Free To Be.

As you can tell... I'm a total techie, in more ways than one!

Not only am I totally hooked by technology with computers, but I've been involved in the Tech Challenge at the Tech Museum (links to the Tech Challenge and the Tech Museum) in San Jose, CA since 5th grade (so 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, and this year 10th grade). I started watching the Tech Challenges when I was still in a stroller since my brother started when he was in 5th grade too. Each year is a different challenge and then teams of 2 to 6 students. We have from Jan. to April to design some kind of device that can solve the problem that is given to us. At the end of April we go to the Challenge and use our (hopefully) completed devices and get judged on them and win prizes! What I really like about the challenge is that it's not that competitive and it's really fun to work on projects with my friends. So, my point for talking about the Tech Challenge is that a part of the challenge is to make a journal of how we go about making our device. For all the years my team and I have been doing this, we've noticed we aren't too good at keeping up the journal. We usually end up writing the journal AFTER we've done everything and we try to remember things.. But we have also noticed in previous challenges that the judges don't actually READ everything in the journal : ). This year I suggested we use a blog since the other girl in my team has a blog and I'm using these blogs all the time and the two guys in our group would follow along. So we started a blog and it's been going okay. I think our main problem with writing after what we do whether in a Word document or on a blog is that we talk and talk and build and have a great time brainstorming and then we have to go back and think about our 2 or 3 hour meeting again and write about it. I'm thinking that we need a scribe who just types all the time but then that person really wouldn't a team member. I was also thinking that we could record (either with video or just sound) our meetings but then we would still have to type up everything because we wouldn't want to always have to watch or listen through a 2 or 3 hour long recording just to find one good idea. Of course, I need to thank Scott and this seminar for helping me get this idea because I think it will in the end be a good part of what we present to the judges. Maybe the blog will only be one part of our journal and then we'll have some typed up and printed out parts like we've done in previous years... I think we've done pretty well considering that we've gotten some kind of prize (either 3rd place or Best Team Spirit) every year except our first!! I would love any ideas that you have about the challenge. We're actually pretty stuck and can't figure out how to go about solving this problem... if you like to look at the challenge just go to the link of the Tech Challenge above!

posted by Cassie @ 3/19/2006 12:06:00 PM