The team worked on a "rough draft" of their DI-Bot. Some holes were drilled and a mouth cut out of an old garbage can and an inclined plane roughly put into place with a pulley and some rope. Some rough testing showed the basic concept worked but still needs some refinement.
The team then moved on to some instant challenges. The first challenge involved building a vehicle to travel down an inclined plane as slowly as possible. The team came up with a paper plate that slid on some packing peanut glides. They then used some air power (they are full of hot air) to regulate the speed of the vehicle. The maximum number of points for the slow sliding was 60 (2 points per second, maximum of 30 seconds) and they maxed this out. The one area they could have improved on was using more of their materials and making a "prettier" vehicle.
The second IC was one Karlie came up with. It involved splitting into two teams and independently making up a story. The 2 groups then had to come together and, on the spot, put them together. Karlie and Megan were going to a candy store when they see a tornado. Jared and Luke were shopping for Christmas party supplies. They all ended up in some unknown place when they see another tornado. It brings them to their home in the future. They finally get home in the present and decided to have their Christmas party together.
They team then decided that Christopher and I should attempt the same challenge together. Christopher was taking a micro economic test and I was jack hammering in the street and hit soda. My jack hammering disturbs Christopher who comes out in the street, I give him a drink of the soda to give him the energy to complete his test.
As always check out the photo album to get a taste of the action.
Have a great Christmas,
Mr. H.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Meeting #9 - 12/13/09
During this meeting the team dug deep into the design of their DI bot. A trip to Fleet Farm provided the inspiration the team needed. It's fun going to these types of stores with DI teams. I make them ask someone for help and inevitably the clerk will look right past the kids and to the adults (Christopher and I in this case). I always tell the clerk they have to talk to the kids. Anyway the kind Fleet Farm clerk pointed the team to the parts of the store that have pulley, rope, springs, garbage cans and all of that kind of good stuff :-)
The team spent some time playing around with pulleys, ropes, garbage cans, etc. and managed to rough out a concept for how they are going to have their garbage can turn into into a recycling spitting robot garbage can. We bought one pulley and quickly returned to KI so the idea could be sketched out, see the photo album for a rough idea of what they are going to attempt to build. If anyone has an old (but not too disgusting) garbage can they wouldn't mind having the team destroy please send it along to Wednesday's meeting. We have some left over rope from the egg event that we'll use and the team is also in the market for some door hinges. The other major piece the team is looking for are a motor/drum arrangement (the team has talked about using an old fan for this purpose) but they could pretty much use any old machine that has a motor that rotates a drum. Wednesday they will start experimenting with some of these parts and pieces and see what they can put togehter.
The last part of the meeting the team attempted a walk through of their performance. The general story continues to come together and make pretty good sense for this early stage. The team will need to come up with an innovative way to accomplish one of their scene changes.
The team is making some great progress on their main challenge. Only two more meetings left in 2009!
The team spent some time playing around with pulleys, ropes, garbage cans, etc. and managed to rough out a concept for how they are going to have their garbage can turn into into a recycling spitting robot garbage can. We bought one pulley and quickly returned to KI so the idea could be sketched out, see the photo album for a rough idea of what they are going to attempt to build. If anyone has an old (but not too disgusting) garbage can they wouldn't mind having the team destroy please send it along to Wednesday's meeting. We have some left over rope from the egg event that we'll use and the team is also in the market for some door hinges. The other major piece the team is looking for are a motor/drum arrangement (the team has talked about using an old fan for this purpose) but they could pretty much use any old machine that has a motor that rotates a drum. Wednesday they will start experimenting with some of these parts and pieces and see what they can put togehter.
The last part of the meeting the team attempted a walk through of their performance. The general story continues to come together and make pretty good sense for this early stage. The team will need to come up with an innovative way to accomplish one of their scene changes.
The team is making some great progress on their main challenge. Only two more meetings left in 2009!
Friday, December 11, 2009
Meeting #8 - 12/10/09
We had a good meeting. On the main challenge front the team has the story pretty well roughed out, a lot of details left to fill in but I have confidence they'll have no problem completing the story. The technical part of the challenge involves building the "DI-Bot" they have some good concepts here but it's time for them to start attempting to turn some of them into reality. For our next meeting we will probably take a shopping trip to Menards or Home Depot to scope out some possible supplies. The team is looking for springs, pulleys, rope, an inclined plane, and a garbage can or something that can be used as a garbage can. The rough ideas look good we'll see if they can actually put something together now.
