This year we are getting a team together to do Destination Imagination (DI). We loved doing it last year and are excited to do a challenge including robots.
Robotics is shaping up to be a theme this year. We are also participating in the First Lego League where the children design and program a robot and undertake a research project and presentation.
Quite a few people have asked me what the challenges are like. They are all fun and it is hard to choose. We chose this one.
The Destination:
Where This Challenge Will Take You! Robots – doing our chores and serving our every need! What could be better? Robotic Technology has changed our lives and made our dreams a reality. Gaming systems, cell phones, cars and factories all use Robotic Technology. What will Robotic Technology accomplish next? How will our lives change because of it? You get to decide and use your knowledge of Robotic Technology to show us what may happen
Points of Interest! Your team will:
Learn about Robotic Technology and the changes it creates.
Create an original Story which envisions and shows how at least one character’s life may be changed by Robotic Technology.
Design, create, and integrate a device called DI-BOT, which completes a motion or task, into the Story.
Create a method to change at least one prop or set piece, or part(s) of the prop or set piece, into DI-BOT, or a part of DI-BOT.
Create a scene change that enhances the Presentation by providing an effective transitional link from one scene to another.
Create two Side Trips and integrate them into the Presentation
I was chatting with mum today and I asked her what songs she thought I ought to teach my children this school year. I try and teach them a song a week. She thought I should teach them some Australian songs. I asked for suggestions.
”What about Jake the Peg?”
I remember seeing Rolf Harris perform this in the 70’s in Perth, Australia.
My mum is in town! She lives in Perth, Australia so it is not often that I see her. We are all very excited and all of my extra minutes are spent catching up with her. (That is…not blogging!)
When you haven’t blogged for a day it is very easy to not write the next day and days slip by like money through your fingers.
My children are beside themselves having their Aussie grandma about and have been doing everything from giving her tours of the library to teaching her how to trampoline. I have to say also that it is nice to have my mum around to bounce ideas off and to attract my children’s attention, so I can get on with organizing their afterschool classes.
Today in our library, we noticed a copy of a homeschooling magazine the library subscribes to. It was called the Homeschool Newslink. I know of no other family homeschooling in my town, as our town has great public schools. I sat down and had a browse through it and although it is based in California, I felt like I was part of a much larger community. I thought I might even subscribe to the online version.
So…I’m stting at breakfast at our miniscule local diner where the pancakes are outrageously yummy and casually gazed out the window. In the paddock across the street an enormous rocked moved. I blinked and looked again and believe it or not…it was an elephant. I wasn’t close enough to tell whether it was an African or Asian one. So we all had a look out the window and oohed and ahhed and went about our breakfast. Then another elephant came out and then another.
I have been coming to this area for about 15 years on weekends and have never seen elephants; llamas, ponies, camels, goats and sheep, but never elephants. I was impressed.
Chuckles, animal lover that she is, loves visiting the Humane Society. I don’t like going as I can’t stand seeing those poor animals confined in those tiny cubicles and how deafening it is when they all bark. Chuckles has to beg me to take her. Today was one of the days she talked me into it.
You see, she has come up with a research project where she will have to go there every two weeks to collect data…for the whole year. She wants to persuade everyone to stop buying puppies from pet shops and adopt them instead from a shelter and wants to know everything about how shelters work and the plight of unwanted dogs.
Everything. Every detail.
Today she went in to get an appointment with the manager of the shelter to find out if she could come in for 20 minutes every two weeks to collect information. This afternoon she is writing a letter stating all the reasons she needs to find out this information and a list of the data she would like to collect an what she intends to do with it.
I am hoping that this turns into an indepth, long term project for her as it is coming purely out of her deeply held compassion for animals.
Construction, Science, Theater Arts, Teamwork