Five Day School Week!!!

This week we have finally had a full week with no snow or days off and I can definitely tell we were able to cover lots of material.

6th Grade: 
We continued measurement this week. Students were able to build their Air Skimmers utilizing a ruler and measurement. One of the fun things I like to do with this skimmer plan is have students take a completed model and "reverse engineering it" to discover how it was put together. We also started learning a new software called Autodesk Inventor this Friday. Students were working on a small tutorial project that I created. You can find the tutorial link below.

Autodesk Inventor Tutorial

7th Grade: 
Students are almost finished designing their passive amplification box for their cell phones. The past few weeks students have been designing and following along with the YouTube video instructions to create a 3D model of their very own amplification box design. The original design is just a rectangular box but I am encouraging students to be creative and to truly design a unique and one of a kind project. I do have a few students that are falling behind during this project and I encourage them to watch the YouTube instructions at home to get a better understanding of what they should accomplish during the school day. I also have a few students that do not have their safety contracts turned in. Below are the YouTube Instructions.

Front and Back
Middle
Assembly Instructions
Multiview / Orthographic View (What they need to turn in for a grade.)


8th Grade: 
With our aerospace unit in full flight we constructed and tested hot air balloons! A few of the balloons worked great, flying even further than we thought. Others didn't get off the ground but the students made a good effort. One takeaway from this week should be that students know the science behind why the hot air balloon fly. They are also learning about the scientific concept of convection in their science classes this week. Students worked on an aerospace vocabulary assignment this week as well. Next week we will focus on airplanes and how they fly. We will also end up creating a balsa wood glider in the near future which I am really excited about.

After School Robotics: 
One of the benefits of taking the 8th Grade Technology and Engineering course is the cool extracurricular opportunities. This Saturday a few of my students will be competing at Pattonville High School in an underwater robotics competition. Let's hope "The APEX predator of the Sea: aka David Hasselhoff" (students came up with this name for the robot) can pull out a win for PCMS.