For an IC they did a building challenge where they had to make a structure that was as cantilevered as possible. There were a couple of tricks written into the challenge including height not making any difference for the scoring and speed being an element. They nearly maxed out the points for the amount of cantilever on the structure.
They also did a performance based IC where they had to invent a new animal that could be a pet. I don't recall the animals name but it had a trunk type of thing that could either clean up or create a mess in your home.
There are some pictures of all of this action in the photo album.
For an IC they did a building challenge where they had to make a structure that was as cantilevered as possible. There were a couple of tricks written into the challenge including height not making any difference for the scoring and speed being an element. They nearly maxed out the points for the amount of cantilever on the structure.
They also did a performance based IC where they had to invent a new animal that could be a pet. I don't recall the animals name but it had a trunk type of thing that could either clean up or create a mess in your home.
There are some pictures of all of this action in the photo album.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Meeting #7 - 12/6/09
Tonight the team worked on their contribution to the T-Shirt design, continued to brainstorm ideas for their main challenge, and did an Instant Challenge.
For the T-Shirt design each team is making a contribution by coming up with something to put in a small circle, all of these circles will then be combined to make the overall T-Shirt design.
For the main challenge the idea involving the garbage can that turns into a robot and rejects recyclables thrown into it continues to take shape. An outline of the overall story has been made and preliminary character assignments have been made.
For the Instant Challenge the team did a challenge called "The Bridge to Nowhere". They basically had to build a bridge sticking straight out not connecting to anything. They received points for how far the bridge reached, how well they work together as a team, and how creatively they used the materials they were given. The team did good on the challenge, maxing out the points for distance and scoring well on teamwork. After the challenge they redid the challenge to see if they could go further, this time without one of the key materials they made use of the first time (mailing labels). It was interesting to see how different the second bridge was as compared to the first. There are a few new pictures in the photo album showing the action.
For the T-Shirt design each team is making a contribution by coming up with something to put in a small circle, all of these circles will then be combined to make the overall T-Shirt design.
For the main challenge the idea involving the garbage can that turns into a robot and rejects recyclables thrown into it continues to take shape. An outline of the overall story has been made and preliminary character assignments have been made.
For the Instant Challenge the team did a challenge called "The Bridge to Nowhere". They basically had to build a bridge sticking straight out not connecting to anything. They received points for how far the bridge reached, how well they work together as a team, and how creatively they used the materials they were given. The team did good on the challenge, maxing out the points for distance and scoring well on teamwork. After the challenge they redid the challenge to see if they could go further, this time without one of the key materials they made use of the first time (mailing labels). It was interesting to see how different the second bridge was as compared to the first. There are a few new pictures in the photo album showing the action.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Team Meetings Between Thanksgiving and New Years
The day, date, time and location of our planned meetings between Thanksgiving and New Years are listed below...
Sunday 12/6/09 from 4pm-6pm @ KI
Sunday 12/6/09 from 4pm-6pm @ KI
Thursday 12/10/09 from 6pm-8pm @ Hornberger's House
Sunday 12/13/09 from 4pm-6pm @ KI
Wednesday 12/16/09 from 6pm-8pm @ Hornberger's House
Wednesday 12/30/09 from 6pm-8pm @ Hornberger's House
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Meeting #6 - 11/21/09
Our last meeting prior to Thanksgiving, if you haven't yet please logon to the doodle page to show what meeting times will work for you so we can schedule our meetings from now until 2010! Click below to link to the Doodle page...
The team did some brainstorming on their main challenge today. They have at least one rough concept involving a robotic garbage can that changes someones life. The person whose life changes is a cranky person who throw their recyclables into the garbage can, the garbage can is able to somehow detect this and rejects the recyclables in some way, potentially by either having a mouth open or by being thrown out somehow. This action by the robot garbage can changes their life and they become a happy recycling person. At least that is how I think it went! The robots actions cannot be started with "direct physical contact" this lead to an interesting diversion where the team brainstormed ways to cause things to happen without "direct physical contact" which led to an interesting game or rolling a small roll of electrical tape down a ramp, into a pop up power unit, which knocked over a pyramid of cups. I have some pictures of the action so check out the photo album, this was completely spontaneous and unplanned.
