Our rc car models so far...

Scrum.

Talking about storage solutions

Rc plane foam board model 3 "the firebender"

Marble sorter

So finally!!! we have finished our marble sorter...noted it was the only one finished with 100% accuracy. Here are some pictures of the beast:

and me:

and Jason:

an upper view:

and some ducks I saw today:

unfortunatly, I didnt get a picture of Michael with the machine....so here he is now

3.1.3 Basic Programing

We used the the computer program RoboPro create flowcharts that could control the actions of a system. Here is a screenshot of our first program

This simple program starts and stops the motor for designated periods of time

Our first program included all the basic commands and took us about 10 minutes to make. The little box that says "subprogram test" actually includes about 3 commands within it, allowing the work interface to stay clean and organized.

Our second system included a switch that could terminated the program upon activation. The system would loop for infinity until the open circuit was closed, allowing the program to end.

Money Ball Questions

"Changing the game" is tough. Some of you will have the chance to attempt the equivalent at some point in your careers. Simulating this type of experience via Billy Beane's story is a chance to reflect on the blend of "art" and "science" required to solve the intractable challenge's you may come up against.

The following questions correspond to the in class movie we watched, "Moneyball."

1) The "Moneyball" approach to baseball uses strictly statistics to build a good team. Billy Beane crafted a cheap but sucessful team by choosing players based on batting averages only and disregarding other factors like fielding skills. The Moneyball strategy is a science, but the way that Beane created the team was executed in an artistic fasion. The way he delegated with other teams to get the players he wanted was very elegant and creative.

2) What is the equation used to calculate OBP is (H + BP + HBP)

3) Design is to plan and create something in a skillfull and artistic manner. 

4) Describe 3 situations where movie characters (intentionally or not) applied a step from the PLTW 12 Step Design Process: 

       1 - In one of the first scenes, the board of managers and team owners were sitting around a table discussing how the Oakland A's could have a good season dispite their small budget. Many were saying that they needed a few big budget players while Billy Beane was arguing that all they needed were a few average cheat players. This shows the planning and pinpointing the problem part of the design process. 

       2 - Later in the movie, Billy Beane hired the Yale graduate to use him as a draft manager. This move was significant in the design process as part of the planning stage. He was planning to make a good team so he picked up the Yale graduate to make a better team for the A's. 

       3 - When the A's actually started winning was when Beane's team actually started playing. That was the execution portion of the design process. 

5) What is “Leadership”? List the three aspects of leadership that we come up with in class. (In class research/discussion)

1 - Leadership is leading a group to complete a common task. 

2 - It is having a vision and being able to communicate it clearly to others. 

3 - It is creating a work group that can work well together. 

6) Describe 3 circumstances from the story where a character exercised effective leadership:

       1 - Billy Beane organized the "Moneyball" team by executing his vision of cheap players who have values that other baseball clubs may overlook. 

       2 - Billy Beane speaks to the losing A's team in the locker room to inspire them to play better.

       3 - Billy Beane decides not to move to Boston so he can stay in California and live with his daughter. 

7) According to the movie, what was the A’s record at the start of their winning streak? 51 : 68

8) What does this ratio simplify to (roughly)? 1 : 1.5

9) How long was the A’s record setting winning streak? 20 games won.

10) Given the A’s win/loss ratio at the start of the streak (listed two questions above), what are the odds of winning 20 games in a row? Run the numbers. (In class research/discussion)

• Their odds of winning 20 games in a row is the A's current win percentage to the power of twenty. Raising their current performance (51:68; 57%) to the length of the win streak gives the chances of the win streak (0.57^20=.000013). So the reciprocal of 1.3x10^-5 = 76,923 games. Theoretically the A's must play 76,923 games before they reach the 20 game win streak.

11) Based on your calculation, do you think the A’s got lucky or was there something to the Moneyball approach?

• I think the Moneyball approach played a huge role in the massive win streak, although I think that luck played a huge part in their successes, as it does in everything else. There are just too many variables to measure a "good" baseball team, so luck does end up playing a large role.

