Last month we started a new unit on immigration. Ms. Edwards told us that we were going to make a 11-12 year old kids immigration stories on a website called WeVideo. My immigration story took place in Tours, France. Everyone in my class was a made-up person from a country where lots of people immigrated. After we chose and typed our scripts it was time to film. First we needed to find the photos we wanted. After that we had to find old things for our props. We took pictures and narrated our stories instead of actually acting it through the end. We took pictures all over the school. Like one was the courtyard and another was the garden. After we collected our photos we put them into WeVideo. Actual editing was the hardest thing because I wanted it to be perfect. Because at first it was 10 mins long. But then I realized some of the stuff wasn’t necessary in my voice over. And finally I am done. I liked this project because it was fun to do with a group.
Sphero Lessons 2 and 3
On Thursday March 16, my group(me, Abby, and Corina) taught our second and third lesson. When we taught our lesson a kid who didn’t come came that day, so we had to teach him everything the rest of the group learned. At this point 2 of our students were making the Sphero say weird stuff and making the Sphero hit the wall. Abby, Corina, and I were a little irritated, until they finally understood how to use the commands. Lesson 3 was more of a challenge than a lesson though. We used a ramp for the challenge. The challenge was for the Sphero to roll up and down the ramp and make the Sphero use colors, sounds, and other actions while making a trianlge. When they finished, we played a game called Pong for a few minutes and then our For Ms.Boyer’s class, our students cooperated and we had so much time for a game. Even though they went through the second and third lesson like that, they were okay with what we came up for them even though it was easy for them. Out of all the lessons we thought, I thought that the second lessons were at least better than the first one.
1st Sphero Lesson
On 3/8/2017, we had our first Sphero Lesson. For my lesson, my partners were Abby and Corina and we were doing an triangle. We did our classes with Mrs. Cooper’s class and Mrs. Boyer’s class.
For the first class we did a grand entrance for our Sphero(Lavender) and then we told them commands and then they explored for 5 min. After that, one of our students was mumbling “this is so stupid” and lots of other things. We ignored all the negativity and continued teaching but we didn’t have time for a fun game. For our second class we did a bit better in teaching and our students were eager to learn about Spheros. And at the end they loved the game we played.
I think our 2nd class was better than our first one because we realized our mistakes in the first one and improved in the second one. The 1st class was okay because, I think we messed up our wording’s for explaining which commands our which and etc.
Final Ballroom Danicing Performance
For our final performance, I wore a black and white dress. We danced the Waltz and the Swing. I thought it was a little fun but it was nerve wracking. This is how it went, we come out with the other classes, we wait for Mrs. Boyer’s class to finish, then Mrs. Cooper’s class to finish and then we go. Since there is about 60- 70 kids there were 120- 140 parents and 240- 280 eyes on us. What I thought was the most stressful was when my partner and I got to the front and danced. I thought I would do something wrong but there were only minor things that no one saw. I told my parents and they didn’t see it. After that I had ice cream at home and went to sleep.
Rube Goldberg #7
Today I met with my partners and… It worked! Only 50 -55 tries, but it was worth it! We got the iMovie done, also. For this blog post, I am just going to write about the experience of making a Rube Goldberg Machine. First of all, for us it was the most stressful thing ever. What we did to calm ourselves was we took a two-min break every so often to pet Jojo(Danielle’s dog) and then get back to work. Our moms told us to take a break because, we were thinking so hard and our parents felt sorry. We did what they told and it actually worked.
Secondly, our experience with creating, wasn’t so great. We searched through about 5 websites (I only remember 3-4) and then came up with the idea. We started looking into the idea and thought it wasn’t possible without two domino effects, but we started giving our ideas and thought about it and we came up with it.
Lastly, building and testing the machine was hard. Building was hard because we couldn’t find some things that we needed so we changed the plan a bit. Testing was not so great, either. Testing the machine was hard because if it didn’t go right, you would have to test it over and over and build it again until it succeeded.
