01 The stunt
The jump
The Weekend Special is what they call getting booked on a Thursday in the city: you won't see a judge until Monday. You also won't see a toothbrush, soap or toilet paper. I know because it's happened to me, more than once. The first time, I asked for toilet paper and was told to use my hand. New Year's Eve falls on a Thursday this year. So at midnight, as the year turns, I ride a 20° ramp to a lip 10 feet up, cross a 16-foot gap on one wheel and land on a deck at the same height. Then Project 950 goes out: 950 hygiene kits, 314 from the city and 636 from the county, handed to the Justice Center's staff with one instruction: these go to the people booked over the weekend, the night they come in. Toothbrush, soap, toilet paper. The weekend special, ended one kit at a time.
The work
The same kicker, gap and deck at 33 inches first, in a parking lot, plywood bridged over the gap, radar on the lip, until 22 mph comes up every time. Then the gap opens. Then the whole thing goes up on scaffold to 10 feet and it starts over. And Project 950, the kit drive by area code: the city brings 314, the county brings 636. Every neighborhood, every school that wants in, every kit counted.
The night
New Year's Eve downtown, a crowd behind barriers, two decks 10 feet up with a 16-foot gap between them and crash mats on the street below. The countdown hits zero and I'm in the air for seven tenths of a second. Then Project 950 gets counted on the big screen, and the ask gets read out loud, addressed to the city.
Concept. Not performed yet. Ramps and decks get built at 33 inches first, then 10 feet.
What gets measured
- Speed at the lip and where I land on the deck
- Project 950: kits collected, counted on the big screen
- Kits handed over, and how many reached a cell that weekend
What has to be true first
- Every kit counted, and the Justice Center agrees in writing to hand them out at booking, weekends included
- The gap landed at 33 inches until 22 mph repeats, then again at 10 feet with the gap bridged
- The city permits the street and the crowd stands behind barriers
If any one of these is a no, it doesn't happen.
02 The cause · The Justice Center
Nobody should sit in a cell from Thursday to Monday without a toothbrush, a bar of soap or toilet paper.
“I know because it's happened to me, more than once. Once before they said they'd fixed it, and once after. The first time, I asked for toilet paper. I was told to use my hand.”
The ask. A hygiene kit at booking, every day of the week: toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, toilet paper. Showers at least three times a week, like the jail's own policy says. Somebody from outside checks.
My endA few broken bones. Maybe worse.
Your endYour name on #ENOUGH, and a kit for Project 950: 314 from the city, 636 from the county.
What's going on inside
The city jail downtown holds about 800 people. Most of them haven't been convicted of anything. They're waiting for court.
Everyone is supposed to get a hygiene kit on the way in: a toothbrush, soap and deodorant. After that, they buy more at the commissary or ask a caseworker. In 2025 a member of the jail's oversight board said she'd heard multiple reports of people not getting soap or deodorant at all.
Policy says showers at least three times a week. In 2025 one man who'd been held over a year waiting for trial told reporters he hadn't showered in three to four weeks. The jail was about 50 officers short. A toothbrush isn't a reward. It's the floor.
Bonus: say one officer can open a shower block that runs 20 showers at a time, 10 minutes a round. How many officer-hours a week does it take to give 800 people three showers each?
Sources: The Marshall Project and STLPR: No showers, cockroaches and dirty cells (Oct 2025) · Missouri Independent: Conditions in St. Louis jails are at the breaking point (Dec 2025)
03 The math
What would it actually take to give every person inside a toothbrush, soap and a shower?
Ramp kit: a 20° ramp up to a lip 10 feet off the ground, a 16-foot gap over crash mats, and a flat 16-foot landing deck at the same height. Clears the gap at 19.3 mph; the lip is set at 22. The height changes what a miss costs, not the arc.
The formulaCost per year = people × kits per person per year × cost per kit
Drawn to scale from the workbook's own numbers. The red tags are the questions in Chapter 01: solve them below.
Solve the Jump · Workbook, Chapter 01
Grades 6 to 12 (the jump math is 9 to 12)
What would it actually take to give every person inside a toothbrush, soap and a shower?
