Mr Olson is at the School District Today

I found out on Friday that I will be attending the School District Strategic Planning meeting being held today. I will be out of the class for 2nd, 3rd and 4th periods.


Use this period to work on the following:
1) Follow the instructions I've posted to turn word verification off on your blog.
2) Complete the Content is King assignment.
3) By Friday of each week, you will complete one Opt In activity of your choosing. To get started for this week, click on the Opt In label on a post or label list to display all posts on the blog that I've tagged as "Opt In". Choose one of these activities to investigate.

3rd period - I'm picking up our computers at the school district today. In the mean time, please share computers with a partner to get some work done.

Content is King

We all consume online content on a daily basis. One reason we're using blogs in our class is to give you technical skills to be proficient with an avenue for creating online content. You may be able to take advantage of this skill set down the road.

From the Union Tribune 2011 career guide:



Q- What is a field/hobby/something you have a passion for (surfing, sailing, robotics, painting, etc.)?

Q- What person or organization in that field has used blogging to promote their brand?

Q- What is a field you might see yourself blogging about?

Create a blog post by Friday that shares your answers to these questions.

Turn Word Verification Off On Your Blogs!!!

(Your choice of a higher power) kills (pick your favorite cuddly animal) every time I have to enter a word verification to make a comment on your blogs.

Please turn off word verification on your comments! :)

To do this, go to your dashboard and choose the "Comments" portion of your "Settings" tab:


Then scroll down to the following portion of the page and turn word verification off by selecting "no". Be sure to save your settings so that the change "sticks"!:

You will loose points on my next round of Blog assessments if I have to enter a password to leave a comment. Thank you. :)

Challenger Disaster

25 Years ago today.

Old Mr. Olson actually watched this happen live on TV:



What technical problem caused this accident? Please describe with some detail.

What was the big picture problem that set the conditions for this accident?

What implications did this have for the US Space Program? For the nation?

What other challenges have the Space Shuttles encountered?

MKS

By class on Monday the 31st, put the following concepts (the ones below, not the additional ones in the picture above) into base metric units of length, time and mass. List these on your blog. If it's more efficient, you may write them on a paper and scan/photograph them and post the image to your blog:

l (distance) = m

t (time) = s

m (mass) = kg

a (area) = ?

v (velocity) = ?

(density) = ?

g (gravity) = ?

F (force) = ?

E (energy) = ?

P (power) = ?

Blog Assignment: Survival At Sea Game

We've had a lot of fun debating the merits of the 15 items from our survival at sea game.

Write a post on your personal engineering blog by the end of the day Friday. Your summary and analysis of the event are worth 10 points.

Address the following:

• Intro: A brief summary of the activity.
  
• Personal Prioritization: List your prioritization of the items. Share your reasoning on your top 2 picks and your bottom choice. Were there any items you had a hard time choosing a ranking for?
  
• Team Prioritization: What priority did your team agree on? Talk about an item the group ranked similarly to you. What was something the group ranked far differently than you? What was something you and the group ranked similarly? How did your group work together?
  
• Expert Prioritization: How did your choices compare to the "official" Coastguard choices? Were there any big surprises between the two? What do you put more weight in, expert opinion or experiential data? Why?
  

Consider the following when preparing your post:

• Efficiency: What's the most effective way of presenting or organizing your information? Your goal is to create the most value possible with your posts (max unique content in the briefest effective write up).
  
• Specifics: Avoid generalities... include concrete content!
  
• Humor: was there anything funny your group discussed or came up with?
  

If you have any questions please follow up with me or post a comment below. Thanks :)

Blog Assignment: Tennis Ball Team Building Game

Write a post on your personal engineering blog that describes your experience with our first team building exercise.



The following is an "After Action Review" (AAR) format that we'll use on all of our group projects. Please address these issues in your post:

• What was the challenge (list criteria and constraints)?
  
• What plan did your team come up with to solve the challenge?
  
• How did the execution of your plan work out?
  
• What would you do the same?
  
• What would you do differently?
  

Go into some detail as far as how the plan developed on your team. Describe how the group collaborated and highlight any valuable contributions that other team members made. What types of collaboration seemed to work best in this type of setting?

