In this project I worked in a group of four to test how the properties of snow and how think it is can help you keep you warm in a survival situation. We went about this by first researching how snow is insulative, and then constructed 2 snow forts, one with 4 inch walls and one with 8 inch walls to test if we could see any visible of a difference between the two. In this process we also learned about heat transfer and a lot about snow. This project was really fun and I loved being able to do something so fun and relate it to school.
In this project I played a huge role in building the snow forts for the most part. I also helped out as a leader to keep us all together and on task and I also was a big part of data collection.
Rube Goldberg Project
The requirements for this project were to create a rube goldberg machine that had at least 12 working steps. The steps must include at least six of the simple machines that we learned about and we were given the option to try and incorporate some advanced concepts.
My rube’s final goal was to make a smoothie. It used a cube frame with three different layers to have lots of space to build steps. I used many things like levers, pulleys, marbles on tracks, and elastic energy to make the most out of my rube. It was very difficult and I am glad I had a group to work together with.
What hands on skills did you learn through working in your group? (construction, problem solving, collaboration, design, time management, etc...)
While working in my group I really learned a lot about construction, As far as being able to use the different tools. I also learned about collaboration with splitting the tasks at hand to accomplish more.
What steps were most challenging to make work? (How did you troubleshoot or redesign)
The most challenging step of the rube was definitely the lever that folds down for the weight to roll across. If the weight up top isn't lined up perfect it misses the spot its supposed to hit and if the rolling weight isn't lined up perfect it misses the pendulum it is supposed to hit.
What was the hardest part of doing this project, how did you persevere? The hardest part of this project was the time frame we were given. We had a lot of time to work on this project but utilizing that time effectively was sometimes challenging and this was a big project that took lots of time.