12) Did Billy Beane strictly apply the “science” of Moneyball to his management approach? Was there an “art” to his efforts as well? Describe a circumstance where he broke from the Moneyball approach to make a positive change for the team.

•  Billy Beane's first approach to all player trades were Moneyball sciences, although his style of trading was a very artistic art form in the ways he negociated with other teams.

3.1.6 Open and Closed Loop Systems

Describe an open loop system that has not already been given as an example. Could the system benefit from feedback? justify your answer.
            -a time bomb; It runs a clock down, then at 00:00:00 it lights a spark to ignight the explosives. yes, otherwise the bomb would require some one to press an ignition switch near the explosives, and sacrifice their life.

Describe a close loop system that has not already been given as an example. Describe the feedback utilized, and describe why that type of feedback is utilized.
            -a sismic bomb; when it senses vibrations, it lights a spark to ignight the explosives. The feed back, in the form of vibrations from infentry men or vehicals above ground are gaged to set off the bomb.
Open and Closed Loop System:

3.1.5 Variable Functions

Describe how you might modify the Plus command so that it can reset a variable block to 0 within a program.
           -change the (+) to a (-) so that it removes 1 on each loop

What might an industrial or manufacturing engineering need to count or keep track of? Describe one example.
           -what floor an elevator is on, a counting machine, or even a digital clock. They all need to add one over and over until the variable is equal to the desired number.
A Variable-Based System:

3.1.4 branch functions

1. Describe why is it important to include branches in programs.
       Because it allows a switch to change the path of a program

2. Describe an everyday application of a normally open switch that has not been given as an example.
       Circut breaker

3. Describe an everyday application of a normally closed switch that has been given as an example.
       doorbell

Flowcharts

Edit: the flowchart includes an error. The final "no" arrow should redirect to "is it even or odd" instead ofo "choose a #." 

Car of the Future

So what is the car of the future? In other words, what appears to be the most promising technology explored by Click and Clack? Justify your response.
The car of the future would be fuel efficient, light weight, hydrogen powered, and must also be safe.


What fields of study/work would support the development of the car of the future. Describe two different ones.

• Fuel efficiency
• Safety
• Design

Ground Zero

What different "trades" (types of construction work) are featured in this video? Name at least three.

• Architecture
• Pipe work
• Concrete work
• Electrical

What aspect of the project is most interesting to you? Why is that?

The architecture was the most intresting aspect to me beacause they were able to find a way to build a giant tower that looks nice and modern, and at the same time it is very safe.

Smartest Machine on Earth

What is "machine learning"?
The ability for a machine to learn from it's mistakes. AI.
How did the IBM team employ that concept in the development of Watson's AI? What advantage did that provide over previous attempts at "intelligence"?
This "machine learning" gives Watson a real advantage over other machines because it can learn from it's mistakes. Ex: when Watson didn't get a context clue in a jeopardy question, and that caused him to get it wrong; in the following question he was able to analyze the question and get it right.
I've often mentioned the term "Empirical Scepticism". What does that mean? How does that relate to the concept of Machine Learning? How does this relate to your life?
Empirical Scepticism means to suspend judgement and to embrace doubt in order to work harder for a better result. This relates to machine learning because they saw doubt in Watson, but they worked harder to make him better.

Three things I found most meaningful to me:

1. When Jobs mentions how he would take abnormal classes that struck his interest, an later they became a huge part of what made a Macintosh a Macintosh. This really showed me that doing what is interesting can often be more helpful that doing what is required. so in short, feed your imagination.

2. When he talks about getting fired from his own company, I remembered a quote from Harry Potter. Dumbledore says "happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the lights." This is similar in meaning. Jobs had lost everything he had worked for. Just by turning on the light, and bringing about new ideas, he was able to make yet another revolutionary company and find a wife.

3. the live each day as if it were your last is an old quote, and yet maybe one of the most wise. We never know when we will die; guessing is futile. I cannot put into words what it means to me. 

