Goals

 

Details

Duration: 90 minutes

Assessments: Student writing

 

Description

During this day, work is primarily student centered. They will be working with their groups to start off project planning and putting together ideas for resources and what they will need to put together their work. The end of the time working with their groups will culminate in a meeting with the teacher/facilitator to "greenlight" the project.

The teacher/facilitator needs to focus on the following questions for the student and him/herself.
- Is the design feasible?
- Does it meet the criteria set out for the project?
- Have they done the "legwork" set up by the brainstorming sheet?
- Are there any "red flags" in building the machine that the facilitator/teacher notices?

The questions are given in this format on the Rube Goldberg Benchmark Checklist
1. Does it meet project guidelines for size and materials (i.e. no fire, a minimum of 5 "events")?
2. Do you have access to all the materials – who will be bringing in which materials BY NEXT CLASS? You must have SPECIFIC answers for each and every piece of material that you will need.
3. How will you be connecting together each of the proposed pieces of your machine (i.e. glue gun, tape, staple, nail) in a way that is both visually appealing (we are showing these off to the community eventually) AND functional?
4. What problems do you foresee in the building of your machine? What will you be doing to circumvent these problems?
5. Will this design work (i.e. is it too complicated, too hard to perfect)?

If they are not okayed by the teacher/facilitator, then they have to go back to the drawing board to reconsider their design!

Brainstorming sheet and session
This sheet needs to be completed before the project approval meeting can happen...
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Author Reflections