In the spirit of Thanksgiving, our students listened to the story, Balloons Over Broadway, by Melissa Sweet and were told that we ran out of helium to keep the balloons in the air, so they were given 3 popsicle sticks, 4 straws, one small cup, tape and an inflated balloon to engineer a device to keep their balloon attached to their Indi robot and code their route in a Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Challenge was a lot of fun and students showcased their clever engineering designs. Here are some pictures to show their creativity:
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We have some very exciting news! This year our school, Ballard Elementary, has been recognized as achieving a Woz Pathway STEM School Status. WOZ ED has developed personalized learning programs to help students reach their potential in STEM education and compete for STEM careers. Mr. Keezer and I were invited to Scottsdale, Arizona to meet Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple and a very successful engineer. Mr. Wozniak is known for building the Apple II Computer in 1978. We were presented with a certificate and celebrated as a STEM Pathways school. We have received a number of various educational materials and curricula from Woz ED, that will ignite the spark in all our learners to develop an engineering mindset. We are super-excited to continue engaging our students with critical thinking skills and helping them become better problem solvers!
The Catapult CompetitionWhat an amazing time we had during our TSA Catapult Competition! Thank you Mr. Keezer and Natalie, for coming to cheer us on!!!
Students have been very busy these past few weeks! We have been reviewing STEM expectations and defining the 4 letters of STEM as Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. All students have been learning what Science and Engineering looks like. We have been working with some new STEM lab equipment and learning how to work in Teams. Here are some pictures from this month.
This month students have been working with Root Robots. Root robots are controlled with iPads. Students code the robot to go forward, backward, turn, light up and even play music notes. Root robots can even draw shapes. We had a lot of fun learning what Root can do!
This month we have been working with our Dash robots. Students are learning how robots are built and all the things they can do. We are coding our Dash robots to light up, move, and make sounds. Here is a short video about Dash Robots: https://youtu.be/LA9py48X6_o
February 14th was our VEX IQ Competition at BACC. What an amazing event with lots of amazing robots and exciting competitions! We learned so much and worked real hard. We're now looking forward to April 15th for our last TSA Competition, The Water Tower! Students are working on completing their Water Tower designs and getting ready to compete. Spring Break is also coming up soon and we're all looking forward to relaxing and recharging our brains for the remainder of the school year. Stay tuned for more STEM fun!
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