Energy Sources

The Deep DIve

1. “From the buildings in which we live and work, to the cars we drive, or the knives and forks with which we eat, everything we use was designed to create some sort of marriage between Form and Function.”

2. The folks at IDEO state that they are not experts in any given area. But, they do claim to be experts on the __Procces of how to define stuff___, which they apply to the innovation of consumer products.
3. After the team of designers is brought together, told the problem, and informed they have five days to “pull it off,” what phase of the design process do they immediately engage in?

• Brainstorm
• give useful comments.
• Come up with ideas

4. Give two examples of what the team members did during this phase.

a.Give info and facts about the problem.
b.Brainstorm, and work as a team(teamwork)


5. List five rules-of-thumb that IDEO employees follow when they share ideas during the brainstorming phase:

a.One conversation at the time
b.Stay focused on topic
c.Encourage wild ideas
d.Defer judgement
e.Build on the ideas of others


6. Why should wild (and sometimes crazy) ideas be entertained during the brainstorming phase?

•  Because out of wild ideas, they come up with brilliant ideas.
• And if there were only normal ideas, they wouldn't be able to do something cool or extraordinary.

7. After the brainstorming phase was over, the team narrowed down the hundreds of ideas by _____voting_____ for those ideas that were not only “cool” but also _buildable_____ in a short period of time.
What phase of the design process is this called?
Enlightenment trial and error.

8. IDEO believes that the ideas and efforts of a ___team___ will always be more successful than the planning of a lone genius.

9. Once the ideas were narrowed down and divided into categories, the group was split into four smaller teams. What phase(s) of the design process was each of these groups responsible for?

·  Shopping

·  Safety

·  Checkout

·  Finding stuff you need

10. The leaders at IDEO believe that  _a playful __ behavior and a ___fun____ environment are two important reasons why their employees are able to think quickly and creatively to produce innovative results.

11. Sometimes, people come up with great solutions that work by trying their ideas first, and asking for _____opinion____________ later.

12. Design is often a process of going too far and having to take a few steps back. What phase of the design process would the critique of the four mock-ups come under?
re-finding and communicating results

13. Upon critique of the four teams’ models, it was obvious that none of the teams had developed an optimum solution. However, the people at IDEO believe that it is important to ____fail_________ often in order to ___succed__________ sooner.

14. What percentage of the entire week’s time did it take to fabricate the final prototype?

1 day - 20%

15. Instead of showering his design team with a tremendous amount of praise, what did the boss require his employees to do with their new design?
Improve on there design


16. Of all the things that we are surrounded by every day, what has not been placed through the design process?

• human body
• nature

Conclusion

1. What did you find to be the most impressive part of the team’s effort?

·   Everyone worked as a team an had fun while doing it.

·  No one criticized ideas.

·  The final product looked cool was effective and very successfully.

2. What advantages are there to having a design team with members that have non-engineering backgrounds?

·  Crazier ideas.

·  Ideas engineer wouldn't come up with.

·  Provide more info. from each person from a different field
3. There was a point in the process where a self-appointed group of adults stepped up, stopped the ideas, and redirected the group to break up into teams. Why was this done?

·  So they could get more ideas in a faster range of time.


4. At the end of the video, Dave Kelly states, “Look around. The only things that are not designed are the things we find in nature.” Can you think of anything that would contradict this statement?

·  No, because everything is done by thinking, even minor things. Only nature is not engineered.

Card Board Canoe

 The last two weeks have been filled with duct tape, and cardboard. Our groups were faced with the challenge of floating a cardboard boat strong enough to carry someone.

Our boat had a square stern and a pointed bow, along with with a flat hull. We used one large sheet to form the hull, then taped several boxes to the sides to raise her gunnels .

This is Joe and me adding the side wall to our cardboard boat.

After we had completed the cardboard part of the hull, we gave her an entire outter shell of duct tape, then taped a few extra loose layers on the inside the hull to add support and keep the deck from buckling. Finally, this beast was ready to hit the water.

