The Angry Birds Project
In the Angry Birds project we were assigned groups and told to make our very own level of the game. If you've ever played Angry Birds on your smartphone then you have an idea of what this project was probably about, let me take that understanding to the next level.
For this project we were chosen to either create a projectile, which in the game is a bird, a structure, and a launcher such as a catapult or trebuchet. We weren't making our own electronic level, we created our own real life levels that people could play. My component was the projectile. So I had to create something that could fly through the air and knock down our structure. I decided to make an actual angry bird. I am extremely proud of it because it took me a really long time and everyone loved it.
I actually made two angry birds. The one photographed in the picture above is Jerry. The other bird, Terry has become the almost honorary mascot of Jocelyn Peck's extremely crowded desk and he was also the bird my group launched. I put weights inside of each bird that I made. Bags full of sand that were tightly bound together, this ultimately made the projectile heavier. My Angry Bird fit perfectly inside of our catapult and after usually 3-5 tries it knocks down our structure, almost like a real Angry Bird's level.
We made scaled drawings and prototypes before we actually started building. I made my prototype with paper towels, red ductape, makeup removing pads and a sharpie. Once we were confident with what we had created we went into the building process. You should have seen Jocelyn's classroom! There were drills and tools and sawdust all over the place! There were also many random pieces of wood hanging around. I made most of my projectile in class but when I finished them I helped all of my group mates with their components for the project.
The point at which our projectile sailed the farthest was when our catapult was pulled back about 3 quarters of the way, not completely pulled down. Because my projectile wasn't extremely weighted down it took a couple tries to make the structure collapse, which I think made it more fun to play our game!
Because I've been in the High Tech village for almost four years I know how to work in a group with people. Some groups work well together and some don't. My group might've seemed a bit dysfunctional at first but I think in the end we did work well together and I am very proud of all of us! We communicated and supported each other throughout the project. I usually like working independently but this project was fun and I learned a lot.
We made scaled drawings and prototypes before we actually started building. I made my prototype with paper towels, red ductape, makeup removing pads and a sharpie. Once we were confident with what we had created we went into the building process. You should have seen Jocelyn's classroom! There were drills and tools and sawdust all over the place! There were also many random pieces of wood hanging around. I made most of my projectile in class but when I finished them I helped all of my group mates with their components for the project.
The point at which our projectile sailed the farthest was when our catapult was pulled back about 3 quarters of the way, not completely pulled down. Because my projectile wasn't extremely weighted down it took a couple tries to make the structure collapse, which I think made it more fun to play our game!
Because I've been in the High Tech village for almost four years I know how to work in a group with people. Some groups work well together and some don't. My group might've seemed a bit dysfunctional at first but I think in the end we did work well together and I am very proud of all of us! We communicated and supported each other throughout the project. I usually like working independently but this project was fun and I learned a lot.