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http://bit.ly/mathexplorations

Google's Computer Science First Club

All students from Math Explorations will be participating on Google's CS-First coding challenges. We will start with the "Storytelling" unit. On this unit, students will create a short story, add characters, setting, and dialogue. All of this will be created using a computer coding program from Scratch.

On Target

This week we created a vehicle that could carry a marble down a zip line. The challenge was to modify our cup (vehicle) so the marble would hit a target on the floor. This required many modifications and different and interesting designs. The groups that successfully hit the target modified their designs many times.

Roving on the Moon

Our challenge for this week was to build a rubber band-powered rover. Using the engineering design process, the students were able to change the wheels, rubber bands and weight of their rovers to travel at least 30 cm. A team was able to design a rover that could travel at over one meter!

On the Moon: Touchdown

Our class created a shock absorbing system for our two "astronauts." We dropped a spacecraft from 30 cm. and tested the system designed to keep the astronauts in the cabin (marshmallows in the cup.) We used the engineering design process to improve our designs. There was a team that was able to drop their spacecraft from over one meter!

Moon Exploration: Launch It ( Air-powered Rockets)

On this unit we are recreating a moon exploration starting with a rocket launch. We used the Engineering Design Process to imagine, plan, create, test and improve an air-powered rocket. This rocket had to hit a target 1 1/2 meters away from the launch position. There were a lot of learning experiences due to the design and faulty materials, but we need to learn to design, test and improve over and over again.

Computer Coding

We are participating in the hour of code from code.org. Students use critical thinking skills, algebraic and geometric concepts through computer programming. You can challenge yourself to write your program using fewer blocks!

www.code.org