Shark!!

Core Value Game: Sharks and Islands (focus on leave no man behind)
The game starts off with  ten paper islands. Kids swim around islands. When coach yells "Shark", the team members must find an island to stand on. Every time an island is removed. Unlike musical chairs, we leave no man behind, every team member must find an island to stand on. At the end of the game, every team member has to figure out how to stand on one island. 


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After our group core values activity.  We decided to split into two groups to accomplish as much as we could.


Robot Game Team: This team (Jake, Sophie, Sammy Ethan) worked on  board setup, and focused on  programing the robot to move shark tank. We also tried to program the robot to go over tracks and return to base.  The kids found a design flaw with the Myrtle's back end! How can we get her to go smoothly over the dog line? She seems to be getting stuck...

 Project Team: (Noah, Billy, Nick) read bee book, design bee logos, return books to library. Noah came up with a really nice Bee Logo. The kids also found and read an article on endangered bees, and a Penn State article on the bees of Pennsylvania. The group is leaning to rescuing the Mason Bee! As it is one of Pennsylvania's top pollinator. The Mason Bee is losing its habitat because of human's development of land and destroying their homes. So how can we help the Mason Bee,  code crackers?

Tonight We Built!

All our lego parts came in! So we came up with a special design. Following builder dude's advice, we used large wheels (lego motorcycle wheels, and a small ball wheel in the back of our robot). We wanted our robot to reflect the animal allies theme, so we started building a strong and steady turtle. We added things to her shell. We decide we wanted to have the arms to cradle things and catch falling objects. We also wanted to add other gears.

 

This is what we came up with!  Meet Myrtle the Robot Turtle.

  

We voted on keeping a face, but Coach Vicky has to order us one that is legal in First Lego League.  We want to learn how to use ultrasonic, so Myrtle will be like a bat using echolocation or a dolphin using sonar. We'll keep adding and adjusting Myrtle as we aim to conquer that game board.


We are so excited for this season!!!

Meanwhile in Robotics.....

We are waiting for some robot parts to come in from Lego.com.. so tonight we decided to focus on the project.

 Core Values:
First we played a few animal games for our team building activity
(animal mixer, and let's go to the zoo).

 Animal Call Games:  Players make groups of 4-5 persons. Every player gets a paper with the name of an animal. Each group has the same animal. The players spread out in the room and then the light are turned off. Using only the sound of the animals (no talking!), the players must find their respective groups. The winner is the group who is the fastest group to be complete.

 Let's Go the Zoo:  This is a rhythm  circle game. Directions can be found on here!


Project Research
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After watching the project video, we learned that we need to first pick an animal(any animal in the animal kingdom including mammals, fish, or insects). Next we needed to discuss how humans interact with the animal and pick a problem with that interaction. Finally we need to create a solution for that problem.

So as a team, we brained stormed a big list of animals and insects including Eagles, butterflies, Giraffes(for Noah), horses, arctic foxes, scorpion fly, Tigers, lady bugs, honey bees, and white tail deer! The boys narrowed it down to Deer and bees.

When humans inhabit areas with white tail deer sometimes our vehicles hit them. Is there a way we can invent something to avoid car accidents?
Our honey bees are disappearing from the planet and humans might be causing this by creating pesticides and eliminating the honey bees habitat? Is there a way we can better educate people and save the honey bee?

We broke into two teams and started researching at the library. Our librarian was very helpful! We found out that deer use there sense of smell to sense danger. We decided that it be hard to put this on a car to warn deer as a car travels to fast for a deer to smell it? Maybe? 🚗

 We found out some cool things on honey bees, but no one knows for sure why the bees are disappearing.. We found out many ways people are researching this and humans do cause some disturbances for the bees. 🐝
 
The code crackers started brain storming some great ideas. Maybe we  could start a campaign for building honey bee gardens? How can we teach people to avoid putting chemicals on our lawn, We need to keep dandelions in the spring...



We will vote next week when all members are back on a final animal and problem!!
We will hopefully also have all our parts in to build and program our robot

Nice job kiddos!

Great job tonight code crackers! You programmed Billy to complete his tasks, discussed robot design, and learned more about the point values of some of the challenges. 😜

 

Here are the URLs to the videos we watched tonight:

Builder dude:
https://youtu.be/N5fzepIrFw8
https://www.youtube.com/watch…

Points value:
https://www.youtube.com/watch…



Core Values Game:
Robot Games: We set up five green bins on the floor. We put items in some bins. One volunteer chooses to be the robot. The robot is blind folded and can only move when given a command.

The rest of the team are programmers. They are only allowed to give the robot one command at a time. The programmers sit in a row. Each programmer gives a command and the robot follows exactly. If a programmer makes a mistake, he/she can not fix it. It is the next programmers job to get the robot to do the task. The team tries to get their robot to complete the task in the least amount of moves.


Sample Tasks: 
Retrieve the rubber duck from bin one and put it in bin four.
Take the banana from big 3 and bring it back to programmer one.
Take everything from bin two and place in bin five.

Sample Commands:
Turn to your right
Take five steps forward
Reach into the bin
Retrieve the banana
Turn to your left
Turn 180 degrees

The kids had fun programming and taking turns being the robot.