TEAM 1403 COUGAR ROBOTICS FIRST
PROJECT/ACTIVITY: Popsicle Tower
Cougar Class Date: 11/12/14
Where: Montgomery High School
Number of Students: 62
Number of Mentors/Adults: 5
Action Items: one hundred popsicle sticks, one hot glue gun, two glue sticks, wooden board, 18″ x 24″ paper, one plastic bag
Impact on Team:
The class began with a presentation by mentor Michael Leicht about the importance of accepting failure and learning from them. Nine teams were created,each headed by two team leaders, with five or six members on each. The engineering challenge was to create the tallest popsicle materials in thirty minutes. For the first minutes, the team leaders were not allowed to speak and were only able to communicate through non-verbal gestures and writing last ten minutes of the challenge, the roles were reversed and only the two team leaders were allowed to speak. This dynamic increased team unity and collaborative effort. This change allowed team leaders to realize the importance of listening to members when working together rather than solely delegating tasks. The completed structures ranged from 37.5 inches to 96.5 inches. capitalized on the advantages of a triangle based structure and chose to focus on creating strong base for support. teams chose to immediately begin building upwards rather than spend resources focusing on a base. After reflecting on the aspects that were failures and successes in planning, the members shared their projects. Overall this Cougar Class taught members about the importance of bouncing back from failure and working together