Anyone have big weekend plans? I'm living vicariously because I'm still too sick to go anywhere but the grocery store. (It's not covid and I wear a mask)
Yesterday was the last day of school before fall break, so the kids have this week off. A has been home all week with this same bug I have that we got from E, and it seems it's going around. A lot of people have the same thing. E went back to school on Tuesday and had one heck of a week.
They have been working on this Research and design project for weeks now and they were about 3/4 done. They already did their progress presentation a few weeks ago. This class, they get projects from actual businesses that have a need and the kids have to research and design whatever product they need. Their project giver was a furniture company that designs....looks like everything from couches and chairs to lamps and fireplaces? Anyway, a group of like 3rd years had done a project for them last year, and I want to say it had something to do with an app? But there was something the app didn't do, and so E's group was assigned a project to improve the app and figure out how to do something in it? I may be all wrong. But anyway, she was loving this project and she really liked the person from the company who they were reporting to and asking questions, etc. She was really good at answering questions and helping them understand what they needed, etc. Not all project givers are like that. Some of them have been awful. So E was having problems with this program that it wasn't letting her finalize so she could save what she was doing and she couldn't figure out why. She finally figured out there was an angle she hadn't defined in one spot. So she got that done and was all happy she figured it out and 15 minutes later, the project giver texts her to tell her the company declared bankruptcy and they can no longer sponsor the project. Which is a HUGE deal because these kids have to do projects in 3 different fields for their graduation, and E had already done a Science one, and wants to do a science one for her master project, but in order to do that, she needs two different fields for her next projects, and this one was one of them. If this project doesn't count, she has to do another project in that field, PLUS they lose the time they already spent on this project, meaning they only have a few weeks left to do a whole new project.
So I guess yesterday, their teacher told them (there are only 3 kids in the group with this project. Everyone else can continue on with their projects, because they are from other companies) this project is going to be considered finished and they'll just get graded on what they did. So she'll still get credit for whatever field it is. And they have a choice of two options for the remaining time that was supposed to be used for this project. I guess there's some inventor guy who thinks he's found a better way to store energy longterm, like from solar panels or windmills. I guess it would be the kids' job to figure out if it really works and how to do that, which sounds really cool and E thinks it sounds fascinating, but really difficult and she isn't sure they'd have enough time to really research it, because she really doesn't understand it yet, so she'd have to do a LOT of research. The other option is to help the teachers form a workshop for the 3rd years to teach them to use the laser cutter and 3D printer that no one ever uses. E's group is pretty much the only one who ever uses them because back in THEIR 3rd year, they had some project that E needed the Laser cutter for, so the teacher showed her how, and then she had to explain it to her classmates when THEY needed to use it for the same project. So they are the only ones who know how to use these things, and they could help design a workshop to pass on the knowledge.
I kind of hope they go with the energy storage, because how cool would that be to be part of that? That's HUGE! But I get that it's also intimidating because it's stuff she has no knowledge of yet, and it's really complex stuff that scientists have been working on for years. To be working on that at only 16 years old is quite a big respnsibility. And all 3 have to decide together which option they want to do and she's the only one who's really into the sciency stuff, so she thinks the other 2 are going to want to do the workshop instead. One of the other girls is her best friend, who has missed a LOT of school this year because she started off the school year with mono. She's just gotten back to going pretty much full time again, but now she apparently has gall stones....or they THINK it's gall stones. Poor girl is in serious pain. So I don't know how much she's going to want to do an intense project like energy storage. But the energy storage one would also be in a different field because one of the fields is like Water, conservation, and energy? So if she did that one, she'd already have all 3 fields covered and could choose whatever field she wanted for her master project. I don't know what field the workshop would be considered.
Anyway, I wish we had gotten to do real-world application projects like this stuff when I was in school!! Though E's group always manages to get the short end of the stick with things going wrong, or the project givers not being realistic about what high school children should be able to do.
@ajrwdwgirl , you teach science, correct? Do you guys do anything with technology like this or is it more the standard Biology, Chemistry, Physics classes?
