Fantastic Flight! - April 30, 2015

This is a project I do with the students, 1st grade to 6th grade, every year because they love it. And I love it, too. Why? This project is full of opportunities for creativity and experimentation. Possibilities are endless!

The motto for this project is - Fail Spectacularly! I ask the students to push the envelope and come up with something very different from others. I challenge them, and every year, they meet the challenge in spades.

I get the gliders from the nearby hobby store, Sheldon's Hobbies, and I get them at a discount, which helps me keep the costs down. I usually buy single wing plane, but in the last couple of years, I've bought bi-planes. These are a little more complicated, but it's also more interesting to mix up the kits a bit.

A warning, though. These glider kits are rather fragile. One student broke the wing in four different places. So, I usually start off by telling them to be extra careful, and in lower grades, I show them how I shimmy the wing into the glider body.

Supplies List:

• Wooden glider kit (1 kit/student)
• Cardstock (2 sheets/student)
• Scotch Tape

Building Instructions:

1. Hand out the glider kit and tell the students to put it together by following instructions (I show the 1st and 2nd graders how to put them together).
2. Go fly the glider outside and tell the students to watch how it flies through the air. Allow the students to fly the gliders several times.
3.  Once back in the class, tell the students to take the gliders apart. The only part they can use for the next phase of the project is the body.
4. Hand out a sheet of cardstock paper to each student. 
5. Tell the students to make new parts with cardstock paper. There's only one rule - the new glider parts must be a different shape and size from the original wooden parts.
6. Encourage the students to fly their new gliders and make improvements.
7. About 2/3 way through the class time, hand out another piece of cardstock paper and ask them to design another glider, preferably a very different design from the first glider.
8. Again, encourage them to fly the gliders and make improvements throughout. I've learned over the years that students don't need more than a piece of cardstock paper to make all the parts. 
9. I usually have two different contests - distance flier and trick flier. Here's the secret. It doesn't matter whether their gliders fly far or do tricks. What I'm trying to encourage is creativity, problem-solving skills, and perseverance.

Here are pictures of the gliders I've used in the past & what the biplane glider looks like:

There are a lot of pictures here. I thought about take some of them out, but I thought I'd give you the choice of checking it out or not. 

Some pictures from a couple of 3rd grade classes:

Some pictures from a couple of 4th and 5th grade classes:

As you can see, the possibilities are endless. It's amazing how much fun you can have with children with a glider kit and some cardstock paper.

Have fun!

Tech Challenge Update - 4/26/15 (competition day)

It was a crazy weekend.

We arrived at the Tech Museum ~9:20am on Sunday (4/26), but we didn't get through the competition until 11:30am! I don't know why the progress was so slow, especially when the Tech Challenge organization got rid of the Design Journal Interview section. I guess the success of the program caught up with the organization, and that's a good news. I hate to think what it'll be like next year, but I hope more kids will join the competition.

Either way, my team finished well, but more importantly, they had a lot of fun. They danced, they laughed, and they had fun with their team. I hope you and your kids will join us next year.

Preparing for the competition in the Pit

Getting the structure weighed

Participation medals

Getting ready for the interview

Getting in line for the structural performance/device testing

Setting up the structure on the shake table

End of competition interview

Award ceremony

Terrific Toys - Forbidden Island

My son, who hasn't shown that much interest in video games before last year, has been playing a lot of video games lately, and I wanted to find some way to get him away from that. Luckily, he still enjoys board games, and I try to play games with him often (but probably not often enough).

I came across this game from an educational games/toys catalog that started arriving at our house. I don't know how it got there, but this was one junk mail I was happy to find in my mailbox. Because it led me to this is an awesome game! 

So many games in the market place are about winning and domination, beating the other person. But this game is all about cooperation and strategy.

Four price relics are located on a mysterious island, and you and your team must collect them all before the island sinks to the bottom of the ocean. To win in this game, you must collect all the relics and get to the awaiting helicopter before the ocean swallows up the island.

Danger lurks with each flip of the card, and every move must be considered carefully. Various parts of the island are in the process of sinking, and the team must decide which parts to save temporarily and which parts to let go.

Sure, this is only a game (a board game at that!), but a sense of urgency is real. What I find most fascinating is that the team must decided what to save and what to let go. This decision is relatively easy because if certain parts of the island are under water, then the team loses, even if there are other "dry" parts still above water. Still, it makes kids think about how to use their precious resources (ability to save parts of the island).

When I play this game with my kids (and we haven't played this one in a while), we talk about how we live in a world of limited resources, and we, too, should think about how to use those resources wisely.

This game takes a lot of strategy and cooperation, but most importantly, it's fun.

Enjoy!

Tech Challenge 2015 Update - April 20, 2015

Please come join the fun at the Tech Museum this weekend (4/25 - 4/26). 

2015's the Tech Challenge competition is taking place, and the admission to the competition and the museum is free.
 
It's always very interesting to come and see all the different designs the students from all over Northern California have come up with to solve this year's challenge, which is Seismic Engineering in Action. And the award ceremony takes place at 1pm (4/25) for the elementary school division, so if you can, stay and support the youngsters.
 
The competition for the middle school division takes place on 4/26, and the high school division is competing during the afternoon on 4/25.
 
Here are some pictures from our team:

 

For more Tech Challenge 2015 competition day information, please check out the link below.

http://thetechchallenge.thetech.org/important-dates/event-day 

Tech Challenge Update - 4/15/15

Please come join the fun at the Tech Museum this weekend (4/25 - 4/26).
 
2015's the Tech Challenge competition is taking place, and the admission to the competition and the museum is free.
 
It's always very interesting to come and see all the different designs the students from all over Northern California have come up with to solve this year's challenge, which is Seismic Engineering in Action. And the award ceremony takes place at 1pm (4/25) for the elementary school division, so if you can, stay and support the youngsters.
 
The competition for the middle school division takes place on 4/26, and the high school division is competing during the afternoon on 4/25.
 
Here are some pictures from our team:

 

For more Tech Challenge 2015 competition day information, please check out the link below.

http://thetechchallenge.thetech.org/important-dates/event-day