March Madness

Today we learned about single-elimination tournament brackets. This style of tournament bracket shows you all the possible teams before a game is played. Each classroom held a competitive game of Rock Paper Scissors to model this. Next we moved on to the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament. We don't watch basketball! But we can make some predictions based on a few statistics. The teams are given a ranking from 1 to 16, which is easy when a 1 plays a 16, but what about when 2 (Michigan State...sob) loses to a 15 or when an 8 plays a 9? And which of the 4 1st seed teams are the best? We also discovered that the win/loss record was provided for us. We wondered why a 29-4 team have a lower rank than a 26-7? Did they take into account the difficulty of the teams they played? Some students chose based on names (Butler has a kind of a silly sounding name), some chose based on mascot, some record, some ranking, some chose familiar locations and places they've visited, and still others chose to remain loyal to their parents' alma mater. In the end, we an epic Wall o' Bracket. Prizes go to anyone who picks the correct championship winner. Also prizes to go to those who pick the highest number of correct winners. 

Green = correct pick

Pink = incorrect pick 

We'll continue to update this blog entry as it gets closer to the National Championship! 

Yertle Feeder - Part 2 (3-5)

Blog by Ashlee:

Proposal for Turtle Feeder

Introduction: Yertle needs a feeder, and it takes a long time to feed him by hand. In addition to that, the food gets the tank dirty. Yertle is very used to being fed with tweezers. on weekends, when we are away, Yertle needs to be fed. We have been asked by the upper graders to design a turtle feeder that meets the following criteria: the turtle feeder must keep the tank clean, be safe for Yertle, and be self-serve. It is recommended that it be durable, cheap, and hold a week's worth of food.

My design: My design is a container with a hole that allows bits of food to fall into a straw that has a "bite valve" at the end. Turtles bite down on the valve to get food. On the top there's a lid that can rotate all the way down to the side left of it. It connects with two "L-shaped" brackets that hold the container and get nailed into the wall. The straw IS replaceable. My design can hold up to 100 pellets.

Criterion 1: Self-serve
My design meets criterion one because of the amount of pellets it can store at one time. Also your turtle can just bite down on the "bite valve."

Criterion 2: Safe
My design meets criterion two because all the turtle does it bite down on the "bite valve." The bite valve is made of turtle-friendly material.

Criterion 3: Clean Tank
My design meets criterion three because it's not even in the tank!


Teacher Note: We're working hard to meet the engineering standards part of the New Generation Science Standards. Wow, can these kids design. Today they continued to write their proposal, added labels to their diagram, and used play-doh to build their prototype.

Trigonome-TREE (6-8)

Blog by Emma: 

We are using trigonometry to measure the height of a tree without climbing it. We will use a protractor with a ruler attached to measure the angle. 

Tan angle = opposite/adjacent

Tree 1: 

tan 21 degrees = opp/14 meters = 5.37 meters ?????

Tree 2: 

tan 57 degrees = opp/18.2 meters = 28.03 meters (+ 1 meter above) = 29.03 meters

Dandy Candies (6-8)

"Dandy Candies" comes from another Dan Meyer 3-Act Play. You can watch the video here.

Blog by Serafin:

We were shown a video that had candy in a box, and about 20-30 pieces were shaped into rectangular solid shapes. Now we need to find a problem using the blocks. 

Question: How many different rectangular shapes can you make? My job will be finding the shape that uses the least amount of ribbon. 

Yertle Feeder (3-5)

The upper graders have commissioned us to engineer a product that would feed Yertle.

Problem: Normally Yertle the Turtle is fed one pellet at a time with a set of tweezers. When we drop more than one pellet into the tank, he doesn't see it. This causes the food to dissolve and make the tank dirty. The current method of feeding him one pellet at a time by hand is time consuming and means that someone needs to be at the school every day.

Criteria:
- keep the tank clean
- be easy to use
- cheap
- durable
- dispense pellets one at a time
- store up to 7 days of food
- can dispense all sizes of turtle pellets

Constraints:
- not harmful to turtles
- can't get stored food wet
- can be used in any tank
- reusable

We will create a design on paper and then evaluate and optimize the designs. There may be several iterations before we get to the best design. 

This week in school, we will work on writing the proposal and next week's math lab will include building a prototype. 

Contour Mapping (3-5) (6-8)

Today we investigated how lines on a contour map help us make inferences about elevation change. What does it mean when the lines are close together? What does it mean when lines are far apart? Would we rather have a short, steep climb or a long, gradual climb? Where should we start our hike? What will the top of the mountain look like? Can we use contour lines to tell the difference between the shape of Mt. Everest and Mt. Kilimanjaro? After we made a physical model of some contour maps using craft foam, we designed our own mountains with a contour map and built another 3D foam model.

Newton's Egg - Trial 2 (3-5) (6-8)

Teacher Notes: On the first trial, half the eggs broke. We celebrate "failures" because it gives us an opportunity to analyze our designs, observe problems, and plan ways to improve. The partners with broken eggs were given a second chance to build a second egg container after watching the first trial. Those partners with eggs that survived were given an extra challenge of making their egg container lighter. The only production rules were that the egg had to first go into a Ziplock bag (saves on mess), and you could only use the materials provided. Some of the partners weighed packaging material before planning their design. Others planned ways they could make the parachute coffee filters bigger and stronger. 

Blog by Annie:

Our first egg broke. I think this was because it hit the ground too hard. My ideas to prevent this are put straws under the egg and packing peanuts, put a parachute on it, and put a strawberry crate underneath it. I also think we packaged it too tightly. Although our thing turned to one side, it didn't break, I think, because of the straws and lightness of packing peanuts. 

Newton's Egg - Trial 1 (3-5) (6-8)

Blog by Jackson

Today we are going to drop eggs off the roof. We are going to use materials to pad and slow the fall. We are going to see whether our egg will crack/break or not. We are trying to not let our egg break. We have tape, cotton balls, parachutes (coffee filters), padding, bags, tupperware, paper towels, and tying strips to not let our egg break.

Hints: slow velocity/speed
- increase the area (added air resistance)
- pad the egg to spread the impact

Thoughts: The paper towels are for padding, the cotton balls are padding. The coffee filters are for a parachute. The strawberry crate is for the box where the egg lays. When we dropped the egg, our egg cracked. It has one big crack with lots of other tiny cracks leading out. Next Wednesday, I am going to put the steel wool on the bottom.