6 more days...........

I really enjoyed the third week. My group and I completed our mini-sculpture that could switch tracks both manually (with a joystick) and automatically( with a sensor that switched the track every other time).
I tried east coast swing dancing and had a blast. It's been years since I've been to the zoo and I was able to see all the animals at the San Diego Zoo on Saturday. On Sunday, some of my friends and I swam in the ocean to an orange buoy. It was quite freaky since we were so out and open in the ocean. We also had an intense pillow fight and it was fun charging at the opposite team.
Our cluster now has just 4 days left to finish our project and my team has been making good progress. Good luck to the other teams!

Cheers!
Flaviu

Highs and Lows

I would like to say that I like Billy's riddles and I hope that he keeps them coming.

The zoo was fun as I expected. The giraffes certainly put on a show for us. My new favourite animal may now be the flamingo. The flamingos at the zoo were so chill and they looked so cool in their pink feathers.

Yesterday wasn't my best day at COSMOS. When we were supposed to meet outide for the COSMOS Family Feud at 7:45, I lost track of time and got there ten minutes late. Pat DA was visibly flustered, but she accepted my apology. Later that night, we had a pillow fight between the first two floors and the top two floors. Amidst the fray, I accidentally hit someone on the side of the face. He got mad and got his revenge by clocking me upside the head with the pillow. My glasses flew off of my face and onto the ground. I can see nothing without my glasses, so I wasn't able to find them. Luckily, my friends and suitemates helped me look for them and kept people from trampling over the area. I thank them for helping me. A suitemate found them, luckily. I hope that this and other incidents don't prevent future pillow fights from taking place. The pillow fights are great fun and it would be a shame if they couldn't continue.

Until next time
--Vivek Choksi

Final Week Reminders

Hello Cluster 2,

Here are the key "deliverables" you will produce as we enter the final week of COSMOS. The things that are due this week and plan your time accordingly:

1) Poster - should try to complete by Wednesday so that you can print it out (this usually takes a day to get back from the print shop).

2) Discovery Project Proposal - Due Thursday morning. This is your individual project to complete a proposal for a $500.00 grant to continue your adventures in kinetic sculptures.

3) Team website - Due Friday - Simply use the template from MAElabs website. All links (to your individual clocks, to your team poster, and to your team powerpoint presentation) must work and please add a team photo or two.

4) Final Kinetic Sculpture. Everything should work and work consistently with minimal (or no) marble loss.

5) PowerPoint Presentation - Due Thursday - To be presented to the whole cluster in room 312 on Friday morning. We will then vote for the first and second place teams to represent us at the awards ceremony Friday night.

Good luck and please ask if you have questions!

Mr. Park

ZOO + Fued + Food - Paul Deardorff

I had an incredible weekend. It started off with a great end to a Friday with the group presentations. I felt like I was back at the State Science Fair in 8th Grade giving my presentation to about 20 science judges and a crowd of people. It was very fun and exciting to also see the work of other teams as well. On Saturday, we went to the zoo which I had been to before when I was about 7 years old. I remembered some of the exhibits but most of them were new to me. I especially like to watch the monkeys because of their behavior which parallels the actions of humans very closely. On Sunday we went to the beach which was not as exciting because I caught up on my summer reading, but I did enjoy the change in atmosphere. After the beach, we played a game of Family Feud (or building feud) which was very fun. I enjoyed the adobe flash graphics which were fun. I tried to figure out how they were able to write the game in ActionScript 3.0. Turns out it is very simple...maybe I will make one in my free time. The boys team won, but the girls put up a good fight by winning the points that really counted.

To bring up something new, I am going to try posting a video to share! I am going to source it through HTML using an external video uploader. It is a WorkingModel demonstration of a car crash test which I made. I call it "The Preliminary Crash Tests of the Safest Car in the World"!!!



Enjoy! I will post pictures of the starting work of the final sculpture! I can't wait to get started!

Best Regards,

Paul Deardorff

The last few days have been fun, but also exasperating. We finally got our sculpture to work completely on Thursday, but then on Friday Mr. Park suggested we redo a part and that threw off the whole thing! Friday was really stressful because we were struggling to get the sculpture to work, but we fixed it in time for the presentation. Even though our sculpture wasn't working perfectly, I was still really proud to see the channel move and the sensor display "GOAL!!!!!!!." Our sculpture also looked good because it had a painted soccer field with our new name Team Random and foam soccer ball stickers. All of the teams had really impressive sculptures, I can't believe we did them all in a week. Yesterday we went to the zoo and Shelby and Maggie and I saw almost everything. I was happy that we had good timing and got to see so many things, especially the koalas moving and the two headed snake. Today has been the coldest day in a while, which is unfortunate because we went to the beach and had dinner outside. I can't believe it's our last week! I'm really glad I get to spend it building a kinetic sculpture and I know I'll have fun.

July 27

I enjoyed our further exploration of San Diego at the Zoo today. The animals all had a distinct grace that seemed to demonstrate the beauty of nature. From the soft-looking pads of the elephants to the howl of the singing dog, the characteristics of the animals were fascinating and will remain in my memory. My favorite experience at the Zoo was watching and hearing the New Guinea singing dog howl in response to the crowd's howling. I admit I was howling too. The bonocos were the only monkeys whose names I can remember. The gorillas had a very sophiscated and formal look to them. One silverback was sitting with his legs folded and his back straight while looking at his nails and peering around. Basketball was fun this morning when I got to play with a smaller group. The visit to the beach will be very relaxing, because I crave floating in the cool Pacific water.
Roger Chin

Week 3 Recap

This has been my favorite week at Cosmos by far. This week we had to build our mini sculptures and my group's turned out great. My group really worked well together and we were able to get our mini sculpture done with no problems. It's amazing what you can do with a few good ideas and a dedicated group of teenagers. We went from having nothing on Monday to a full blow ball launching sculpture by the end of the week. Here's a picture of Team 3's mini sculpture:

Our model has a rotating trampoline that can bounce balls into any of the three mounted baskets and can also move backwards to allow a ball to fall down into the fourth basket underneath. I'm so excited with the way our project turned out. This has been one of the best learning experiences because it's stress free and we are learning so much. I can't wait to begin working on the final kinetic sculpture come monday!