The HabForum

Any suggestions on what I can do with the wings I got from previous Camp visits now that lanyards are no longer used? The cool thing about the lanyards was that you could tell how many times someone had been to camp by how many sets of wings/other pins they had. I also have a remembrance ribbon that they gave us on the first anniversary of 9/11.

I thought about putting them on my backpack.

Back in my day, you wore them on your Camp-issued hat or visor, or flightsuit.

It's worth mentioning that the current system of rubber Lance Armstrong bracelets is pretty lame. Hopefully Dr. Barnhart will come up with something more prestigious for trainees to wear around.

So sad to see the lanyards go. Bracelets aren't very exciting or very flight-like. I would pin them to your flight suit in this case, stack them up above/below your nametag or on your sleeve in place of mission patches.

Do they still have name cards? A bracelet sounds sorta hospital-ish. How does the ID thing work?

Kale, there aren't any namecards. We wear bracelets that look like hospital ones (ASA ones are green) that are "waterproof" and also double as our giftcards. They aren't even rubber. XD

That sounds super goofy. Must be hard for the team leaders to remember names.

I have always hated wristbands. You have to sleep and shower with them. Ugh

Yeah, I wasn't too fond of my wristband. Guess what the first thing I did after I got home was...

Nametags are back this year, by the way. While I was visiting for the Salute to Shuttle a few weeks ago, I saw a group of ASA trainees and they were wearing the old school clip-on nametags.

Hotdog wrote:Nametags are back this year, by the way. While I was visiting for the Salute to Shuttle a few weeks ago, I saw a group of ASA trainees and they were wearing the old school clip-on nametags.

Yaayyy!

The 'ASA' trainees wearing name badges were a corporate camp. The wristbands are the system used. As the person who assembles those wristbands, I can tell you they are preferable to the name badges because far fewer get lost. With badges I was replacing 50-60 a week.

The barcode system instigated the change. If a child lost their badge with their barcode on it anyone could pick it up and spend all of the child's spending money. The wristbands are more generic, but it's safer for the child. The barcode also allows the nurses to safely track medications.

No, it doesn't make a pretty souvenir, but it does serve the camper better. Parents are wild about being able to load their child's spending money on their account. No more calls home about a child losing $100!

Oh, good point there! How do you put a name and barcode on a bracelet? Are they like hospital bracelets where you can print on them? I guess it doesn't matter as much what ID they have, as long as it is effective.

Yup, exactly like a hospital bracelet (we get them from a hospital bracelet manufacturer). I do get them color coded for the program. Red=Camp, Blue=Academy, Green=AA and Yellow for AC (I know, but that's the way RedBull wants it).

You know when I go back I'll just wear a previous name badge from another year. Its not like my name changed...

Do they even give out wings anymore? I found a set at an antique show recently, it had a red shield in the center with “US Space Camp” written on it. I assume these are the wings people are talking about, but do they still give them out and if so, do they still have this design?

To my knowledge they still give out wings. the design with the red shield are the Space Camp level wings, blue is space academy, advanced academy is a diffrent design, and AC has their own as well each program with a diffrent color. At adult camp youd get the blue academy wings. About the only change i've seen in recent years was the wings were silver colored for the 25th anniversary though i got a silver pair again when i went back in 08. Not sure if they still use the silver ones or of they have gone back to the antique finish. A cool pair of wings to find would be the old Space Academy Level 2 wings. They were gold colored with the Space Camp emblem in the middle these are not used anymore.

p51 wrote:Do they even give out wings anymore? I found a set at an antique show recently, it had a red shield in the center with “US Space Camp” written on it. I assume these are the wings people are talking about, but do they still give them out and if so, do they still have this design?

Yes, we still give out wings to all 6 and 5 day programs, as well as the 3 day Pathfinder program.

Camp gets the one with the red shield imprinted with 'Space Camp'.
Academy gets one with a blue shield imprinted with 'Space Academy'.
Advanced wings have a round shield with 'Advanced Space Academy' imprinted.
AC gets wings with the AC triangle and color coded to their programs, but the imprint is the same 'Aviation Challenge'.
Pathfinder gets a wing with a shuttle in the center of the wings.

Do they not give out wings for adult campers anymore since its only a weekend program?

Oh, no! 3 day weekend programs (family camps, adult camps and Pathfinder) all get wings, as always.

Sounds like I have most of the available wings that are given out today. The funny thing is two of these were in pockets of SC flight suits I’ve bought at aviation collectible shows. The third I paid just a few bucks for, just for the heck of it:

OK see the middle one, Space Academy, in green? When I went for Level II in 1994 ours was blue. I think my Level I wings are blue as well. I don't remember ever seeing a green pair until now.