Introduction: Quick Shelter/fort

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This fort is super easy and quick to make. All you need is the supplies from the woods and some sort of tie such as a bungee cord, shoelace, rope, or string. It can be a great family afternoon project or a great project for your kids! Kids will not have much trouble building this by themselves but they will learn about teamwork, tension. hard work, and other things!

Step 1: Gather

Very first find a clearing to place your fort.

Then gather long sturdy sticks and lay them in a pile all parallel.

Do not use flimsy, brittle, or short sticks.

It is best if you break or chop off large branches on the sticks to prevent tangling between them later.

Step 2: Tie It Together

Now deside what side you want to be the bottom. If one side has mostaly wider parts of the sticks then it should be the base. You want the base to be mostaly level. The top does not need to be level at all.

Now find where the shortest stick reaches to at the top. If it is much much lower than the other sticks just take it out of the pile or push it up a bit so it is not so much of an outlier. Once you find the shortest stick that is reasonably close to the others you should go down towards the base about two-four inches and tie all the sticks together very tightly. You can use anything you can tie with to tie.

Step 3: Stand and Begin Basic Structure

Stand this up now with the tie upwards and slowly pull sticks outward widening the structure. After a while pick any stick and turn it, winding it up increasing the tension so the sticks do not slip around.

Continue pulling the sticks outward, the top of the structure will lower but it will also become wider.

Repeat this until the size is how you like it.

Step 4: Walls

Now you can rest large or small, sturdy or weak sticks all over the extierior of the structure. These will be the walls so you can add as many as you like.

To increase “life” of your structure’s walls you can put sturdy sticks diagonal to each other over the walls and planted ion the ground.

You could make thick walls or walls with spotty holes it really depends on what you like. I wanted mine to be quick and I might strengthen it later but I just put sticks of all sizes placed withought attention to detail.

Step 5: Optional Decoration

you could layer the ground with pine needles or ferns if you wanted but I just went with a dirt base. I put string lights around the exterior and placed the battery pack on top so to cover it I did the following.

Gather ferns or large leaves and tie the stems together with a string. Put your cluster on top and spread out the ferns.

And you are done.

Step 6: Enjoy

Now you can chill in your fort, it looks really cool but it is also pretty campflouged. You can put a tin in there to store tools or anything you want. Have fun!

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