This is a link to Dr neato's class rules
Class Rules
August 8, 2016 - August 12, 2016
Last week was the first week of school. The first couple days was pretty much just an introduction to the class, where we talked about the rules, projects
we would be doing , and other basic information. On wednesday, we started our first wednesday challenge which was to build a bridge with only spaghetti
and wood glue. Everyone completed the task in groups that Dr. Neat assigned us to. I am in a group with Kevin, Trevor, and Monte. We began to figure out
the design of the bridge that we were going to build. On Thursdady, we continued to work on our bridges with our groups. My group got started and almost finished our first prototype.
We began to have an idea of the parameters and design of our brudge that we were going to use during the competition. It is known as a truss bridge.
On Friday, we got our laptops that we were assigned to and began to start creating our website on a software known as n++. We wrote our first few lines
of code but didn't get to do much more just because the wifi was down.
Today we began to start inputing and typing things on our website.
Everyone learned how to use basic tags and put them to use while
typing our first paragraph on our webstie. The paragraph was
about our first week in class.
August 17, 2016
We continued to build our spaghetti bridge and create new designs. It was very hard to think of good designs to make the best bridge, so at one
point we cabled all of the spaghetti and brushed a ton of glue on it.
August 18, 2016
Today in engineering we worked on our websites some more and learned some new tips and tricks that'll help us in building our website. One things
that I found most useful was learning how to copy the tag format for the journal , so we wouldnt have to retype everything everytime we wanted to
make a new entry.
August 19, 2016
Today we got into our bridge groups again. We tested our prototype bridge that we made two days ago. I felt that it would have done really well,
but the glue made it really bendy and it couldn't support any weight. We began a new bridge with a truss design. We haven't started gluing yet,
but we broke all of the pieces into the correct lengths.
August 20, 2016
On Saturday I went biking with my friend around the neighborhood for a couple of hours. After we went to Montrose to hang out
and have Pho for dinner.
August 21, 2016
On Sunday, I first went to church in the morning. After church, I came home and worked on a mythology project and did other science
homework. At 4:30, I then went to the batting cage and hit for 45 min.
August 22, 2016
Today, we learned how to use google sketch up. The class also got more time to type on their websties.
August 23, 2016
Today, everyone in class learned how to input pictures onto our website. We practiced by using pictures from google sketch up
and one from Dr. Neato's website. After that I continued to update and work on making my website look neater.
August 24, 2016
We got into our groups again and continued to work on our new bridge. We finished glueing the two sides separatley and we are just
waiting for it to dry.
August 25, 2016
We continued to edit our websites. I feel like I progressed a lot because we learned how to put input links. I also figured out how to put in a
background.
August 26, 2016
A man by the name of Mr. Wilton came in to talk today to tell us about himself. He works in the field of engineering and has won
a couple of academy awards. His website is below.
On Saturday, I went to Two Strike park and helped out at the CSA tryouts for three different age divivsions. All of it took around 6 hours; consiquently
I was very tired for the rest of the day.
August 29, 2016
It was my 14th birthday today; i got a twix from Dr. Neat because of it. It was pretty good.
September 1, 2016
Today we tested our spaghetti bridges. First we weighed them and then laid it across the cinder blocks. My teams bridge weighed 28g and supported 245g
so the overall score was 9.4...
September 6, 2016
Today we recieved the standings for the spaghetti bridge challenge. My team got 5th
place; the winner was connor's team with a score of 13. Below is a link to
the spreadsheet of all the scores.
Today we competed our second wednesday challenge where we supposed to find a way to determine whether something was a dog or cat without touching it.
We decided to create a machine to take a xray of the animal. It would take a picture of the animal, analyze the anatomy, and then show the results to
the scientists on a screen to the user.
Today we learned how to use the push pull tool on google sketch up. Everyone had to make a "city" while using the pudh pull tool. All of the buildings
were rectangles.
September 14 , 2016
Today was our third wednesday challenge. It was to cut a block exactly two inches in length by only using hand tools. My other group members were Shaunt,
Paul, Justin, and Kirk. I believe we got two thousandths of an inch off from the goal. It was pretty much the same for the second block, so we stayed
very consistent.
