Today was the final day to work on construction during class! That's not to say the completed product must be turned in tomorrow morning; No, final judging will take place Monday during school, prior to the Discovery Grand Prix for parents interested in attending at 6:00 P.M. Tomorrow and Friday we will be working on our written Lab Reports, so students need to be sure to bring their fully charge laptops, Science notebooks, and any data or observations collected during the course of this project.
Any students that are not yet finished with the final construction phase need to think about how they might Proactively address the situation. Mr. Franklin arrives before 7:00 A.M., and students may report early to his room to work on their projects. 7th graders, additionally, may work during lunch. Finally, anyone is welcome to stay after school, however this week Mr. Franklin has obligations at 3:00 P.M. on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (Academic Team Tryouts and Robotics/S.T.L.P meeting). No new homework has been assigned for tonight to allow those students who still need to put the finishing touches on their projects to do so. Additionally, students should gather together and organize all of their data and information from this project and be prepared to write about it tomorrow. Finally, I have advised each class that they might expect a Pop Quiz over Mechanical Advantage, Pulleys, Springs, and other Simple Machines in the coming days, so students might want to take the opportunity to review. (Hint, hint.) Once again, students are working to finish building their Mousetrap Powered Vehicles (MPV's). Tomorrow is the last day of class to work on construction. Students will be allowed to take their Engineering Projects home with them to complete, if need be, as well as to come in early (7:00 A.M.), work through lunch, or stay late after school (until 3:00 P.M.). Next Monday in class, we will test them, as well as hold our Discovery Grand Prix in the evening for parents. Students, if your Mousetrap Vehicle is missing any essential components, tomorrow is your last chance to bring them! I have repeatedly stated in class over the past three weeks that you need to regard the gathering of your necessary outside materials to be a standing homework assignment! We are finally down to the wire, and if there's something you consider "essential" to your plan and design and we don't have at school, you're quickly going to find yourself in a difficult spot tomorrow. It may be time to consider falling back to Plan B. Parents, to be clear, no outside materials are required. Many students have chosen to use CD's or DVD's as wheels, and those needed to be brought from home. Similarly, others wanted to use metal wire coat hangers as axles. Those too need to be provided. However, a large amount of basic building materials were purchased by Mr. Franklin, so an efficient, fully-functioning vehicle can be assembled from what we have in class - no outside resources, necessary. Still, lots of students had imaginative ideas of things they wanted to incorporate, or set their eyes on expensive "premium" materials, and those would need to be purchased or brought from home. Tomorrow would be the last day to bring them in to class. HOMEWORK: Tonight, return to http://ExploreLearning.com to investigate one of the final components of our Mousetrap Cars, the spring. Investigate how different springs have differing spring constants, and complete the 5 Assessment Questions underneath the activity. If you need a re-take of tonight's or yesterday's homework, you need to show Mr. Franklin your completed Lab Worksheet. If you need additional copies, they can be downloaded and printed from here:
Today we continued working on construction of our Mousetrap Vehicle prototypes. Wednesday will be the final class day for construction. The vehicles will be tested next Monday and Thursday and Friday of this week we will be working on writing our final Lab Reports. Please bring in any materials you still need to complete your car! We are especially running short on hot glue sticks, wire coat hangers, and the physical mousetraps themselves. (We've already gone through the 60 Mr. Franklin purchased for the project -- they only cost a dollar or two are Wal-Mart.)
HOMEWORK: Investigate the Mechanical Advantage of Pulleys at http://ExploreLearning.com. Complete the accompanying Lab Sheet and then answer the 5 Assessment Questions directly below. (Note that you will need to use Internet Explorer or Firefox, but not Edge or Chrome. Also, you will need to have Adobe Shockwave player installed on your machine. Directions are available on http://Edmodo.com) |
Mr. FranklinWelcome to my blog! Archives
September 2015
Categories
All
|