To get to the Teacher Share folder go into computer, then Teacher Share, Gneat, Shared,
Engineering, P4 or P5 depending on your period, then there are the pictures and notebooks.
A little about me :)
Hello! This is my website and I'm the TA for Dr. Neat's 4th period. WOOHOO!
I am summarizing each day and what happened in each period.
If any students miss class then they can just come here to see what happened that day.
My bones don't like me. I just recently broke my toes and earlier years
I've broken my femur and dislocated my 2nd toe on the right leg.
8/11/14
Today was the first day of school and we started off the day introducing
what the class does. We wrote on flashcards our name, favorite restaurant,
a fear about this class, your favorite electronic tool and something unique
about yourself.
8/12/14
Today we played the name game where students said their name and an adjective
starting with the same letter as their first letter in their first name.
Students tried to memorize each student's name and adjective infront of them.
They were also introduced students to laptops.
The name game will be continued on Thursday.
8/13/14
Wednesday Challenge Wednesday. The class was introduced to the Wednesday
challenge forms and were also introduced to the Spaghetti Bridge Challenge.
8/14/14
We finished the name game and Dr. Neat, Eric and I ended it with memorizing
everyone's name. Students wrote in their electronic Wednesday Challenge forms.
8/15/14
Everyone worked more on their plan for their Wednesday challenge and continued to
write the electronic copy of the form.
8/18/14
Students were introduced to adding pdfs to their websites. Here is the Wednesday challenge form.
Wednesday Challenge Form
8/19/14
Everyone continued writing their websites and learned to add a color to the background like
my pink background. They also added that they read the class rules as a pdf on their websites.
Here is the Class Rules Pdf.
Class Rules PDF
8/20/14
Wednesday Challenge groups were given their 100 pieces of spaghetti to start designing
their bridges. They can use glue and spaghetti to make a tow foot wide bridge.
8/21/14
Students continued to work on their bridges and started to make prototypes of their
final project.
8/22/14
Students worked on their websites and their spaghetti bridges. Students tried to add
pictures to their website like the selfie up above but weren't able to since the
share folder wasn't accessible. They instead drew pictures with paint and added
those instead. Have a wonderful weekend!
8/25/14
Bridges were continued and they were told that their final bridge must be finished by
Thursday, the day of the competition. Students were able to access the shared folder
for their pictures to put on their website.
8/26/14
Students worked on bridges and testing their prototypes with the two foot wide
cinder blocks. After working on their bridges they updated their websites
and continued to add journal dates.
8/27/14
Students continued finish up on their final bridge for the competition tomorrow.
8/28/14
Students competed with their bridges until they snapped! They weighed both
the bridge and how much the bridge supported. Great work by all students!
9/2/14
Today students heard about the JPL Invention challege and now are starting
to think about what they want to do and how to approach the challenge.
Here is the Official JPL Invention Challenge Rules. They also learned their grades and what they got on their notebooks.
These were posted on Dr. Neat's Website. He also posted the results of the
bridge Wednesday Challenge. Go to School then engineering at drneato.com Also he told students to download the new Wednesday Challenge PowerPoint.
Here is the new Wednesday Challenge Form.
9/3/14
Students participated in the marble pvc tube Wednesday challenge where they were spit up
into two groups and worked together to move a marble 40ft into a can using only 8
pieces of pvc tubes that were cut in half. After one ball made it into the bucket
then they worked on two balls in one run.
9/4/14
Students wrote up their Wednesday challenge forms on the marble challenege. Once finished
some students were preparing for the JPL invention challenge presentation on Friday.
9/5/14
Students presented what they thought the JPL invention challenge was and what their ideas on
it were. Mr. Wilton joined us and he gave us his perspective on the challenge.
9/8/14
Students wrote up more on their websites and added Mr. Wilton's company which is Mechanical Concepts
Here is Mr. Wilton's website!
9/9/14
Students split into two groups where there is one doing the JPL invention challenge and the
other is learning how to use Google Sketchup! A modeling tool that they will use to model
their devices and other things they create. Check Sketchup out here!
9/10/14
Abbey Neat came to talk to all classes today! She talked about global climate change
and her personal college experience. Conserve water/energy! Think about the environment!
9/11/14
Students worked on their websites and added a Wednesday challenge form for Abbey talking on Wednesday 9/10.
They talked about what she said with the global climate change and what they learned.
9/12/14
Today the JPL Invention challenege people talked about their device that used either bungees/springs, gravity, or
other to get the billard ball from the beginning to make the noise 5 meters away. Mr. Wilton also joined
us to give his advice on what he thought about the devices.
9/15/14
Everyone worked on websites today and Dr. Neat talked about the grades that they got.
9/16/14
Students worked on their journals and used google sketchup to start creating a Jenga block.
They measured the width, height, and length to create it in sketchup.
9/17/14
The wednesday challenge this week was to create the tallest house of cards.