Also, did the nature of the game evolve? What criteria or constraints changed and how did you adjust your strategy to deal with them.

What constraint or constraints would you add/change to make a new, more fun version of the game?

Did your team win or loose the game?

If you have any questions please follow up with me or post a comment below. Thanks :)

Coastguard Rankings for Survival Scenario Items

"We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world"

Who watched the State of the Union address this evening?



What themes from this speech resonate with our class?

What technology sector did the president compare to the space program of the 60's? What is the comparison?

What is the name of the new program that will replace No Child Left Behind? How do the programs compare?

Last semester we talked about the trapped coal miners in Chile. Why did the president conclude his speech with an example relating to that?

What's interesting about the President's chief speechwriter? What do you hope to be doing 10 years from now?

Has this speech inspired you and if so how?

Blog Links: Period 5 ED

When you've set up your personal engineering blog today, use the comment section to post a link to it. Thanks :)

Blog Links: Period 4 POE

When you've set up your personal engineering blog today, use the comment section to post a link to it. Thanks :)

Adds...?

The question has come up whether you should enable adds on your blog.

What's the cost/benefit decision on hosting adds?

What's the goal of your blog? Does hosting adds support that goal? How do they make your blog feel?

How does a person make money off of adds on your blogger blog? What conditions would support monetizing your blog?

Let us know your take on the issue. Please discuss in the comment section of this post or address the issue with a post on your blog.

Blog Links: Period 3 ED

When you've set up your personal engineering blog today, use the comment section to post a link to it. Thanks :)

Blog Links: Period 2 POE

When you've set up your personal engineering blog today, use the comment section to post a link to it. Thanks :)

Lost at Sea!

If you were adrift at sea, what would you need to survive? What might help you be rescued? Familiarize yourself with the topic if you have time because our competitive block day activities on Tuesday/Wednesday may draw from this topic (hint, hint... ;) ).

Spindrift

We had remarkable Santa Ana winds today (what causes these? what time of year do we usually have them and why?)


The subject of wind and sea are relavent to our curriculum this week.

In both engineering courses we'll be doing a team building/negotiation/game event that relates to survival at sea.

In the Principles course we'll be doing some technical analysis on wind power.

Carnival Splendor

Carnival Cruise Line's waylaid ship finally left port yesterday. Why did the ship sail for San Francisco to finish repairs when San Diego has the best shipyards on the west coast? The answer is distinctly Islander.

A shot of the Spledor at dock taken from the bay bridge back on a foggy December morning:


What was the nature of the problem the ship experienced?

What repairs were required?

What impact did the unnexpected arrival of the cruise ship have on the local economy?

Follow Me!

Once you have set up your gmail account, please click the "Follow" button to the right to follow this blog.

Your Blog: An Online Portfolio

Greetings engineers, first up is for everyone to make their own blogger blog. Your blog will serve as an online portfolio for your engineering efforts in our class. Not only will it provide an easy to access repository for your engineering and problem solving efforts, it will also help us cut down on paper/waste.

Before we get going on making our individual blogs, is there any criteria we want to set forth regarding naming conventions? A good title (blog, book, movie, etc.) helps capture the spirit of the story. The following are some themes that resonate with our efforts:

Engineering
Problem Solving
Technical Problem Solving
Principles of Engineering
Engineering Design

Are there any other themes that might be suitable for our class story or your experience? Please comment below.

We'll discuss briefly in class on Monday the 23rd. After discussion you'll choose a name, have it approved and create your blog.

Millions of people have made blogspot blogs. I trust you can work with your peers to figure out how to do this. If you're having problems figuring this out, try the following steps to make your blog:
1) If you don't have a gmail account, go to www.google.com and click gmail. Choose to register for gmail.
2) Sign in to your gmail account.
3) Go to www.blogger.com
4) If you've signed in, you should be given the option to create a blog. Click the Create New Blog button to make a blog.
5) Choose a blog title you like (this can be changed later). Choose a URL that is available. This is permanent so make sure you are happy with your pick.
6) Register your blog.
7) Start blogging by creating a new post!

Questions? Thanks.