Today was the fourth wednesday challenge where the task was to roll a marble to a bag while using only PBC pipes cut in half. People had to stand
side by side and put the tubes close together. Nobody could move with the pipe and the marble couldnt stop or roll backwards at any time. It was funny
because for some reason the marble kept dropping when it was at me and everyone started yelling. At the end we got the marble in the bag.
Today was a cool day because alex taught the class how to input videos onto our websites. Below is a sample video of me trying what he taught us.
The rest of the period I finished everything that needed to be completed on the list, mainly the Wednesday challenge forms because I've only done one so far :)
September 23 , 2016
Today was Friday so Mr.Milton came again and the JPL invention challenge participants came in to talk to the class again about their inventions.
So far I'm not reallly sure which one I think is going to do the best. I dont feel super confident about any of them so far, but I know that they'll
make tons of improvements and make things more accurate. While they were presenting, I had to grind out my wednesday challenge forms and update my website.
October 10 , 2016
Today was the beginning of the week and the entire class was going to work on google sketch up except that me and a few other kids got called to the shop
with Mr. Miller to take the safety assesment. I already took it so I didnt have to do anything. After that I came back to the classroom to do sketch
up projects.
October 11 , 2016
Mr Miller called us back to the shop to have the rest of the kids finish the safety assesment. Since I finished it prior, I was allowed to learn how to
use one of the machines and cut two pieces of metal. It was very fun although it was only two cuts.
October 12 , 2016
Today was Wednesday so that means that it was time to do a Wednesday challenge. Mr. Miller put us into groups and I was with Garyn and Zachary. The
project was to build a card house. It was very fun but annoying at the same time. We made it up to four stories and I felt very accomplished.
Card HouseWC
October 13 , 2016
Today was Thursday and in class we pretty much just worked on google sketch up again. I learned how to make the "stairway to heavan" by using the
move tool.
October 14, 2016
Today was Friday so the JPL group came in and talked to everyone about their progress. Sam and cole's machine made a lot of improvements and is
extremely cool now. I still believe that they'll will if they make some more adjustments. Kevin's wood frame is looking really good and I'm really interested
in seeing how it'll do with a cup of water. Mr. Milton came in like every week and continued to contructively criticize the inventions.
October 17, 2016
Everyone in the class continued to work on google sketch up, working on projects such as the stairway to heavan, card, and pencil. During the class period
I managed to finish the card and start the pencil. I also worked on my webstie and completing wednesday challenge forms.
October 18,2016
Today was very similar to yesterday because the class continued to work on the sketch up projects and their websites. I finished all of the sketch up
designs, but also struggled on continuing to try to adapt to the flashdrive.
October 19, 2016
For this weeks wednesday's challenge, it was to use three straws and any adhesives to create a perfect 90 degree angle. It was a two day proccess because
today we only got into our groups and didn't start any of the actual building. Dimitri, Carlos, and Will were in my group. To make a 90 degree angle, we had
an idea to get two pieces of metal, put them at a 90 degree angle and then put the straws up against them. We would then tape them together.
September 24, 2016 - October 17, 2016
Sorry I havent done any website entries for the past 3 weeks, but I had some technical difficulties that prevented me from doing so. I couldnt log onto my
profile from my computer so Dr. Neato gave me a flashdrive granting me the ability to be able to be able to log on to any computer with all of my information. In this one
entry I will talk about the past three weeks and all of the things that we did in class. We've been learning how to use more tools on Google Sketch Up and also have gotten to
go into the shop to use some of the machines. The arch bridge wednesday challenge was easy, but time conduming for the design that I was using. In my group was Malik and Johnathan
and we decided to use wood as our material. We were going to cut out blocks of wood in the shop, but we couldn't because there was no supervision at the time. As a result
I ended up going to Osh to buy a hand saw to stay up till 10:30, cutting blocks of wood. Fortunately, the bridge ended up working, but we still didnt win. The winning bridge
consisted of little pieces of eraser, which was a very good idea. Although we lost, I was very proud of our bridge.
