design for the dioramas throughout history was born. I did a schematic, and we met. Before the meeting was over, Thickbrick had consulted the LSL Wiki, and constructed a large moving walkway. Catboy and I consulted on the history we wanted to highlight, divided up the work, and ran off to build.

 Little by little we constructed the campsite on land set aside on Anhayla’s island, while she, in turn, worked on her two designer builds for the Relay track. Catboy worked secretly in an undisclosed location, and then brought his builds to Anh’s land. Each time he placed another diorama we gaped in wonder, and cheered our growing creation. Thickbrick’s moving sidewalk became a sensation. We started to congregate on it, moving slowly around the growing campsite, chatting, making plans, arguing over decisions about the build, and coming to see the people mover as a kind of Town Square.

 As we neared completion we started to encounter a problem. The center of the build looked very bare, and there were no signs of the mystical and magical landscaping and objects that typified Anhayla’s camps of the past. We put our heads together and Shawna, HALEY, Catboy, Thickbrick, and Anhayla came up with the idea to put all the mystical items in the area that made up the “donut hole” of the people mover. In this way we separated the grim reality o f cancer from the more lighthearted world of dragons and runes—specialties of Anhayla.

Putting It All Together—Telling Stories Camp

I conceptualized the theme of the build on the basis of the way the build turned out, and not the other way around, because our time was so short: Catboy and I on the outside perimeter with our dioramas of history, separated from the mystical world of Anhayla Lycia by the people moving circle made by Thickbrick. Telling the story of the history of cancer and Relay on the outside, and telling stories of magic and mystery on the inside, as a means of escaping from the relentless woe of the cancer. Also, the word telling has a few meanings. Telling means to recount, as in telling a tale or story. Telling, as an adjective means that a telling story is one that is striking or revealing. The stories that we hear on T1 Radio, told by survivors and caregivers, are indeed striking and revealing.

Come visit The Relay Wizards for Spunky campsite at: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/RFL%20IMAGINE/191/136/21 .

Team photo: Left to Right: Catboy Qunhua, Selina Greene, Shawna Montgomery, HALEY Salomon, katfancy Kiergartan, Brokali, and ρєαяℓч (Pearlygurlee Ducatillon)

Team members missing from photo: Thickbrick Sleaford, Spunky Young, Anhayla Lycia, Amber DeCuir, Arctic Kas, Silverthorn Karu, Explorer Dastardly, Mickey Darkward, Orchid Jameson

By DrFran Babcock