MondayFirst day of camp! The morning began with a get to know you bingo, great to see lots of new faces this year! We revisited the meaning of STEM and why it is important in our society. Our main challenge today focused on tension and potential energy by engineering and building catapults. After seeing real life examples of catapults (pumpkin chucker & aircraft carriers), campers built, tested, and completed in a challenge of precision, accuracy, distance and tower destruction. Secret word of the day: Tension (Tell Mr. King or Mr. Rott first thing in the morning)
TuesdayTuesday began with a warm-up revisiting yesterday's topics of tension and potential energy as well as our continued experiment, rock candy. Students yesterday prepared sticks and solution to make rock candy and this morning selected colors for their candy; blue and purple were by far the most popular colors. The main experiment of the day focused on gravity and resistance by designing parachutes to save a falling Lego man. After watching a crazy insane video of flying wingsuit man, campers designed and built a parachute for their Lego man to test descent speed (slower is better) and accuracy.
The afternoon switched topics to focus on momentum and motors, specifically in cars. Campers began engineering cars that will be battery powered DC motors and transport Lego men. Cars will be evaluated on how straight they go and their speed. There are endless design possibilities for the cars and campers are welcomed to bring in house hold supplies (empty plastic soda bottles, soda caps, etc) to use in their design. WednesdayHot day today, great one for some water team challenges! The main experiment for today was building motorized cars. After introducing the experiment yesterday, campers worked with their teammates to design and construct a car that could move as straight and fast as possible. To say the least, the project was challenging. Friction within the wheels was the most challenging factor and met with a variety of success. But, students showed great resolve and continually reevaluated their design to make improvements. We will test cars through a tunnel track tomorrow. To finish the day campers played a few relay water challenges ending with otter pops for all. Great mid week day at camp and lots more fun planned tomorrow.
Camp word of the day: Otter
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ThursdayToday focused on two Einstein camp favorites: Egg Drop and Rockets. Campers were tasked with building a capsule to protect their egg (Not Hardboiled) from a variety of heights. Round 1 started at standing height, Round 2 about four feet of the ground, Round 3 about 12 feet off the ground, and finally Round 4 in which Mr. Rott actively attempted to crack any remaining eggs from 12 feet off the ground. Amazingly, there were multiple survivors! Our previous design challenge of parachutes earlier in the week really helped campers to develop some outstanding capsules. Each year at Einstein STEM Camp we have built a variety of rockets, always fun and engaging for campers. This year students were provide a single tube body for their rocket and provided any supplies to customize it further; the only limited supply was tape. Tomorrow morning campers will test their rockets for greatest distance and maybe a secondary surprise challenge.
Tomorrow will conclude our awesome week of camp. A reminder, students will be provided pizza lunch (cheese & pepperoni). Please send campers with a snack and water bottle, as well as lunch if they are unable or do not like pizza. Friday |