Though, technically first contest was to see who can go the furthest and the fastest, the real challenge was to place the craft in the water without scraping her, or damaging the hull. Our ship (the USS HMD) was by far the fastest. We all were surprised as to how our boat sat on top of the water; the water level seemed to only rise up about an inch on the gunnels of the boat even with Kingston inside it. We had previously predicted for the water to raise to the range of six inches to a foot.

We put Kingston inside and had our three polo players

push us to victory in the distance competition

This video shows the speed and prowess of our watercraft

We dominated the race, and our prowess was shown. But when we pulled our beauty out of the water, we resized that was soon to change in the unexpected later contests. 

Below is a picture of the blindfolded challenge; our team had to place one man in our boat and the rest of the team had to direct them verbally to help them collect kickboards placed throughout the pool. unfortunately, it was decided that our team was not allowed our former form of motorization. In the race, we had three of us push our ship. Now the rider had to paddle with his hands. 

   

We directed Joe the best we could, but failed to pull another victory.

 However our cardboard vessel was falling apart; the blindfolded challenge was a disgrace, however, we had done so well in the previous challenges, I think we are still up there at the top.

All good things come to an end

Design Achievements:

• Define the Problem and Brainstorm Solutions - We need to cross the swimming pool using only cardboard and duct tape. To tackle this problem we have gathered ideas from actual ships and boats. We have decided to use a boston whaler type design, with a pointed front and a flat bottom, sides and back. To test this out we first created a mini boat out of regular paper and our small prototype worked out so we continued onto the full scale version. 
• Big Brain - Cover all sides with duct tape, copy the design of actual boats, use a big surface area for better bouancy, and create thick sidewalls to keep the boat strong. 
• Criteria & Constraints - The one implied criteria is that the boat must float. Implied constraints are that we can only use cardboard and duct tape, we must cover all sides to prevent clogging the pool filters, and the cardboard must meet the quality standard so it doesn't fall apart in the pool. 
• Sketch Ideas 
• Prototype Ideas - Craft physical prototypes (models) of each of your three sketches. Use a notecard or post it note to call out at least one key feature on each model. Post the images to your blog and describe the key feature that you've pointed out on each.
• Select an Approach - Generate feedback (+, change, ?, !) and make a decision matrix regarding your sketches/prototypes. Specify the approach you've chosen and justify your selection.


Build Achievements:
• Build It!
• The Early Bird Gets the Achievement - Awarded to the team with the fastest build.
• V-Bottom - Earn this by building a non-flat bottom


Test Achievements:
• The Fastest - Awarded to the first team to reach the far side (25yds)
• The Farthest - Awarded to the team that can travel the furthest (laps)
• The Longest - Awarded to the team with the watercraft that floats the longest (multiple teams may be awarded this achievement if multiple boats remain afloat at the end of our competition period).
• Balance Master - Awarded if you can have at least one person stand for 5 seconds in the boat (you must conduct this away from the edge of the pool so that non one falls over and hits their head)
• Videographer - Take video of the challenge and post to your blog.


Reflection Achievements:
• Feedback - Generate ten items of feedback for your effort (from the design/build process and/or the actual product). Make sure you include at least one item of feedaback in each of our four feedback areas (+, change, ?, !)
• How Low Did You Go? - How low in the water did your canoe sit (roughly)? Was it suprising how little your boat went down in the water? What is the unit weight of water in pounds? How much did your pilot weigh (roughly)? Use math to help explain the depth that your boat sat in the water.
• Redesign - If we were to do another Carboard Canoe race next semester, what would you build? Draw from everything you experienced in your class and propose the most competative solution. Include a sketch with key features and dimensions labeled.
• (Make Your Own Achievement) - Make an achievement of your own design that you can award yourself for something awesome your team did. (Example "Transformer" - although our canoe sunk, our team was able to convert it into a surfboard style design and continue competeting!)
- Build your watercraft. Document it with a presentable photo.- Draw 3 different sketches for possible designs. Label at least 3 key features for each sketch. Describe the feature's functionality so a viewer understands why the called out feature is important.