We did a couple of instant challenges also. One involved rotating squares with letters on them to try and create words. The challenge was kind of a dud. They decided to do "boys vs. girls" and for the record the girls won ;-)
We also did a challenge where the team had to take six "coins" (we actually used pieces of paper) half heads and half tails and reverse their positions by flipping and jumping the coins, etc. The trick was there was a very easily solution where you just flip the position by moving the object they are on, in this case we had the "coins" on a wheeled table. For the first go around the team flipped all over and it took 6 moves, when told there was an easier solution Luke quickly realized you just spun the table around, these DI kids are way to smart!
They then did a performance based IC where they had to use a blanket as a prop and have a story with a mystery, a clue, and a solution. Their story involved a dementor (a creature from Harry Potter) who loses a shoe while attacking someone leading the investigators to find the dementors.
That's it for this weeks meeting, remember to go to Doodle to indicate what meeting times will work for you so we can schedule our next batch of meetings.
The team did some brainstorming on their main challenge today. They have at least one rough concept involving a robotic garbage can that changes someones life. The person whose life changes is a cranky person who throw their recyclables into the garbage can, the garbage can is able to somehow detect this and rejects the recyclables in some way, potentially by either having a mouth open or by being thrown out somehow. This action by the robot garbage can changes their life and they become a happy recycling person. At least that is how I think it went! The robots actions cannot be started with "direct physical contact" this lead to an interesting diversion where the team brainstormed ways to cause things to happen without "direct physical contact" which led to an interesting game or rolling a small roll of electrical tape down a ramp, into a pop up power unit, which knocked over a pyramid of cups. I have some pictures of the action so check out the photo album, this was completely spontaneous and unplanned.
We did a couple of instant challenges also. One involved rotating squares with letters on them to try and create words. The challenge was kind of a dud. They decided to do "boys vs. girls" and for the record the girls won ;-)
We also did a challenge where the team had to take six "coins" (we actually used pieces of paper) half heads and half tails and reverse their positions by flipping and jumping the coins, etc. The trick was there was a very easily solution where you just flip the position by moving the object they are on, in this case we had the "coins" on a wheeled table. For the first go around the team flipped all over and it took 6 moves, when told there was an easier solution Luke quickly realized you just spun the table around, these DI kids are way to smart!
They then did a performance based IC where they had to use a blanket as a prop and have a story with a mystery, a clue, and a solution. Their story involved a dementor (a creature from Harry Potter) who loses a shoe while attacking someone leading the investigators to find the dementors.
That's it for this weeks meeting, remember to go to Doodle to indicate what meeting times will work for you so we can schedule our next batch of meetings.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Meeting #5 - 11/14/09
Down one team member the team discussed challenge selections again today. All present have settled on Challenge B - DI-BOT. The team did some brainstorming on ideas for this challenge. The challenge involves telling a dramatic story about how robot technology changes a character's life. The team brainstormed a list of ways robotic technology could change someones life and categorized them as good changes, bad changes, or changes that could be good or bad. Next the team brainstormed a list of possible main characters.
Then it was IC time. First the team did a performance based improv IC where we had a list of charecters, settings, and stories. A set of these was then chosen by a role of the dice. The team decided to decide how much time they had to prepare and how much time they had to present would also be determined by a roll of the dice. They had some interesting scenarios for one turn they had Brett Favre in Iceland with a story of my dog has killer fleas. Next they had Mickey Mouse on the International Space Station with the story being a day in the life of a body guard. Finally they had Lassie in the Mojave Dessert with a story of my jump rope has come to life.
Finally we did a task based IC where the team had to knock over towers of bricks (see the photo album) using some random objects. The catch was the team could not use "direct physical contact" with the tower (this is a restriction right out of Challenge B). For the first go around they quickly decided throwing objects was the best course of action (which worked well) so I changed the rules that they couldn't throw objects, they then got a little more creative and used some wind power with some of the objects and did some "launching" of other objects out of a piece of old gutter and/or tubing. Finally we changed it up again where they had to create as many steps as possible between the action they made and the reaction (knocking the tower over), this results in some great creativity with balls that rolled down platforms and were guided into the tower by funnel type set ups.
