Curricular Response

The Golf Tower Challenge helped me improve my understanding of the scientific method process when I realized that my tower wasn’t holding up and kept falling. To fix this problem, I made 4 small cylinder and taped them against my main tower to prevent it from falling, and it worked. This helped me understand the scientific method because I used inductive learning to identify the problem, which was my tower wasn’t staying up. So, I came up with an idea, to add supports, and I tested it out, which is deductive learning. It worked, so my idea was correct. The Ball Launcher Challenge helped me improve my understanding of the scientific method process when my ball launcher, a slingshot, wasn’t shooting the aluminum ball very far. Originally, I had 2 rubber bands used for power to shoot the aluminum ball, but then me and my group members thought that more rubber bands, meant more power. This when is we decided we should use 4 rubber bands instead of 2. This was inductive learning since we observed that our ball wasn’t getting enough power. We then added the extra rubber bands and shot our aluminum ball. This time, it was shot almost twice as far, so our idea worked. This was deductive learning, since we tested our idea. Overall, both of these labs helped me understand the scientific method process way better.

Core Competency Self Assessment and Creative Thinking

The scientific method lab I am most proud of is the Ball Launcher Lab, mainly because my group came in first place, and we were able to land our aluminum ball from the ball launcher into the ball receiver from over 600cm away. I also feel like my devices for this lab were creative, unlike my Newspaper Tower Challenge where I wasn’t as creative. The Ball Launcher Challenge also helped me understand the scientific method process more than the Newspaper Challenge lab, which I’m proud of. The last reason I’m proud of the ball launcher lab is because there weren’t any big errors, and if there was a problem, then my group and I knew how to fix it. Overall, I enjoyed both labs, but I’m prouder of my work on the Ball Launcher Lab rather than the Newspaper Tower Lab.

During the Ball Launcher Challenge, I realized that when the aluminum ball was shot, it was always curving to the right or to the left and wasn’t going straight. To fix this problem, my group and I did 3 things. The first thing we did was get brand new rubber bands, since this could have been why the slingshot wasn’t working properly. The second thing we did was use as much power as we could, which meant stretching the rubber bands as much as we can. We figured this would help the aluminum ball go straight. We also made sure that the rubber bands were straight and weren’t being pulled to the right or left. Doing all these things helped us fix the problem, and the aluminum ball started going straight. On the Newspaper Tower Challenge, me and my partner’s tower kept tilting, which meant our tower didn’t have enough support. So, to fix this problem, we added 4 small cylindrical supports, about 10cm in height, and 1 tall support, about 30cm in height. This mainly fixed the problem, but then our tower kept slowly tilting to the right or the left, so when it did, me and my partner just gave it a little tap to try and balance it. Eventually, our tower balanced, and we were able to measure how tall it was, and it was 5’5.

The Newspaper Tower Challenge helped me understand the scientific method because of all the different ways you could’ve built your tower. I could’ve done, squares, triangles, cylinders, rectangles, and many more shapes, to build my tower to be able to hold a golf ball at the top. If I did the Newspaper Tower Lab multiple times, then I could’ve come up with a lot of hypotheses using the shapes I listed above. The Ball Launcher Challenge helped me understand the scientific method because of all the different kinds of ball launchers and receivers I could’ve built. It helped me identify all the types of ways I could’ve solved the problem, which was to shoot an aluminum ball from a ball launcher into a ball receiver. I could’ve built a catapult, and used a couple of pieces of paper, taped together, for my ball receiver. I also could’ve built a slingshot where the ball would be shot into a cup. There were just so many options, so it helped me understand all the ways I could’ve come up with a hypothesis to solve the problem.

I demonstrated that I can create new things when I have good teamwork with my group members. An example of this is during the Ball Launcher Challenge, when me and a member in my group built the ball receiver together. Our ball receiver was in the shape of a hockey net, and we used paper and pencils to make it. We were able to create it efficiently by doing 1 thing at a time. For example, I would hold 2 pencils together, and he would tape them together, and then we would switch. We would then tape those 4 pencils together to make a square and add 2 pencils on the back of it. When we were measuring what size our paper needed to be, my partner would hold the paper, and I would trace it. He would then cut the shape I traced. Lastly, he would hold the paper on the designated area of our ball receiver, and I would tape it to the pencils, so it stayed on. We would take turns repeating all these processes, and overall, our ball receiver was a success.

I demonstrated that I can build on the ideas of others when I understand the idea. My partner had the idea for the Newspaper Tower Challenge, so the first thing I had to do was understand his idea. I asked my partner to explain it to me, and then I asked a few questions. I learned that he wanted our cylinders to be thin, so I made thin cylinders. We then realized our tower was falling, so we both thought of the idea for supports. I suggested 4 supports and he suggested 2, so we started with 2 but we then needed 4. Me and my partner consistently built off of each other’s ideas, and overall, we had good teamwork.

When trying new things, I expect setbacks and failure and use them to develop my ideas. An example of this from the scientific method labs would be in the Newspaper Tower Lab. Me and my partner’s original idea was to have on support making the tower stay up. It was just one piece of newspaper, folded, and then we put our newspaper cylinders in between it. We tried doing this, and it worked when we had 1 cylinder up, but the second we put a 2nd cylinder above it, our tower kept falling. This is when we had to add 4 more supports, 1 on each side of the first cylinder. This helped us put up the 2nd and 3rd cylinder, but then when we tried to put up a 4th, it kept falling just like the 2nd one did. To fix this, me and my partner came up with an idea to add another cylinder as a support, that would connect to the 3rd cylinder and be about 30cm in height. It worked, and then we were able to successfully add the 4th and final cylinder on top. In my Ball Launcher Lab, me and my partners realized that our aluminum ball wasn’t being shot as far as it could be. It kept being shot around 350cm, but we knew we could add more power. So, instead of shooting the aluminum ball with 2 rubber bands, we decided to add another 2 to them. This helped the aluminum ball go way farther, and during our practice, we were able to get the aluminum ball to shoot from the ball launcher into the ball receiver from over 550cm away.

This is me trying to balance my tower so it can stay up. This is also what it looked like when it was finished.