Our second Wednesday challenge that we did throuhout the weeks that I couldn't access my computer, was to build a card house. I've tried to build card houses in the past, but they
didn't work out so well. I didnt have much confidence that my group (Garyn and Zachary) would do so well, but we actually built a house four stories high. It was a very tedious
and annoying proccess, but at the end, the result was rewarding and made me proud.
On fridays, we continued to watch the JPL group progress in their inventions, as Mr. Milton critiqued them. I think that sam and coles machine will do the best currently. It
just seems like they are on the right track, and could lead to something really good.
Lastly, I want to talk about my little experience in the shop with Mr. Miller. In order to start working, we had to finish the safety course. I was the only one to finish, prior to when
we were brought in, so I was able to start working first. What I had to do was cut an angle at the end of a piece of metal with a type of saw. It was very easy, but fun at the same time.
I only got to work one day, but it was still cool.
I have attched all of the google sketchup pictures and wednesday challenges below.
arch bridge WC
October 24, 2016
Today everyone in the class had a discussion with Mr. Miller about the straw Wednesday Challenge. He talked to us about lessons learned and asked
us about strategies that we learned. I believe that the thing that I got most out of the challenge was that math comes in handy sometimes and
working in smaller groups is better once in a while.
Straws WC
October 26, 2016
Today we got into groups and did another wednesday challenge. The challenge was to get candy corn and find out how many could stand up straight on
a piece of paper. My group consisted of Evan, Mason, and I. Our idea was to find out how many pieces could fit in one square inch and then find out
how many square inches were in the entire piece of paper. We then multiplied the two together and go our answer, 561. The actual number was 497.
Candy Corn WC
October 27, 2016
In class, all we pretty much did was work on updating our websites and completing Wednesday challenge forms. I personally got a couple of entries done
and two Wednesday challenge forms. There isn't much else to say; we just worked on our websites.
October 28, 2016
The JPL group came in again and presented their inventions. Alvin and Keeila are, in my opinion way behind and don't think that it will do very well.
The vaccum machine can suck up the water while it is running, but once they turn it off, all of the water runs back down into the cup. While the teams were
presenting I also worked on my website and figured out why some of my forms and pictures weren't showing up. I learned how to look at file zilla and
make sure that everything is spelled correctly, so I'm happy about that.
October 31, 2016
Today was was Halloween and also the dance contest for baseball. I was actually pretty excited for it although it was slightly embarrasing. All in all
it was very fun and I had a great time. My team met in the morning at 6:15 a.m. to help practice the routine, and I guess it payed off at the end because we
won. After the entire thing ended, I found out that the winning team had to perform in front of the entire school at snack. No wonder why my teammates wanted
to lose. Coach Torres said that we didnt have to if we didnt want to, so my team didnt do it. Apparentlly Coop didnt know, so he went up and did it by
himself. I cracked up when I heard about it.
November 1, 2016
Today the class was introduced to the lego brick google sketch up. I had already started on mmine so it wasn't too difficult. At the end I was very
satisfied with my end result and was happy to put guidlines into use.
November 2, 2016
It was another Wednesday challenge today. The challenge was to, in groups of three, create a capital letter "E" on google sketch up, and then have
somenody fabricate the design. So we had to create an easy to read and create design. In my group was Carlos and Jess. We created a standard E that was 10 inches
tall and each other piece sticking our was 3 inches long except the middle one which was 2 inches. Nobody got to acutal start building the designs with cardboard
yet.
E WC
November 3, 2016
In class, we continued our "E" Wednesday challenge. Every group got a design from some other group, a piece of cardboard, and a box cutter. The "E"
that we recieved was not hard at all to fabricate, so we did it as close as we could to the design and just hoped that our mystery buddy group made ours
well.
November 4, 2016
The JPL group presented their inventions again and gave us a live test. The machine that Cole and Sam are making is doing the best so far and it making
the most water into the cup. THe Kevin Arm is also making tremendous progress, and just needs to adjust a few things to get all of the water into
the cup. I can tell that Mr. Milton really doesn't support Connor and Keila's machine because it still needs a lot of work to still be able to be tested.