Next week is our last meeting before Thanksgiving, watch your email for attempts at scheduling our meetings between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Then it was IC time. First the team did a performance based improv IC where we had a list of charecters, settings, and stories. A set of these was then chosen by a role of the dice. The team decided to decide how much time they had to prepare and how much time they had to present would also be determined by a roll of the dice. They had some interesting scenarios for one turn they had Brett Favre in Iceland with a story of my dog has killer fleas. Next they had Mickey Mouse on the International Space Station with the story being a day in the life of a body guard. Finally they had Lassie in the Mojave Dessert with a story of my jump rope has come to life.
Finally we did a task based IC where the team had to knock over towers of bricks (see the photo album) using some random objects. The catch was the team could not use "direct physical contact" with the tower (this is a restriction right out of Challenge B). For the first go around they quickly decided throwing objects was the best course of action (which worked well) so I changed the rules that they couldn't throw objects, they then got a little more creative and used some wind power with some of the objects and did some "launching" of other objects out of a piece of old gutter and/or tubing. Finally we changed it up again where they had to create as many steps as possible between the action they made and the reaction (knocking the tower over), this results in some great creativity with balls that rolled down platforms and were guided into the tower by funnel type set ups.
Next week is our last meeting before Thanksgiving, watch your email for attempts at scheduling our meetings between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Meeting #4 - 11/8/09
Tonight we got serious about selecting a main challenge. The team made good progress and have it narrowed down to two challenges - Challenge B (DI-Bot) and Challenge D (Do or DI). I gave the team a goal of making a final challenge selection by Thanksgiving.
After all of the main challenge talk we did a fun Instant Challenge called "your witness" where one team member is on the stand in a trial for a crime. Only the person on the stand knows the crime they committed, the other team members are members of the jury or an attorney questioning the witness. The attorney is not allowed to directly ask the witness what crime they committed but instead must narrow it down by asking other questions. It took the team a while to get the hang of it but towards the end they were doing pretty good. There are some pictures from tonights meeting in the photo album. Also be sure to check out the DI section of the school website for pictures and media coverage from the egg event this weekend.
After all of the main challenge talk we did a fun Instant Challenge called "your witness" where one team member is on the stand in a trial for a crime. Only the person on the stand knows the crime they committed, the other team members are members of the jury or an attorney questioning the witness. The attorney is not allowed to directly ask the witness what crime they committed but instead must narrow it down by asking other questions. It took the team a while to get the hang of it but towards the end they were doing pretty good. There are some pictures from tonights meeting in the photo album. Also be sure to check out the DI section of the school website for pictures and media coverage from the egg event this weekend.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Meeting #3 - 11/1/09
This meeting was all about the egg contraption.
The team members designed, built, and tested a couple of other egg contraption concepts. They then built a final egg contraption for the egg event next weekend. The final result looks pretty good, I'll be curious to see how their concepts do on a 40 foot drop, the test drops we've been doing have only been about 12 feet high.
The thing I like most about the final egg contraption is there everyone contributed something to the final solution.
I had an Instant Challenge scheduled for the meeting but we ran out of time so we'll save that for next weekends meeting.
Next week - the egg event! Have you guessed the secret location? Read the rules it's getting a little more obvious every day.
That's all for this week,
Mr. H
The team members designed, built, and tested a couple of other egg contraption concepts. They then built a final egg contraption for the egg event next weekend. The final result looks pretty good, I'll be curious to see how their concepts do on a 40 foot drop, the test drops we've been doing have only been about 12 feet high.
The thing I like most about the final egg contraption is there everyone contributed something to the final solution.
I had an Instant Challenge scheduled for the meeting but we ran out of time so we'll save that for next weekends meeting.
Next week - the egg event! Have you guessed the secret location? Read the rules it's getting a little more obvious every day.
That's all for this week,
Mr. H
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Meeting #2 - 10/25/09
Today it was all about the eggs. The team designed, built, and tested a prototype eggevator and we gave it a ride down an eggevator cable from about 12 feet high. After two drops we did have two broken eggs (no yolking). Next week the team plans to build their final eggevator.
The team then moved on to an Instant Challenge. In this IC the team had to come up with a non-verbal way to communicate and then use their new form of communication to communicate the location of 9 different Halloween graphics on a grid. The team managed to use their non-verbal communication to successfully locate all nine images.
I almost forgot the team also discussed their team name again. They decided to take their favorite name from last meeting and convert it into a palindrome, so the new name is ZOKAYWEDEWYAKOZ, try saying that five times fast!
