Week 2, Day 1: Engineering Challenge!

The weather was a little iffy today: hot and muggy. So I knew we might need a plan that would keep us on the porch for most of the day. I'm doing a program at our local library next week with my husband, and we decided to use our campers as test subjects. Brushbots! Here's a link to a video all about brushbots.

This morning we worked on some of our engineering skills. We want to be tinkerers, not stinkerers! When something doesn't go well for a good engineer, he or she must not freak out! I'd ask myself some questions, like

• What can I do to improve my design? 
• What's causing problems for me?
• Is there a different approach that I'm not seeing?

Many times, when we tinker with projects, we encounter frustrating moments. Later, we look back on those moments, and they look completely different! Sometimes we were right on the verge of a breakthrough! When we made wind chimes last week, we encountered some small roadblocks, like when our dangly wires weren't quite long enough, or when parts we wanted had been used up by our friends. When we play chess, sometimes we are in check, and we're totally panicking, and five minutes later, we're in the midst of a victorious endgame! And sometimes we have total catastrophes, and we look back and realize we should have scrapped an idea sooner. That's okay, too! The important thing is that we take our failures and turn them into learning opportunities.

We did so much of that today! This morning's activity was a choice. Some friends chose to take the ZOOB CHALLENGE. This is a great engineering learning toolkit masquerading as a toy/game.

The challenge was to build a contraption that would start on a table three feet high, make a ball release, bounce once, and land in a goal basket four feet away. There was lots of trial and error here. They started with a slingshot, tried something like a catapult, and ended up with this truncated ramp. There was so much good team talk happening at this end of the porch -- I heard the team discuss each change, and I heard them reviewing what was and wasn't working along the way. Go Team Zoob! In fact, they were so successful that I interrupted the other group to come see what was going on. The team presented their work, talked briefly about their process, and demonstrated their final contraption: 

At the other end of the porch, we had a more free-form team project happening. At our morning meeting, we'd introduced the BRUSHBOTS. We'd be building them later in the afternoon, but first we wanted to set up some obstacles for the little movers and shakers. This is a brushbot: 

And here we are working on our obstacle course:

There were so many good ideas, and some EXCELLENT use of found objects. It's a good thing this house gets lots of packages, we needed ample cardboard! The boys were determined to poke a hole in that metal tray, and I couldn't believe it when they succeeded. Amazing. The girls made a straw maze, and a platform with several traps. There was a little more frustration over here -- the process was hard work and we weren't quite sure about what our final product would be. We had a lot of conversation about how these are totally normal engineering dilemmas! Go Team Brushbot! We also found that the straws were fun for other stuff, like making a cool pan flute! 

After lunch, it was finally time for the main event, making our own brushbots. We learned a little bit about electricity -- about the flow of electrons, about conductors and insulators, and about circuits. We even made two cool circuits: one that lit up a light bulb, and one that used our own bodies as conductors. It was so humid today that we could even separate our hands a little and use the moisture in the air to complete our human circuit!

Building brushbots was our toughest project yet. We needed to build a tiny circuit that included a small battery and a tiny vibrating motor. This circuit was carefully mounted on the back of a toothbrush head. Tough and careful work, but in just a few minutes, we had nine big/tiny successes cruising around our test plate and our obstacles! 

Remember those straws from earlier? Turns out little pieces added strategically to our brushbots changed the way they moved! Sharpies also added some personality. We could have continued tinkering all day. But alas, it was time for a popsicle break and a breakdown of our day. We all shared some successes we'd experienced, and we talked about some of the frustrations we'd encountered. We ended the day with some journalling. Everyone drew a picture of their brushbot and wrote about something they learned today about electricity. 

It was another fun Darwin Day! Hope everyone gets a little air conditioning tonight and continues tinkering with their new little friends!