Day 4:
We will let the pictures do the talking today. Thank you for a great week of camp!
Hope to see everyone back again next year.
We will let the pictures do the talking today. Thank you for a great week of camp!
Hope to see everyone back again next year.
Day 3 was insanely busy and productive!
The day started with a viewing of the website pictures from days one and two and followed by Delaney giving us a show and tell of her Newton Car.
After that a warm up exercise took place which involved racing to finish a 100 piece puzzle. Some of the animal scenes were tough, but with a lot of team work most groups were able to complete them in the allotted time. As per usual campers rock paper scissored to see who took them home.
We then headed down to the PAC to race our cars. You will notice that there a no pictures of this....that is because we had to be very quiet in the softly lit auditorium due to the show choir's rehersal of the upcoming play Mary Poppins.
Once the car racers were done we finally jumped right into phases 1-3 of the tie-dye shirt projects. Lots of great pictures of this.
By the time the shirts were set out for over night sitting, we were all pretty hungry but pressed on and jumped into the design phase of our stomp rocket challenge. Two viable and working rockets were produced by each camper. We then ate lunch and settled in for phase 3 of our Big Hero 6 movie. Tomorrow we will finally complete this film.
Now we were all refreshed it was time for some real action. We manufactured our launchers for the rockets and headed down to the gym to compete. Once there we held two contests...one for accuracy and one for distance. Several high performing winners were crowned and we went back to the room to wrap up the day.
Our final exercise was counting the age of trees by counting rings. To make this even more interesting different groups had to find matching logs based on the years that they meticulously counted. It was amazing to see just how accurate the campers were. In addition to this, we searched for high growth years and counted back to see what years they occurred in. We then looked up weather data to determine what might have been the climate related happening that led to the rapid growth. Tomorrow we will start by discussing this data and seeing if anything significant lines up.
Get a great sleep tonight as tomorrow will be our busiest day yet as we try to get in as many activities as we can before concluding the week.
The day started with a viewing of the website pictures from days one and two and followed by Delaney giving us a show and tell of her Newton Car.
After that a warm up exercise took place which involved racing to finish a 100 piece puzzle. Some of the animal scenes were tough, but with a lot of team work most groups were able to complete them in the allotted time. As per usual campers rock paper scissored to see who took them home.
We then headed down to the PAC to race our cars. You will notice that there a no pictures of this....that is because we had to be very quiet in the softly lit auditorium due to the show choir's rehersal of the upcoming play Mary Poppins.
Once the car racers were done we finally jumped right into phases 1-3 of the tie-dye shirt projects. Lots of great pictures of this.
By the time the shirts were set out for over night sitting, we were all pretty hungry but pressed on and jumped into the design phase of our stomp rocket challenge. Two viable and working rockets were produced by each camper. We then ate lunch and settled in for phase 3 of our Big Hero 6 movie. Tomorrow we will finally complete this film.
Now we were all refreshed it was time for some real action. We manufactured our launchers for the rockets and headed down to the gym to compete. Once there we held two contests...one for accuracy and one for distance. Several high performing winners were crowned and we went back to the room to wrap up the day.
Our final exercise was counting the age of trees by counting rings. To make this even more interesting different groups had to find matching logs based on the years that they meticulously counted. It was amazing to see just how accurate the campers were. In addition to this, we searched for high growth years and counted back to see what years they occurred in. We then looked up weather data to determine what might have been the climate related happening that led to the rapid growth. Tomorrow we will start by discussing this data and seeing if anything significant lines up.
Get a great sleep tonight as tomorrow will be our busiest day yet as we try to get in as many activities as we can before concluding the week.
Day Two Recap:
Another very active day today for everyone at camp! 91 pictures on our website show how the day progressed. We don't have any pics of our demonstration with rubbing alcohol and the 5 gallon water jug or the magincal hexane slide because Carson and I were too busy running them. But your son or daughter may have filmed them on their phones!
See the pics below.
We started the activities with our final run through with the ping pong ball coasters. 5 out of the 6 got them to work and three of them moved the ball into the landing site in under 4 seconds. Amazing! Groups rock-paper-scissored to see who got to take the tracks home.
After this we jumped right into the Pitsco Car Building project. It went remarkably well for being the first time we have done this at camp. The designs were incredible and very aerodynamic. Campers took great care in sanding them down too to make them as fast as possible. They also tested and finalized optimal wheel positioning for balance and speed. After painting them to match their individual tastes we took them outside to the steepest hill we could find out by the ticket booth by the turf field. Getting outside for some fresh air was a nice side benefit. Upon returning to the classroom, we were more than hungry and took lunch.
To allow our food to digest we watched the next 26-minute installment of Big Hero 6. By Friday we will have completed the movie. We feel this "down time" is essential to get the campers in the refreshed frame of mind to attack the remainder of the day.
For a warm up after lunch we completed one of the ever popular word search races. The top three to find all the words were rewarded with prizes (no, not cricket lollipops like last year).
