Balloon Powered Rocket Cars

Last Friday we decided to do something different for the last block. We watched a video clip on how to make rocket powered balloon cars and then in pairs proceeded to construct them.  The materials we used were a paper plate, 5 straws, 2 wooden bbq skewers, a balloon, cardboard and sellotape.

This was heaps of fun and we had to use our problem solving skills to complete this task.  It was pleasing to see everyone work together to complete the car while having an awesome time.

 Once we had completed them we had a race outside on the courts.

Coding

We have been coding. According to the code.org website “Computer science is the art of blending human ideas and digital tools to increase our power. Computer scientists work in so many different areas: writing apps for phones, curing diseases, creating animated movies, working on social media, building robots that explore other planets and so much more."



We have been learning how to use computational thinking to help us solve problems and write algorithms that enable us to write lines of code which in turn is the basics of computer programming.  As you can see we are learning to do this with activities involving paper and then taking these skills and applying them to the course we are taking on code.org. 

Persuasive Writing

This term we are learning how to write strong arguments that will persuade people to see out point of view. We follow a process that includes brainstorming and grouping ideas. We then formulate a plan which we use to inform our writing. Below are some of the examples that we have come up with so far. Please leave us some feedback as we love reading what people think of our work.

Regan's Homework from last term.

Regan went to a Jason Derulo and Titanium concert and decided to document it using video. This is what he came up with.

Commonwealth Games & Minecraft Blocks

When it was our turn to investigate the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in our ICT day Room 23 had heard about it from other classes. The goal to create a Minecraft 3D model to show off our research and observations skills, was more about our Minecraft skills... or so we thought!

After getting into teams the groups chose three or four sports events for variety. Next we all researched the facilities, equipment and designs of the venues. We spent a little bit of time getting search words that would give us the best images out of google.

We discussed the details we were looking for in each photo we found. The hard part was skimming and scanning lots of photos to find the best ones with good detail to include in our Minecraft world. Then we all saved the photos to our camera rolls for later.

Mr. McLay learnt that Skitch was a good app to use for putting arrows and words on pictures. Mr. Baker has been using it for ages.  That was one of the ideas our class gave him.  Go to the bottom of this post to check out and fly around the Minecraft worlds we're going to finish in a few weeks time.

This class is totally focused.

Fly through

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