I still believe that the Kevin Arm could do the best even though the results aren't showing it.
November 7, 2016
Today, we got back into our groups for the "E" Wednesday Challenge. After we got into our original groups, we met with the team that recieved our design.
The mystery team that we got paired with was Mason and Max Nelson. I found our Malik's email address. malikmallory@aveson.org We decided to turn in the
E that my group fabricated
November 8, 2016
Today, the class continued to work on the "E" Wednesday challenge. Eerybody was caught up, but the judges weren't at school so we couldn't find out
who the winner was. Other than that, I believe people worked on their WC form for the "E" project and tried to get it live on their website. It was
a pretty chill day overall.
November 9, 2016
Today everyone in class did another Wednesday Challenge. It was to get a 1 kilogram weight and another weight that was some other percentage of the 1 kilo.
The other weight was a back of nuts and screws. Everyone was really confused until one group figured out that they could borrow other groups bags to try and compare
the weights. Pretty much everyone came up with the conclusion that the ratio was from 4:1. That was only the first part of the challenge. The second part
of the objective was to figure out how the scales worked.
Scale WC
November 10, 2016
Today in class we discussed the Wednesday Challenge that we did yesterday. We talked about how the scale worked and that it works in a 4:1 ratio. I
was the only one to volunteer to talk about my ideas on how it worked, so my team won. Yay me! Mr. Milton also came in, to talk to the JPL groups for the
last time before the competitions.
November 14, 2016
Today, I was called into the workshop with Malik, Alex, Johnathan, and Zachary. Mr> Miller told us that we could begin a project and build anything that we
wanted to that was not too complicated. Malik suggested the Faze logo and everyone was ok with it. We only made two cuts with a vertical press, but it
was still fun. Mason and I also decided to do the Pont Du Gard for our bridge project.
November 15, 2016
Today in class, Mason and I worked on our bridge report. OUr bridge is called the Pont du Garde, and it is a three arch bridge that used to be an
aqueduct. We both didn't really do anything though; both of us just tried to catch up on our websites.
November 16, 2016
Today the class participated in another Wednesday Challenge. It was to get two pieces of metal metal and somehow connect them together. After that you would
attach the pieces to a rope and some weight to test the sheer force. In my group was Nicholas, Derek and Jon. We used duct tape and wrapped it around the entire
thing. It ended up looking like a hot pocket. Everyone ended up being able to hold 16 lbs.
Sheer force WC
November 28, 2016
Today we got introduced to a new google sketch up project. We are supposed to make a cad of our arch bridges that we made for the first quarter. My
arch bridge was made out of slanted blocks so I had to make the units myself.
November 29, 2016
Today the JPl crew came into the classroom to talk about their experience at the competition. They showed us a powerpoint with lots of pictures and explanaions. Unfortunately, two of them got DQ'd; it was cole and jacob's
inventions. Cole's had a rope that got tangled, thus stopping the cart, and jacob's machine didn't suck enough. ;) I definitely thought that they were going to do
a lot better, but what can I say. Although their results werent the best, they did a great job working over the past weeks.
November 30, 2016
Today we got a new two day Wednesday challenge where a team had to design a cad to build the tallest tower that consisted of graham crackers, marmallows, and pretzels
sticks. In my group was Jaden, Evan, and David. We believed that pretzel sticks were not going to be useful at all and marshallows were uneccessary. At the end the
group came to anonymous decision to just stack 29 graham crackers. We predicted 3 feet but I knew it wasnt even close. Since we needed so many graham crackers,
david said that he could go to the store to buy some if we chipped in some money.
December 1, 2016
Today was the day that we constructed another team's design. I was kind of frustrated because David, who was supposed to bring the graham crackers, didn't
show up to school. At the end it worked our but idk if Dr. Neato will still pay Jaden and I back our five dollars. The team that we got was Elizabeth, Carlos, Max, and
Nelson. The design was very strange and was not sturdy at all. Evan and I tried to build it but it would just continue to keep collapsing.
building WC
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