By explaining my groupwork to peers in the classroom, I make a positive difference to my peers. If somebody doesn’t understand a concept, or how to do a question, I always try and explain it to them. When doing groupwork I am able to show my work as an example.
The way I communicate at school differs from how I communicate at soccer practice. The biggest difference between how I communicate at school vs at practice is that I am more blunt and hard on people at practice. Since I am familiar with all my teammates, and I take on a “Team Captain” role, I try to push them harder than I would to classmates at school.
When I need to refocus on a task, I set myself a challenge. For example, if there is 20 minutes left in class to finish our homework, and I have been unfocused, I try and see how many questions can I get done in 10 minutes. I end up focusing and getting into a rhythm, which lets me focus for the full 20 minutes.
Some of the ways I work to maintain relationships are: communication and honesty. I try to have clear communication that goes both ways in any sort of relationship that I am in. If somebody does something that upsets me, I’ll tell them straight up, and I try to be a person who invites other people to tell me when I do something that upsets them. Honesty is also key, because lying to people, or talking about them behind their back is bound to cause trouble.
This is a photo of the “Ball Launcher” from the Ball Launcher Lab. This was our first design.Slomo video of our ball launcher in action!Bottom view of our “Ball Launcher”.This is a picture of the “Ball Launcher” from the ball launcher lab after we got rid of the top part of the cup that holds the tin foil ball.
The Reciever:
This is a back view of our ball reciever. As you can probably tell, we only used paper and tape.Top view of our ball reciever.
Scientific Method: Gold Tower Challenge
Newspaper Tower:
This is a photo from our practice build of our tower.This is another photo of the practice day. As you can see the base pillars are a bit uneven.Test day. This was the start of our tower.fast forward half an hour we have a much taller tower, but the base is in shambles. Somehow I managed to balance everything and we got an official height of 5’3. We did manage to get an unofficial height of 5’5 a few minutes later.
Curricular Response:
Doing both the Ball Launcher Lab and the Golf Tower Challenge improved my understanding of the scientific method in many ways. Before these labs I hadn’t done any sort of work on the basics of the scientific method in over a year. Doing this lab allowed me to get reminded of how the variables work together, and how different the testing and control experiment are. I got to work on my inductive learning in the ball launcher lab especially, because my group researched different designs of how to build a ball launcher. Using our observations, or inductive learning, we were able to conclude that a base using the plastic cups and pencils to support the ruler was our best option. I got to work more on my deductive learning in the Golf Tower lab, as there were many more problems that came up. For example my newspaper tower had a big problem with how it was balanced. Our hypothesis ended up being unsupported by our own experiment because of the way we designed our tower. The base was lopsided and that specifically caused the whole tower to become unstable. Now, I know how to create a good, or at least better, base and what our strategy should have been. From looking at the results of other people’s towers, I have a better understanding of how the design of a sturdy and tall tower should look like. Perhaps if my partner and I used more of our inductive learning and observed some examples of towers before the lab, we could have been more successful.
Core Competency Self Assesment and Creative Thinking:
The scientific method lab I’m most proud of is the ball launcher lab. I think my group did a great job researching design ideas before hand, talking about changes we can make to improve the design, and then we worked together really well to build it. Perhaps it is because we are all friends, but no one in the group was ever doing nothing, and we all worked hard to build the launcher and receiver. We had an unofficial distance of 11.9m and an official distance of 7.6m, barely lower than the first place in our class (7.7m). Overall we did well on each part of this lab, and the teamwork and communication was exceptional.
One strategy we used to overcome a challenge we had was trying to redesign different parts of our receiver. One of our problems with our receiver is that the ball kept bouncing or rolling out during the test launches the day before the official experiment took place. To overcome this obstacle our group devised a plan to buy more paper from Mr. Asano to then fold it at the front of our receiver, making it so the ball can no longer roll out. If I were to do the lab again, I’d make this front wall a little bigger, because then we would have gotten an official distance of 10m.
In both labs, I practiced all five steps of the scientific method (Identify a problem, create a hypothesis, design an experiment, conduct experiment and collect data, and draw a conclusion). I am going to use the ball launcher lab as an example because I think it best reflects how my group practiced all steps of the scientific method. First we identified a problem, the problem was that we needed to launch a ball the farthest it could possibly go, but it needed to be caught with a receiver. So, we created a hypothesis, and started to design an experiment to see if our ball launcher and receiver would be able to solve this problem. We spent one day brainstorming ideas, one day building/test launching our favourite idea, and one day for official testing. We encountered some problems along the way like our ruler snapping, and our ball hitting the top of the launcher, but that’s all part of the scientific method. We even had a lot of problems with our golf tower challenge. Our base was unstable, the tower was lopsided, but my group persevered through and we found a way to balance everything. We went from what would’ve been last place to fifth place, because we problem solved. My understanding of the scientific method got better after my experience doing the labs. The scientific method isn’t just about following the 5 steps, but about running into problems, critically thinking, and then adapting to solve your problem. The 5 steps are important, however if you aren’t able to critically think, and persevere through your problems, you aren’t getting the full scientific method experience. Anyways, we came to the conclusion that our hypothesis was supported, and that we could better prove our hypothesis if our materials weren’t limited.
I demonstrated that I can create new things when I am backed against a corner. I think the best example of this is when Leo and I did the Golf Tower challenge. We had a theoretically correct tower, but the execution was quite poor. Our tower was lopsided, and looked like it wasn’t going to get fixed. But, somehow I created some insane idea to tear apart the base for tape, and remake a tripod base structure. I was able to create a super long roll to support one side of the tower that was lacking, (shown in last photo of golf tower lab) and then I balanced everything perfectly to make sure the tower was stable. When I was backed against a wall, I was able to focus and create something new.
I demonstrated that I can build on the ideas of others when I communicate with other group members. I’ll use the ball launcher lab as an example because we were a group of 4. Because Mr. Asano is such a nice teacher, he let us pick our groups, and I picked to be with 3 of my friends. Because all of us are friends, no one was shy and didn’t share ideas. So, we all had ideas about the launcher, and we agreed on one design combining different aspects of all of our designs collectively. For example, one of us wanted to build a catapult, like Davin did, but the rest of wanted more of a slingshot design. So, we used the catapult frame, but built it backwards almost, so we could then use an elastic band to slingshot the ball out of the cup. We did the same thing for the receiver. Leo and Beckett wanted to make a large paper area with tape so the ball wouldn’t bounce out. I suggested we do the same but add walls to stop high balls. Tomio then suggested instead of tape at the bottom we fold paper walls up to stop the ball from bouncing out. Since we were all friends and not afraid to share our opinions, we built off each others ideas quite well.
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 the golf tower lab. As I have stated previously, the initial build of our tower was a dud. However, this allowed me to, “try new things. “I tried a tripod base that I saw another group do, and it somehow worked after I balanced everything. If our tower wasn’t lopsided and we just had our four pillar base on the tower, we would’ve missed out on another foot of height. Another example is when our ruler snapped in the ball launcher lab. After that happened we adjusted the way we pulled the elastic back so we wouldn’t break another ruler, and it actually went further than before. Moral of the story, make mistakes, and learn from them. That’s the essence of the scientific method!