Students designed their houses and then estimated how many cards and how tall it was
going to be. They then tried to build their card house and finally got the judges
to measure the height.
9/18/14
Students followed up on the wednesday challenge on 9/16 and created their form. They
should have created a pdf/powerpoint of what their challenge was, approach was, and solution.
On this pdf/powerpoint there should be some picture that was taken in the teacher share folder.
9/19/14
Today Dr. Neat was absent so students either worked on their journals or they watched
Mythbusters! A great show they demonstrates all the steps that this class is looking
to teach the students. They want to see the problem, design an approach, execute their
design, and then see the solution.
Read up on Mythbusters here!
9/22/14
Students worked in google sketchup creating playing cards by measuring the actual
length and width of a card.
9/24/14
Today students worked on the Wednesday challenge of: Would you rather take a Math course
or write 1-1,000,000? They must pick one of the two topics and prove why they chose it.
9/25/14
Students kept working and finished their Wednesday challenge and all groups finished their
presentations. The JPL crowd did their thing in the shop.
9/26/14
Today Mr. Wilton visited again and the JPL group showed what they had. This was an update
to the rest of the class too about what is happening in the other room. Students also
turned in their notebooks. Almost all of the students had their websites online.
9/29/14
The grades for the websites were given out today and the students who weren't on online
tried to get online to put their websites up. If you want to access a website the URL
will usually be the first name of the student and the first initial of the last name plus
drneato.com at the end. Example: jacobp.drneato.com
On another note the students worked on creating a sketchup of a cylinder that looks like
a hockey puck.
9/30/14
Today students tried to work on websites and the GUSD wifi is very sketchy and acts up a lot.
There are 3 new stations in the back where students can get wifi and they can sit there and
update their websites. Mr. Saw (GenYes teacher) (GenYes is a tech class that helps the school
in any technical or software problems, AWESOME Class, I highly suggest taking it) visited and
talked to the students about the problems are happening with the wifi.
10/1/14
Students started a Wednesday challenge where they watched a couple videos on how people overcame their
disabilities like lost limbs. There were two different guys who build prosthetic arms and legs
while the other guy build himself a wheelchair with many gadgets to get around during the day.
After the videos, Dr. Neat introduced the challenge which was to decide what you would do if you
lost your limbs. Would you give up or would you try to do what these guys did?
10/2/14
Today students finished their Wednesday challenge forms and uploaded it to their websites.
That's about it.
10/3/14
JPL showed off what they had to Mr. Wilton today. They strategized what their upcoming goals would be.
10/6/14
Students worked on Google sketch up today and created structures with Jenga blocks. They prepared
for the Quarter Wednesday challenge.
10/7/14
Groups were chosen for the Quarter Wednesday Challenge and the challenge was to create an Arch bridge
with any material chosen. When Creating these arch bridges they must remember the rubric which is
the length of the block divided by the length of the blocks used. The group with the highest ratio won.
10/8/14
Students continued to prepare for their challenge which finishes on Friday. They created designs and estimated
how many blocks of material they would use.
10/9/14
Groups prototyped with blocks or created their blocks with whatever material they chose. Designs were finished
today and all groups started to create their bridges.
10/10/14
Today was the bridge competition. Students made their bridges to the best that they could.
10/13/14
Dr. Neat lectured today about how students NEEDED to complete their notebooks. Friday was the turn in date for
notebooks and there were very few notebooks that were complete. REMEMBER Notebooks are 50% of your grade!
If you need help with your notebook or don't understand how to do it PLEASE contact either Dr. Neat of Jacob.
If you don't feel comfortable talking to us please talk to your friends. They will help you.
10/14/14
Today students worked on their powerpoint in their groups. They should have finished and the top group that won
the contest presented their powerpoint and how they completed the challenge. Student's should have updated their
websites more too.
10/15/14
Today students did the Radioactive Golfball Wednesday Challenge. They had to create a device with a bunch of materials given
to carry 5 golfballs from one bag to another 8ft away. The materials were: 2 straws, 1 pencil, 2 paperclips, 1 pushpin,
2 12inches of string, and 1 12 inches of tape. The scores from 4th period are here: Scores.
10/16/14
Today students worked on their Wednesday Challenge forms for the Radioactive Golfball challenge. The top 3 groups presented
how they approached the problem. Also the second and third place teams went face to face again to see which of them were the winner.
10/17/14
Today the JPL invention challenge groups presented. Mr. Wilton also joined us to see how each of the groups were doing.
10/20/14
Isabel came in to period 4 to talk about her college experience and how the robotics class has effected her in college.
Students also worked on making a sketch up of a pencil.
10/21/14
Students presented some of their pencil sketch ups and how they made them. Dr. Neat also showed the class how to size photos correctly.
Some photos were warped and awkwardly sized.
10/22/14
Students started the new Wednesday Challenge which was presented by Sarah Ferraro. She had this problem in her Google interview.
