Week 3, Day 1: Marble Roller Coaster Challenge!

What a day we had today! After last week's brushbot engineering successes, the kids were ready for an even bigger challenge. Our goal? Marble roller coasters, made from pieces of split foam pipe insulation.

We started out with some simpler, beginner challenges. Build a drop that makes your marble land in a paper cup. Then build a drop that incorporates a vertical loop, then deposits the marble in a cup. I let the kids choose their own working groups, or choose to work independently.

At this point, we were focusing on understanding some of the basic physics involved, and the mechanics of our specific building materials. We took a quick break to regroup and we talked about some of the things we were noticing. Some of the older kids have already been exposed to some physics terms that were useful as we discussed what we were noticing. Here's a link to a great website that talks about energy transformation along a roller coaster track. It has a neat animation that shows the change in energy. Here's a link to a cool video from MIT demonstrating the minimum height needed for a released ball to make it around a (round) loop. Finally, here's a link to a (unnecessarily drawn out) video of a stunt man actually running a loop-the-loop.

We had a little while before lunch, and decided to open up the challenge to do some free building that we would continue later, too. During our free building time, we had a visit from a special guest: the mayor of our city! 

Mayor Galbraith (and her small friend!) joined us for some building, and answered some GREAT questions: 

• What kinds of things did you tell people you would do so they would vote for you?
• What do you like to do with kids?
• Will you build marble roller coasters at work?
• Did you know you wanted to be a mayor when you were a kid?

And without further ado, we got right back into building.

After lunch, we regrouped and talked about some engineering constraints that a roller coaster designer might be asked to follow. Here are some questions that an engineer might ask the theme park company before deciding to propose a roller coaster design:

• What building materials do you prefer, or what's available?
• What's my budget?
• When does the roller coaster need to be finished?
• What are the safety constraints?
• What kind of weather does this amusement park get?
• How much maintenance are you willing to do?
• What features do you want to see incorporated? Some ideas: loops, corkscrews, turns, drops, high maximum speed

At this point, things got VERY SERIOUS. We worked together to develop a scoring rubric and the teams split up to tackle the challenge:

Building to specific constraints meant that some of our designs got very complicated! In fact, when it was time to add up our scores, only the very simplest designs were even able to pass a marble all the way down to the cup. We talked about some of the challenges we'd faced, and we all agreed that the scoring was just a fun way to close out the activity, and wasn't meant to be a real competition. 

Finally, we took a little time for journalling. The kids are getting more and more serious about this. It is always hard to settle down for some quiet reflection, but once they do, they're generating some awesome work. I think some of them will really enjoy reviewing their journals after camp ends -- they're turning into great mementos of their time in camp! 

Finally, we made a quick Vine showing a bit of the building and the tracks in use, here it is! Hope everyone had a great day! 

Week 2, Day 4: Crafting, Carving and Clues

We awoke to a beautiful day, thankful for the opportunity to be able to  be outside to continue our projects from last week. Our ambitious goal was to finish creating and carving a letterbox rubber stamp for each camper, and even go questing for a letterbox or two!

Campers arrived and had some free time, then we got down to business. My daughter, the oldest of the campers at age 13, had carved her stamp during the week, experimenting with techniques and trial & error. She was happy with her JuJuBee stamp and was also happy to explain her experiences to the other campers. But before the other campers could start to carve, we them to come up with their official 2"x3" design. Using their "Trail Names" created (and tweaked) from the first day, each child drew into their journals (or on paper) what they thought would work. They had to consider bold strokes, or details, carve-ability, whether they wanted a positive or negative design, etc. Using some examples from Google images they each created what they thought would work, then traced it onto tracing paper, flipped the design and pressed to mark it
onto the "Speedy Carve" material I had bought at A.C. Moore. (Speedy Cut is evidently easier to carve, but It could not be found and can be crumbly. And after last weeks trials, crumbly was not what we wanted at all.) Since we only had two carving handles, the other campers were sent off to have free time (then recalled as I saw some had not gotten as far as requested with transferring their design onto the rubber etc - once put to task again, this was nicely accomplished - with learning to boot, reminding them that forward is backward on a stamp.)

Carving away from appendages.

