Weekly wrap up 7/20/18-- Spokes science day

Every year one of the coops we belong too, sponsor the Harvard college students Spokes team as they bike across the country and in return the college kids do a free science camp for our homeschool kids.  We go every year and it is always a lot of fun and the activities are interesting.


The first class was engineering.  The students had 3 challenges to complete.  First they had to build out of paper a structure that could support weight.   The structure that supported the most won the contest.

MarioFan remember his work on Bridge engineering and suggested the  make a column and fill with rolled up paper for strength

MarioFan's team won as their paper structure supported 9 boxes of candy dots.:). The second place team could support f4 boxes of candy

The next contest was to build the tallest structure out of candy dum drops and marshmallows and it needed to remain upright for 30 seconds once the timer went off.

Boys working together and it took a few minutes for them to realize that a triangle was the sturdiest  building option.   MarioFan did not remember this from our Bridge unit from a few years ago.  Can't win them all:)

MarioFan's team won again by 1/2 inch they built a 13 /2 inch structure in ten minutes!

The last challenge was to build (using only paper, straws, and tape) a container to hold a egg that would be dropped from shoulder height and not break the egg.

This challenged proved to be the hardest for the boys to work on.  I also think there was too much parental involvement here as everyone tried to figured out what would work. (guilty as charge)

the final model design

the dropping of the egg

While the boys egg did not fall out of their structure like the others did,  it still broke.  So there were no winners for this contest:). 

Next class was learning about computers and working with the Scratch programs

Many activities to show just how hard it is to program a computer to do exactly what you want.

Completing their scratch games.

The last class MarioFan did was robots and engineering.

Learning about the bread box in electronics

assembling the electronics

building a base for his robot car

testing to see if it works

MarioFan was pleased that his car was the second best in distance:) !

We had a great day of learning and as usual the college kids did amazing classes and engaged the kids in all areas!