Hobby Culture Festival China – Planting Seeds for the Future!

While Friday was officially the opening day of the 2nd Edition of Hobby Culture Festival China (HCFC), it was Day 2 that really saw this interactive Expo come to life as we witnessed first hand how it was actively planting the seeds for the future of the hobbies it represents!  Having walked in with ease on Friday morning while most people wrapped up their work week, on arriving at the Hangzhou International Expo Center on Saturday morning the queues where already out the door.  With no school to attend, the stand out of those queues was the number of young kids – each and everyone of them buzzing with excitement waiting to check out the two halls of goodies inside.  Impressed by the Expo organiser’s various interactive set ups we seen on Friday, now we were seeing how above all the noise of the thousands of visitors these were engaging kids and their families.  Sitting in the media centre, every time a goal was scored over at the RC Soccer track the cheers & roars of the families rose above everything (so did the Refs whistle!) – that was kids & their parents having a very positive hands on first experience of RC and that was just one of many RC activities around the Expo.  Of all the activities, one that really stood out for us was due to just how simple yet effective it was and how it was subtly ‘Planting Seeds for the Future’ with the kids.  Getting the attention of 200 families (that’s almost 500 people) is not easy but with a simple car body painting competition the Expo was doing just that.

The concept is simple.  Each kid is given for free a 1:24 scale car to paint but which also needs a little mechanical assemble – clever!  The free part is also clever with Chinese car company Jetour sponsoring all the kits, the body of which is one of their SUV models!  With all the kids and their families sat at tables laid out for the competition it begins with kids using the kit supplied paint set and brush to get creative with the clear lexan body shell.  Using a cardboard chassis the kit also contains a small screwdriver for building the drivetrain.  The painted master pieces are allowed to dry over a lunch break, everyone leaving the area before returning for the judging.  And this is another aspect were the kids are introduced to something they might not normally lean towards.  With 70% marks offered for the body painting – the other 30% is a distance test for the pull back car on a marked table.  Build the chassis and wheels well and the car is going to travel further!  While keeping the whole thing fun, the competition concludes with its own prize ceremony, the winner being presented with a certificate.  Watching this activity unfold, the engagement was pretty impressive, the kids using their hands and you could see the light bulb moment on their faces when they figured out the chassis assembly.  This is all planting seeds for skills that kids need and especially if RC is to become a thing they take up in the future.  For sure this is food for thought for how RC Federations around the world could interact with kids and schools.  In China, CMAC (Car Modelling Association of China) run around 30 events a year based on this body painting competition as part of the early steps of their RC Popularisation and Development program.  To take that full circle, talking to the guys on the HPI Racing booth, one of the trends they have noticed recently is the number of adults they sell cars to who having now got their careers up & running and having disposable income are choosing RC as their hobby because they did it back in their school days!