Post by karl on Oct 3, 2014 10:44:10 GMT -6
One of the coaches had a question about the Project that I thought I'd share with others and provide my perspective.
The project is intentionally, I believe, intended to be a little vague and open ended to give teams more freedom with their choices. Maybe I can break it down into three categories to help your team focus. The "theme" would be as you said: it has to do with learning or the learning process. The team will then choose a "topic," which is the specific skill or category the team chooses to study further. It can be as specific as learning factor trees to as broad as learning math. Then you will have the team's "research question," which combines the theme and topic to help the team focus on their specific project. For example, how can we improve the way someone learns to throw a ball? It's this last part where the goal is to get the kids to start thinking of specifics. Who is "someone"? Do they mean anyone or kids ages 5-10? Do adults and kids have different learning styles that need to be accounted for? Is there a difference between lefties and righties or boys and girls? What is the current method for learning to throw a ball? What is wrong with that method? Why is it important to know how to throw a ball? And, ultimately, what new invention/technique or adaptation to an existing solution do the kids have? Prototypes or drawings of their solution are great to have to show the judge. If you want to go even further, teach someone how to throw a ball with your solution and see how it goes. Did it work? What changes would you make to the solution to make it better? And even further, what would it take to mass-produce your solution? How much would it cost to produce, and how much would you sell it for?
As you can probably tell, the sky is the limit... or, you know, time and resources are the limit.
But the project is really about the engineering design process: choose a topic/problem (be specific!), do background research, come up with a solution, and then test to see if improvements need made. Being a first-year team, it is okay to be in the developing category. So, at a minimum, encourage your team to come up with a solution. The testing/mass producing phases are great to do, but I don't always get to them with my teams.
One other thing, encourage your team to find experts in the field of whatever topic your team chooses. Their input is always very helpful.
Any other perspectives on the Project?
My understanding is that it something to do with "learning" or "improving the learning process". It seems pretty vague. Am I correct in this understanding? Is the topic more broad or more narrow than this?
As you can probably tell, the sky is the limit... or, you know, time and resources are the limit.
But the project is really about the engineering design process: choose a topic/problem (be specific!), do background research, come up with a solution, and then test to see if improvements need made. Being a first-year team, it is okay to be in the developing category. So, at a minimum, encourage your team to come up with a solution. The testing/mass producing phases are great to do, but I don't always get to them with my teams.One other thing, encourage your team to find experts in the field of whatever topic your team chooses. Their input is always very helpful.
Any other perspectives on the Project?