Two problems. The jump: a 16-foot gap between two decks at the same height, 10 feet up. How far you fly comes from the speed at the lip and the angle of the lip, nothing else; the height only decides what a miss costs. The jail: a toothbrush costs almost nothing, so count everything. People, kits, showers, hours. The numbers show where the real shortage is.
Every jump this season uses the same ramp kit. New to it? Start with The Ramp Kit chapter.
Cost per year = people × kits per person per year × cost per kit
- PretrialHeld before trial. Not convicted of anything yet.
- Per capitaFor each person: a total divided by the number of people.
- BottleneckThe one part of a system that limits everything else.
Worked example
The lip is angled 20° up and the landing deck is at the same height, 16 ft away. At 22 mph, how far out does the wheel come back down to lip height, how far onto the deck is that, and how long is it in the air?
- 22 mph = 9.83 m/s: 9.24 m/s across and 3.36 m/s up.
- Same height both ends, so range R = v² × sin(2 × 20°) ÷ 9.8 = 9.83² × 0.643 ÷ 9.8 = 6.34 m, about 20.8 ft.
- 20.8 − 16 = 4.8 ft onto the deck. Air time: 2 × 3.36 ÷ 9.8 = 0.69 s. Highest point: 3.36² ÷ (2 × 9.8) = 0.58 m, about 1.9 ft above the lip.
- Notice there is no height in R. A 33-inch training kicker and a 10-foot deck fly the same 21 ft at the same speed and angle.
Your turn: three problems, one for each level
- ★ Rookie
Booked at 10 p.m. on a Thursday, out at 10 a.m. Monday. How many hours is that? If you brush twice a day, how many times would you have brushed?
Show the answer
84 hours, about 7 times.
- Thursday 10 p.m. to Monday 10 p.m. is 4 days; take off 12 hours.
- 4 × 24 − 12 = 84 hours.
- 84 ÷ 24 = 3.5 days × 2 = 7.
- ★★ Pro
Jail policy says at least 3 showers a week. With 800 people, that's how many showers a week? A shower block runs 20 showers at a time, 10 minutes a round, and needs one officer while it's open. How many officer-hours a week, and per day?
Show the answer
2,400 showers, 120 rounds, about 20 officer-hours a week, under 3 a day. The soap and the water aren't the bottleneck. The officers are: the jail was about 50 short.
- 800 × 3 = 2,400 showers.
- 2,400 ÷ 20 = 120 rounds × 10 min = 1,200 min = 20 hours.
- 20 ÷ 7 = 2.9 hours a day.
- ★★★ Engineer
The ramp climbs 10 ft at 20°. If the motor adds nothing on the way up, how fast does he have to hit the base to leave the lip at 22 mph? Why is the lip, not the base, where the radar points?
Show the answer
About 28 mph at the base. The ramp is 29 ft long and gravity pulls 3.4 m/s² along it. The motor can make some of that back, so the only number that settles the jump is the one at the lip.
- Ramp length: 10 ft ÷ sin 20° = 29.2 ft = 8.91 m.
- v_base² = v_lip² + 2 × 9.8 × sin 20° × 8.91 = 9.83² + 59.7.
- v_base = 12.51 m/s = 28.0 mph.
The engineer's question
“The gap stays bridged until the lip speed repeats.”
This has to be true before the attempt. Why?
What to look for
Plywood over the gap turns a 10-foot fall into a roll. The kicker, the gap and the deck get built at 33 inches first, in a parking lot, with the same radar at the lip; the number has to come up 22 over and over before anything is 10 feet up, and the gap is never open until it does.
Solve it. Don't try it. The predictions get settled by the real numbers on the night.
The landing
Now it's your turn.
- 01Solve the jumpCall the landing before I make it. Free, grades 6 to 12.→
- 02Put a hero on the wallYou or someone else. Earn your belts, White to Black.→
- 03Sign your nameAll I'm asking for. It tells the city St. Louis wants this.→
This time, everyone sees it coming.For glory, not money · Solve it first