My daughter dutifully explained to each pair of carvers the different blades, safety, goals etc of the carve that she had learned with her experimentation. Campers were also each given a pink eraser to see how carving felt etc. I was a bit concerned for cuts etc, but they were pretty good about remembering (once coached) to hold the material from behind and cut away from their fingers. We also learned that to make curves, it is best to move the rubber and not the blade, as you have more control.

The augmented star, by "Captain Jones".

What was neat was how even after carving began, designs were evolving. One that was a simple star, for example, became a growing star with repeated lines.The creativity was left
to each child's own temperament.

A note about our youngest, 6 yr old camper: Thinking she was not old enough for safety reasons, we had found some dollar store bug & butterfly shaped erasers (she had asked that her stamp be a butterfly on the first day). She was allowed to pick one (then a second one too for fun) and indicate how she'd like the design within the shape to be cut. Then my daughter followed her "orders". It worked out quite nicely as she felt in charge of her stamp, and I advise this as a intermediary solution for younger campers. The 8 yr old campers also got a pencil topper eraser because, hey!... it's fun
to have erasers! :)

Games of Chess are often a free time pick.

Lunches and free time were interspersed as everyone got a chance to carve. Games of chess were played, and a created game with a secret mission scenario using Trail Names spontaneously came about. (Very funny use of imaginations, if you ask me).

But after everyone's stamps were completed, we needed to hurry if we were to have time to find a letterbox.

As discussed last week, everyone needed to assemble their own "letterboxing kit". Though one stamp pad etc, WOULD work, I thought it would be more fun if each camper was self sufficient.

So each one put together their kits consisting of: Large zip lock back (to keep it all in), their stamp wrapped in a paper towel, a letterbox log book (covers decorated if desired), a pen and their favorite color ink pad. Most of these items came from Dollar Tree or A.C. Moore.

Once everyone had gathered all they needed, including a water bottle we got started.

On letter-boxing.org, I had found two letterboxes that were close by. I printed the clues, cutting and pasting them onto a document, numbered the parts in order, then literally cut the clue apart into strips on paper, so that each child had a chance to read part of the descriptive details and clues of the box.

When we had read all about the history of the box & location, we started hoofing it down the hill to the WWII submarine memorial to the "Eternal Patrol" letterbox.


Once in the general area, we followed the directions to find the box and appreciate the memorial and the brave submariners to whom it is dedicated. No one was around so finding it (and exposing it's whereabouts) was not a problem.

We then moved over to a shady spot on the base of the coning tower and took turns stamping the torpedo (replacement stamp) into our own books, and stamping our newly carved stamps into the log book. (which took a while with NINE stamps). Some tourists did arrive while we did this, so just one camper quietly returned the box after we used it, to it's original hiding space... Shhhhhh!

After following all the steps it was apparent it would be IMPOSSIBLE to find the other letterbox in the area (not enough time even to walk to it and back, let alone find it, stamp it etc.) So a quick snack of melon and grapes, brought back our energy and we trudged back up the hill.

I LOVE how these kids interact with creative (albeit sometime silly) role play (On the way back up, my daughter was dubbed the "mom" of all the youngest campers). It is a joy to be around their "can-do" attitudes and joyful adventurous spirits.

Upon returning, we took a a few minutes to journal and quietly reflect, then of course some freetime play finished up the time before pick up. Overall, I feel, it was a very successful day at camp.

Week 2, Day 3: Jabberwocky!

Today was devoted to the poetic word. We read selections from The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (1986, edited by Jack Prelutsky and beautifully illustrated by Arnold Lobel), including the famous "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. Some of our campers had even memorized the first stanza at home! We listened to several recorded versions of the poem, including a dramatic British rendition and a goofier one by the Muppets:

Then the kids illustrated their favorite poems in their journals:

Generally, everyone has been journaling with enthusiasm -- they take the task seriously:

We also experimented with "rhyme time," which turned wild quickly (get a penny every time you speak in rhyme -- you can imagine the flurry of clichés and high-volume platitudes -- "I'm sad when I'm bad," etc.).  During free time chess continued to be a favorite pastime:

A surprise visit by a beloved guest made the day extra special:

Next week we will do classic sci-fi and tackle Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.

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!