Once we were warmed up we took on the "Tower Challenge". Here, teams had to try and build the tallest tower out of just two things...craft sticks and clothespins. Everyone took on this challenge with great zeal and enthusiasm. The tallest ended up being a whopping 27 inches high with several close seconds and thirds at 22.5", 20.5 ", and 18.5". What a great way to end the day.
Because the cars took a bit longer to create and test than we thought we had to bump off our tie-dye shirts, science treasure hunt, puzzle races, and stomp rockets until tomorrow or Friday. That's OK...sometimes we just have to go with the situation calls for each day and roll with it.
Tomorrow will be extremely busy and a good sleep tonight is a must. We have much to do and only two days left to do it.
See you at 9:30 am.
Carson and I thank all the campers for being great team members and for being willing to take risks and apply energy and enthusiasm towards every thing we do.
Another very active day today for everyone at camp! 91 pictures on our website show how the day progressed. We don't have any pics of our demonstration with rubbing alcohol and the 5 gallon water jug or the magincal hexane slide because Carson and I were too busy running them. But your son or daughter may have filmed them on their phones!
See the pics below.
We started the activities with our final run through with the ping pong ball coasters. 5 out of the 6 got them to work and three of them moved the ball into the landing site in under 4 seconds. Amazing! Groups rock-paper-scissored to see who got to take the tracks home.
After this we jumped right into the Pitsco Car Building project. It went remarkably well for being the first time we have done this at camp. The designs were incredible and very aerodynamic. Campers took great care in sanding them down too to make them as fast as possible. They also tested and finalized optimal wheel positioning for balance and speed. After painting them to match their individual tastes we took them outside to the steepest hill we could find out by the ticket booth by the turf field. Getting outside for some fresh air was a nice side benefit. Upon returning to the classroom, we were more than hungry and took lunch.
To allow our food to digest we watched the next 26-minute installment of Big Hero 6. By Friday we will have completed the movie. We feel this "down time" is essential to get the campers in the refreshed frame of mind to attack the remainder of the day.
For a warm up after lunch we completed one of the ever popular word search races. The top three to find all the words were rewarded with prizes (no, not cricket lollipops like last year).
Once we were warmed up we took on the "Tower Challenge". Here, teams had to try and build the tallest tower out of just two things...craft sticks and clothespins. Everyone took on this challenge with great zeal and enthusiasm. The tallest ended up being a whopping 27 inches high with several close seconds and thirds at 22.5", 20.5 ", and 18.5". What a great way to end the day.
Because the cars took a bit longer to create and test than we thought we had to bump off our tie-dye shirts, science treasure hunt, puzzle races, and stomp rockets until tomorrow or Friday. That's OK...sometimes we just have to go with the situation calls for each day and roll with it.
Tomorrow will be extremely busy and a good sleep tonight is a must. We have much to do and only two days left to do it.
See you at 9:30 am.
Carson and I thank all the campers for being great team members and for being willing to take risks and apply energy and enthusiasm towards every thing we do.
Day One of camp was as active as we thought it was going to be! After we covered the basic rules of camp and safety aspects, we dove right in with some explosive demonstrations to get things started with a bang. Then we established teams and got down to making our team posters with lots of creative science related names and colors. Our first major challenge was to make ping pong ball roller coasters. The parameters that we set were that each coaster had to have three separate levels and it also had to go under itself at least twice. Furthermore the rolling ball had to land in a safe and secure cup. After about 90 minutes of hard work and lots of design adjustments, we took lunch. We needed the mental break. We decide we will wrap up the final adjustments on the coasters first thing tomorrow morning and then give them the final run in front of the entire camp. After watching 26 minutes of Big Hero 6, our movie of the week, we came back and tackled our second major challenge of the day which was to make cork shooters. Here we utilized large craft sticks, glue guns, glue sticks, styrofoam re-cycled bottle cap (for spacers), as well as tape and elastics to build our devices. The potential energy stored in 1, 2 or 3 elastics was tested as we tried to land the corks into buckets set at a known distance from the shooters. They worked great. Several campers learned quickly how to adjust design features to make the corks go further and become more accurate.
After cleaning up (to the ever beloved Barney song) we concluded the day with trivia questions and disbanded for the afternoon. Enjoy over 75 pictures that we took today to record the main events of the day.
Tomorrow will be very busy as we will move on to the Pitsco sports car challenge and begin our traditional tye dye camp tee shirt projects. We will also take on the challenge of building the tallest tower out of just pop sticks and clothes pins. Get lots of rest tonight so as to be on your A game tomorrow for day two.
After cleaning up (to the ever beloved Barney song) we concluded the day with trivia questions and disbanded for the afternoon. Enjoy over 75 pictures that we took today to record the main events of the day.
Tomorrow will be very busy as we will move on to the Pitsco sports car challenge and begin our traditional tye dye camp tee shirt projects. We will also take on the challenge of building the tallest tower out of just pop sticks and clothes pins. Get lots of rest tonight so as to be on your A game tomorrow for day two.