Dividing into our committees

Our competition team will be competing at a to-be-decided location on December 7, 2013 from 7:30AM-4:00PM. We will, more than likely, need to work on a Saturday as we get closer. Please think about times that may work for you. We can also stay late on a Thursday or Friday night as well. We will try to order pizza or ask for any treats on those nights. 

This week, we divided into competition and non-competition teams. Our teams, then, split up into committees to begin work. Our presentation crew started to think of ideas for their presentation. The researchers drafted questions to ask others and to research. The builders drew an outline of our robot model. Our programmers reviewed the competition rules and judging requirements. And, our captains and competition crews assisted the other groups. We were also able to finish building our mission models. 

There was no homework. Next week, we will start off in our teams and committees and work on finishing our tasks. There are only five meetings before competition so we will all be working hard! 

Thank you for your continued support!

Teams picked, Grant received!

Today, competition and non-competition teams were announced. Students not on the competition teams will continuing working on tasks, but in new, smaller project groups. Dell awarded our team a $300 grant to help fund portions of our program so students utilized Google Presentation to make an interactive Thank You card. Next week, we will finish up building our mission models, split into our new, smaller groups, and start getting jobs ready for competition. For homework, students are to look at the committee task list (linked on the 10/22 assignment page) and pick three jobs they will complete. They should write these down on notebook paper or a Google Doc. We still await hearing our actual competition date. Thank you for all of your support!

Answering project questions

Today, our committees continued working on building the mission models. We are nearly finished! Next week, we will announce the students who have made it to the competition team. Though, all students will get to continue as robotics members. For homework, students will be answering the essential project questions located on the outline for today (check out the outline page of this blog). These project questions will be questions the competition judges will ask all members. Therefore, all members will need to have input and answers for all of the questions. We look forward to another great week ahead! Thank you to our volunteers again this week!

And, the building has begun!

Today - thanks to help of numerous parents and volunteers, we started building on our Mission Models. These are the tiny replicas that will go on our field mat. We have many great builders and team players among us. We look forward to the work they will produce! There will be no homework this week. Next week, we will finish up our mission models, start on our table, and work in our committee groups. Stay tuned for pictures on their progress!

Naming a solution

Update: the team has chosen to create a solution to aide in wildfire evacuation and warning. Specifically, they have decided to utilize an existing system (like the weather channel) that will send out information to three places: radios, roadway signs, and to devices in homes. The devices in homes will release a safety kit upon warning. They were thinking of labeling certain areas within a community (Arizona) as wildfire zones and just having those devices in homes in those areas - like how people in flood plains have to buy flood insurance, these homes would need those devices. Next week, we will start building on the field mat and building our model city