Update from Monday Practice

On Monday each team spent half of practice with Ms. Allbach learning about the process of research.  We'll honor Ms. Allbach in a separate post in order to really give her the recognition that assistance is due!

Both teams have now identified a natural disaster to focus on!  We knew going into Monday that one team had selected wildfires, and the other team has now chosen hurricanes.

From Jo:  Our main accomplishment outside of the research piece with Ms. Allbach and the robot work was landing on a problem, which for our team will be hurricanes!  Yea!!  It was a democratic process with those prepared to present their research discussing it with the group and then everyone submitting a ballot with their vote.  Hurricanes won by 4 votes, followed by 2 votes for tsunamis, and 1 vote apiece for earthquakes and tornadoes.  

Other than that, we also reviewed some basic behavior expectations so that we can accomplish as much as possible during our practice time.  The kids should work on policing their fellow team members when there are disruptions, and figure out among themselves how to keep things on track.  This is something we';; continue to work on.

Each team also sent a contingent to start working on a base build for the robot:

Team Sue/Jo: Decided to try a tank.  Lilith built a two-wheeled tank tread on one motor. We took pics of it and parts to put the tread on the other motor are in the box Anna has.  Anna is working on motor placement.  She has the brick, a bunch of parts she thought she might need and Lilith’s tread-motor.  Attia looked at different parts we have that might work for an arm, and is going to research different arms.  They decided to salvage the plow from one of last year's teams and have it in the box Anna has so they can consider whether it needs modification and when it might/might not work.

Team Lockie/Sarah: Also decided to try tank treads, but long skinny ones (different than what the other team tried).  Sebastian has an assortment of wheels, gears and tank treads to keep working on that.  Dominique was looking at motors on the side of the brick (rather than underneath).  She has a bunch of connectors she thought she might need and the brick. Ainsley has one of the arms off the robot from the NXT class and some other parts to experiment with different options.  She has one (maybe two) of the table pieces (people or pets) to work with.  Sebastian also has an eye on the plow from last year... we can build another one if both teams really want the same thing!

Lockie and Sarah's team also spent some time with Eric brainstorming resources and information sources for their research on wildfires.  Kids should be working on what types of questions they will want to ask when contacting these sources.  

Homework: 

• Anyone with table pieces at home should try to get them finished by Friday and bring them to practice.
• Those with robot pieces or research should work on that.
• Everyone should be thinking about a community for their disaster and what types of issues they might want to look into.  
• Everyone should be thinking about team names.
• Lilith and Pascale will lead Core Values on Friday!

Great work everyone -- we have accomplished so much already!