They had to think of a device to know the difference between a cat and a dog. The dog/cat could not be harmed and they must write
three sentences on how their device did this. The device must communicate this to the user too.
10/23/14
Today Dr. Neat was absent and students watched Mythbusters. They also were allowed to work on their websites for this weekend.
Students also finished up on their Wednesday Challenge.
10/24/14
Oh here is the video of Kyle being sang to on his birthday.
Trying to figure out how to show the video but here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIBI_NwIlKs&feature=youtu.be
Next grading period Dr. Neat will be grading: LEGO block sketchups,
the battery sketchups, the Candy Corn Wednesday Challenge and the
PostIt Note Wednesday Challenge.
10/27/14
Today students started to sketch up a LEGO block. They were given a LEGO block in class and they were able to use their Jenga blocks
but they must add the little pegs on the top to make it a LEGO.
10/28/14
Today everyone was paired with a partner and together they had to try to get each other up-to-date on their websites.
Websites have gotten better but some could still use some work. Hopefully your classmates will encourage you to do
better on this next grading period and go above and beyond.
Today the Wednesday Challenge form for the candy corn wc was filled out. Students who
haven't finished their bridge reports also worked on them.
10/31/14
Halloween! Their were a few pranks in the room. The JPL students presented updates on their
work. Mr. Wilton attended the p5 presentations. Also there were 2 bridge reports
presented during 4th period.
11/03/14
Today was a sketchup day. The object was a 12V robot battery. Students got to select the
battery to draw. Some had cables and some did not.
11/04/14
Today was dedicated to updating the websites with the battery sketchup. Also time was provided
for students to work on their bridge project. The remaining bridge presentations are due
Friday this week (11/07).
11/05/14
Today was a Wednesday Challenge to build a bridge with the largest span out of 15 postIt notes.
Ara was the judge for p4 and posted the results on his web site and KevinS was the judge for p5.
11/06/14
Today the results of the Wednesday Challenge were discussed. Also, there was a bridge
presentation in p5. The remainder of the class was used to complete the post-it note
Wednesday CHallenge forms and bridge presentations.
11/07/14
The JPL Invention Challenge groups presented today. In p4 there was also a bridge presentation.
Mr. Wilton was in attendance for p5.
11/10-11/14
Holiday - No School!
11/12/14
Mr. Neat will be grading the Lego sketchup Wednesday Challenge, the sketchup model of the
cabinet door handle, and the palm tree Wednesday Challenge.
Today was the beginning of a 2 day Wednesday Challenge. The goal was to make a 30 piece structure out
of Legos. That happened today.
11/13/14
Today the groups did a sketchup model of a 30 piece Lego structure given to them.
The goal of this Wednesday Challenge is for the sketchup model to match the Lego
model. The judges will determine the likeness.
11/14/14
Today Mr. Neat was absent. Students had the option to finish the sketchup Lego model.
They also had the option of watching a Myth-Buster video.
11/17/14
Today their was a sketchup assignment to draw a picture of the handle on the cabinet
doors. This led to the introduction of the follow-me tool. All of the Lego sketchup
models were also collected today so the judges could judge them.
11/18/14
Mr. Neat was absent today. The time was available to finish the sketchup model and the
Lego sketchup Wednesday Challenge.
11/19/14
Today we had a Wednesday Challenge involving trimming my palm tree so that my Christmas
Lights show.
11/20/14
Today the final groups presenting their palm tree trimming ideas. The rest of the period was
used to finish the Wednesday Challenge forms for the palm tree.
11/21/14
Today was the last day before the JPL Regional Competition. Most of the activities centered around preparing
for it.
11/22/14
JPL Regional Competition held at Augusta Hawkins HS. We came in fourth place!
11/22-30/14
Thanksgiving Break!
12/01/14
Today grades were posted for the last 2 week grading period. The JPL students were not graded. Their next grade
will be counted double. There was also a sketchup warmup. It was to draw one of the doors of my cabinet. It must
have a handle and the door.
12/02/14
Today we heard a bridge presentation at the start of class. Then we had a student summarize the sketchup exercise from
yesterday. Then students paired up so that they can make a sketch up model of something in the room. This is in
preparation for making a sketchup model of my classroom.
12/03/14
The Wednesday Challenge today was a practice at the robot design process. The FRC 2011 game animation was shown and
the challenge was to come up with a strategy for the game.
12/04/14
Today the JPL teams that did not qualify for finals presented their final devices to the class.
12/05/14
Today was the JPL Invention Challenge Finals. We had one team that qualified and they earned 2nd place! Mr. Neat was
obviously absent from school.
12/08/14
Today we had summary from the crowd that went to JPL on Friday. They showed pictures and in p5 the device was demonstrated.
Also the Wednesday Challenge presentations from last week were made. Winners were picked.
12/09/14
The final was described today. Teams were defined.
