First I'll go over Firstborn's challenge. His team manager chose the technical challenge for them. They were required to create a vehicle that could take them through a number of obstacles. They were provided with a list of about 20 obstacle descriptions and specifications. They had to choose at least three of these obstacles and create them to the specifications. For example, they could create a tunnel that was at least 24 inches long, a bridge, pylons, a gap or fulcrum. Firstborn and the neighbor across the street concentrated on creating the vehicle and they really took a great approach to it. Their first idea was to make some sort of wheeled vehicle with a "sail" that they could blow around the track. However, they had a problem finding axles that allowed them to turn the vehicle. They could have used a stick to change the direction of the car, but they would possibly loose control of the car in the 24 inch-long tunnel.
They next tried a remote-control, wireless car. We found kits for the remote control, the dual motor (to allow for steering), a tank chassis (climbs hills and maybe even walls), and a base plate to mount everything on. Now, what they don't tell you is that these directions are primarily in Japanese. They are cryptically translated to English. You have to spend time in the store figuring out which kits you need and then hours figuring out how to build the thing.
Firstborn took days to build it. He never noticed (or knew anything about) the possible gear ratios and ended up building it with the lowest gear ratio. At the time, I figured that was fine and really couldn't tell him to do it higher if I wanted to (that would be interference. He's supposed to do this all himself.)
Then one of the team managers started to hyperventilate because she worried that the car was not creative enough. So we bought one of those helium tanks with Mylar balloons and the boys tried to build a helium balloon that could fit into a 5X8X12 inch form factor. Then we remembered that the power source also has to fit into that form factor along with the vehicle. So much for blowing the car/balloon around the course. Not only would they hyperventilate but they wouldn't fit into a 5X8X12 box along with the balloon. Maybe we could find a small fan. So that means the balloon would have to be even smaller How do you create a smaller balloon? The boys decided to tape the balloon with duct tape to restrict how much it would inflate. They had a problem with the balloons leaking (poor quality) and with getting a small enough amount of duct tape that the amount of helium in the balloon would actually lift the balloon.
In looking over the rules again, I realized that the vehicle creativity was only worth 25 points and getting through the obstacle course was worth up to 120. Well, that's easy. Just reading that to Firstborn helped him decide that the vehicle didn't really need to be creative. So he continued with the remote control car.
This was a really good decision. All of the competitors had remote control cars this weekend. No one got more creative than that. However, of the 14 competitors, only 3 made their cars. The rest went out and bought wireless remote control cars.
Unfortunately, we misread the rules enough to not know that we needed to go through the obstacle course a few times to get as many points as possible. This was a big mistake.
On top of that, the team did not do very well on their instant challenge. The instant challenge is a quick challenge that the kids don't get to see until they walk into the room. Then they have 8 minutes to solve the problem. Usually it includes building a structure or object using paper cups, straws and stickers. Then they have to put on a presentation using the object. This requires really good teamwork and Firstborn's team really didn't gel as a team this year.
Here are the pictures from his central challenge presentation:
Talking to the Judges before they go on. They are with their props getting things measured and talking about how they created them. The adults in red are the appriasers (judges).
Here the kids are doing their performance. One child is driving the car over and around the obstacles. They chose to present an American Idol competition. Two girls are singing for their try-outs. First born, boy across the street and the small blond girl are acting as Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randal ? I'm not a big Idol fan. The entire presentation was supposed to be without words.
Simon, Paula and Randy give their feedback to the two singers.
A closeup of Firstborn's car going over a fulcrum style obstacle. As the car reached the top of the ramp, the ramp would lower, allowing the car to drive off. It was hard for the kids to figure out how to build one, but they finally figured out that cardboard over an oatmeal can would work fine. It turned out to be one of the easiest obstacles to overcome.Unfortunately, they found out that speaking as the three judges would lose points as well even though they tried to be creative and use the speaking parts as a special part of the presentation. Who thought a bunch of kids could be quiet for 8 minutes!
Then it was time for Lastborn's presentation. I'll continue that in the next post, complete with pictures.
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