I almost forgot the team also discussed their team name again. They decided to take their favorite name from last meeting and convert it into a palindrome, so the new name is ZOKAYWEDEWYAKOZ, try saying that five times fast!
We had just a few minutes left so we took one quick look at the main challenges and discussed which ones we might like to do. Challenge E "Breaking DI News" seems to be the least likely to be chosen at this point.
You can check out new pictures in the photo album by clicking on the pictures in the upper right hand corner of the blog.
Please also check out the important dates post and let me know if you have any conflicts with any upcoming meeting dates.
Thats all for this week,
Mr. H.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Important Team 14 Dates
Sunday 11/1/09 11am-1pm
Team Meeting @ KI
Saturday 11/7/09 10am-Noon
Egg Event, Location To Be Announced
Sunday 11/8/09 4pm-6pm
Team Meeting @ KI
Saturday 11/14/09 4pm-6pm
Team Meeting @ KI
Saturday 11/21/09 4:30pm-6pm
Team Meeting @ KI
Saturday and Sunday 11/28 & 11/29
No Team Meeting - Thanksgiving Weekend
Saturday 1/16/10 9am-10:30am or 10:45am-12:15pm
Instant Challenge Workshop - Valley View Elementary
Saturday 2/6/10 9am-10:30am or 10:45am-12:15pm
Instant Challenge Workshop - Valley View Elementary
Saturday 2/27/10 Time To Be Announced
Sneak Peek - St. Bernard Multi-Purpose Room
Saturday 3/20/10 All Day
Regional Tournament - Ashwaubenon High School
Sunday 3/28/10 Time To Be Announced
End of Year Celebration - St. Bernard Gym
Team Meeting @ KI
Saturday 11/7/09 10am-Noon
Egg Event, Location To Be Announced
Sunday 11/8/09 4pm-6pm
Team Meeting @ KI
Saturday 11/14/09 4pm-6pm
Team Meeting @ KI
Saturday 11/21/09 4:30pm-6pm
Team Meeting @ KI
Saturday and Sunday 11/28 & 11/29
No Team Meeting - Thanksgiving Weekend
Saturday 1/16/10 9am-10:30am or 10:45am-12:15pm
Instant Challenge Workshop - Valley View Elementary
Saturday 2/6/10 9am-10:30am or 10:45am-12:15pm
Instant Challenge Workshop - Valley View Elementary
Saturday 2/27/10 Time To Be Announced
Sneak Peek - St. Bernard Multi-Purpose Room
Saturday 3/20/10 All Day
Regional Tournament - Ashwaubenon High School
Sunday 3/28/10 Time To Be Announced
End of Year Celebration - St. Bernard Gym
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Meeting #1 - 10/18/09
After many failed attempts we finally scheduled and held our first meeting. Unfortunately Bahron was not able to make it to the meeting, he has the flu!
We spent some time meeting each other and discussing possible team names, there were several interesting suggestions. The one that seemed most popular was created by all team members randomly picking a letter and then jamming them together into a word, the result was ZOKAYWED.
Next the team dove in to brainstorming ideas for the egg event. They have several good ideas already and they came up with this list of items, the initials in parenthesis are who is bringing that item to the next meeting so we can start building and testing.
- Cotton Balls (KS)
- Duct Tape (TH)
- Egg Cartons (Everyone, just bring in any you empty between now and next meeting)
- Boxes (KH)
- Parachutes (plastic bags) (LL, JR, MW)
- Diapers (MH)
- Bubble Wrap (KH)
- Seran Wrap (MW)
- Eggs (CL)
- Packing Peanuts (KH)
- Marshmallows (MH, LL)
Finally we had an instant challenge. For their instant challenge they had a tower of blocks on a cardboard platform, they had to move the tower to another platform about 20 feet away without using their hands or arms to move the blocks. This was a great first instant challenge, it gave us a great opportunity to review some of the key things to do in an instant challenge. I'll spare you the details but it was a good way to get the teams instant challenge skills back in shape.
Before we knew it our hour and a half was over. It was a great first meeting and the time went really fast. Our tentative plan is to keep having meetings on Sundays, we'll juggle things around Packer games when necessary.
Be sure to check out the photo album for photos of the team at work. Just click on one of the photos in the slideshow on the upper right hand side of the blog to see the entire photo album. I'll try to update this every week.
That's all for this week,
Mr. H
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