Since this is my last blog post for Rube Goldberg, I want to thank Danielle’s mom for giving up her kitchen table and the moms for supporting us!
Rube Goldberg #6
On Thursday I met with my partners. We got a fair amount done. Since we wanted to get exceeded expectations, we needed to add steps to the beginning, test the thing out in one day and in the next one(the final day to work on it) we have to make the video. This is really stressful especially since when we test it keeps failing. Another bad thing is that my kindle(this one is not for reading) and sphero died. We at least got some of the iMovie done. On Tuesday we are going to meet again and change the 2nd step, add a bigger pan, and test out and document it. We thing that it is very cool and think everyone is going to like it.
This is the last post that explains our process but my group and I are going to add another post to what we thought and the experience of making a Rube Goldberg machine. Stay updated for the last and final post!
Rube Goldberg #5
Today I met with my partners Corina and Danielle. We are so close to finishing. All we need to do is add four more steps to the beginning (for the Exceeded Expectations on our rubric). So far it has really been disastrous because Danielle had a ”Guest” at her house and we had ideas everywhere. Again we changed our machine. We added a few tweaks here and there, but also kept the original design. This really helped us because, at first we were sticking to the design, but on one step it won’t work because it goes down another level but can’t because of the surface we were using. We have everything planned so far, but I really, really want this to work. Overall, we think it might fail the first few times, but succeed at last.
I will update you you through one more blog post on the process of our Rube Goldberg Machine and then make a conclusion on what we thought of doing the Rube Goldberg Machine!
Rube Goldberg #4
Today I just came back from Danielle’s house and we got the beginning of our machine done. Believe me, this was the hardest thing that I ever built. We first went to Michaels Art’s and Craft store to see what we can get. That took us until 4 and then we had a snack and then started building. When we started building we were so lost. We want to add little tweak to our machine/sketch.
Our new sketch starts with a sphero that hits some dominoes and then the dominoes hit a toy car and the toy car hits a marble and the marble goes through a paper rocket tube which hits more dominoes and then that hits a ball which goes down a ramp and hits jenga blocks and then the blocks hit a spinner(it is made from k’nex and it rolls down 2 flat surfaces) that hits a candle holder made out of wood which has the egg on top and the egg hits the mini buckets.
So far we started until the marble goes through the rocket because, there is a tube and then 2-3 steps later it goes down a ramp and we need a chair. The problem is though, Danielle’s chairs slide back so it is hard. We are meeting up tomorrow again so we can fix it.
I will update 2 more posts on the process and problems of our Rube Goldberg machine. I really hope it works.
Rube Goldberg #3
Today I met with my partners Danielle and Corina. Since our sketch was due tomorrow we worked on it. We decided to re-do our sketch. What we were going to do is everyone is going to make a sketch and we will pick the best one but add some ideas so everyone has a part in this. Now it has everything we need on the rubric but we don’t know if it is good.
Our sketch starts with some dominoes and then the dominoes hit a toy car and the toy car hits a marble and the marble goes through a spiral tube which hits more dominoes and then that hits a ball which goes down a ramp and hits mini bowling pins and the pin hits a spinner (it is made from k’nex and it rolls down two flat surfaces) that hits a steep block made out of cardstock paper or cardboard which has the egg on top and the egg hits the pan.
I will update you on our project in three more Rube Goldberg posts!
Rube Goldberg #2
I met with Corina and Danielle and we were really “stuck.” When I mean “stuck” I mean we jumped from one idea to another to another. We sat brainstorming ideas, but we were really stuck. We decided to look at videos on Ms. Edwards’s teacher page for lots of information.
After going through more and more inspiration, we finally decided on a sketch. The only downside was it had five-six steps and we needed eight. We were going to be meeting again tomorrow for the final draft of our sketch, then onward to the building process.
I will update you in four more Rube Goldberg posts on my blog!
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