Taking on a Second Iteration, Mathing it Up, Persuading Others, and the Bridge

After the success of the first iteration of their tetrahedral kite, the Teal Band decided to move forward with a second iteration. On Monday, they reflected on their experiences making and flying the kite and the construction of the kite itself. After brainstorming successes and challenges, they came up with a number of next steps to improve on the kite's design and construction.While reading Math Curse by Jon Sciezska the previous week, we stumbled upon a math problem we wanted to solve: How much would it cost to measure the length of the Mississippi River in M&Ms? They had already found that it would take 400 million M&Ms to measure, but how much do 400 million M&Ms cost. They were pretty certain that not all bags of M&Ms contained the same number, so they settled on counting 6 bags and taking an average. After work around averages, some major long division, and multiplication, they figured out that it would cost $9,381,817.83 to buy enough M&Ms at regular price or $3,636,363,50 at the sale price we bought them at. We decided against actually measuring it and saving those millions for a new building for Brightworks.We also took a look at the surface area of the triangles that make up the kite's tetrahedrons. After exploring the triangles for a bit, they discovered that they could turn the triangle into a rectangle by cutting it in half and putting the two halves back together in another configuration to recreate the whole. Knowing that the area of a rectangle can be found by multiplying the width by the height, the Teal Band also worked to find the hypotenuse of the right triangles they had created when they cut the equilateral triangle in half, as that had become the height of their rectangle.With our Mendocino trip only weeks away, a few students are already making requests for cabin mates, cabin leaders, trail groups and more. These requests provided the perfect opportunity for the Teal Band to work on their persuasive writing skills. This coming week, they will work to help peer edit one another's work.The "bridge" between the Teal band space and the library is in need of a major facelift and the Teal Band has been tasked with taking that on. On Wednesday, we met with Amanda Simons to brainstorm. They listed how it is currently used, how they want to use it, and what they want to change. Everyone wanted to jump straight to their design ideas, but we are taking our time and doing this right. It's hard to create a true design if you don't have the measurements and a drawing of the space as is. This coming week, we will move onto the physical design. They cannot wait.We wrapped up the week with a conversation around flying vs. gliding vs. floating. They worked together to define each of the three. It was not an easy task, but one that we had been touching on daily since day one. To expand on their thoughts around these concepts, each Teal bander wrote a blog post stemming from this discussion.This coming week, the Teal Band will continue on with the design of the second iteration of their kite. We cannot wait to get it in the air.