October 5, 2024

Continue building attachments and tell the story

The team did not have official homework last week but some members did unofficial homework. They first presented that.

Brandon showed a LEGO prototype of the Submersible Drone equipped with a camera that can take pictures underwater. 

Wanying presented the thank-you letter she drafted and sent on behalf of the team to the experts who had responded to our survey. Gracious Professionalism in action!

Leon and Daniel showcased their 3D photogrammetry model of a miniature ocean farm submerged in the bathtub. They took ~500 pictures of the underwater farm with a GoPro camera and fed them to an application called poly.cam, which produced a super cool 360-degree view of the farm! The next iteration involved mimicking murky seawater by adding food coloring to the bathtub. Unfortunately, the camera was not able to capture clear pictures needed for photogrammetry. That is something the team will explore next. Additionally, Leon and Daniel presented a prototype conveyor belt they built using Lego that can move the drone camera around the 3D farm model and take pictures from different angles.

Next, Coach Ben reviewed a few key questions with the team such as the exact title of our innovation project, the engineering design process (identify, design, create, iterate, and communicate), the six core values, and the elements of a good story (characters, settings, plot, conflict, and resolution). They all shouted out what each core value means with excitement. Wanying and Leon then shared their understanding of the difference between innovation and discovery. After that, the team recapped what they had done for the innovation project. Lastly, they were asked to think about the core values reflected in each process, which will be part of their homework.


In the second session, half of the team worked on presentation story, and the other half worked on attachment building and coding. Then they switched tasks.


***Today was a special day: Wesley’s birthday party was right before the team meeting. The entire team played several games in his backyard and everyone had lots of fun. Happy Birthday, Wesley! 

Everyone made a snowman from Wesley's goodie bag

Happy Birthday, Wesley!