Game Changer

"Changing the game" is tough. Some of you will have the chance to attempt the equivalent at some point in your careers. Simulating this type of experience via Billy Beane's story is a chance to reflect on the blend of "art" and "science" required to solve the intractable challenge's you may come up against.


Use internet research and class discussion to answer the following questions.


1) What was the “Moneyball”approach that Billy Beane and Peter Brandt applied to the Oakland Athletics 2002 season? Was it an “art” or a “science”? What single statistic did they boil their value consideration down to? (In class research/discussion)


2) What is the equation used to calculate OBP? (In class research/discussion)

3) What is design? (In class research/discussion)

4) Describe 3 situations where movie characters (intentionally or not) applied a step from the PLTW 12 Step Design Process. Explain both the (a) situation as well as (b) how the step is relevant:
1 -

2 -

3 -


5) What is “Leadership”? List the three aspects of leadership that we come up with in class. (In class research/discussion)

1 -
2 -
3 -


6) Describe 3 circumstances from the story where a character exercised effective leadership:
1 -

2 -

3 -



7) According to the movie, what was the A’s record at the start of their winning streak? ___ : ___

8) What does this ratio simplify to (roughly)? ___ : 1

9) How long was the A’s record setting winning streak? ___ games won.

10) Given the A’s win/loss ratio at the start of the streak (listed two questions above), what are the odds of winning 20 games in a row? Run the numbers. (In class research/discussion)


11) Based on your calculation, do you think the A’s got lucky or was there something to the Moneyball approach?


12) Did Billy Beane strictly apply the “science” of Moneyball to his management approach? Was there an “art” to his efforts as well? Describe a circumstance where he broke from the Moneyball approach to make a positive change for the team.






Bonus Question (look into this if you’ve finished ahead of the class):
Money Ball was originally a book. What author wrote the book? What other books has this author written? Is there a theme to his writing?


It's "Oscar Season", will Moneyball win the Oscar for any of the categories it's up for?

"Make A Game In 8 Minutes"

A bit of a misnomer... We've taken a few periods in our Projects class to get through these! That said, it's still awefully quick to put something together.

I usually prefer to have students work at their own pace but I've had a lot of fun stepping us through as a group. It's been good interaction and fun to see everyone make breakthroughs on the effort at the same time:





A great question came up in class. "Is this really a game?"

What do you think? What makes a game a "game"?

We'll talk more about this issue, it's an important one!

Homestretch!

The Robotics Team has a midnight deadline on Tuesday to finish up their build. Good luck to all of you!

The team has been working hard these last weeks. Here are Andrew and Jackson showing me their basketball launching solution this afternoon:


Despite everyone's huge efforts, I caught the Engineering Gnome napping...


This guy is hard to catch in person. He must be wiped out from all the Engineering work!

Balsa Aircraft Challenge!

Thanks for a great experience with our Glider Challenge. This was a new project for our curriculum so we learned a lot implementing it.


Please complete the following to capture your experience with this project on your online portfolio (blog):


1) Provide a breif description of the activity. Who did you work with? What did you build? What challenges did you overcome to succesfully craft your aircraft?

2) Post a photo of your glider under construction.

3) Post a photo of your finished design.

4) Describe how you tested your aircraft and tuned its flight characteristics.

5) Describe how well your aircraft flew in our competition. Did you win any events (furthest distance, longest time aloft)? Were you competative in our best decorated flier competition?

6) Pick three steps from the PLTW 12 step design process and describe how your team worked through these during the course of this experience.

6th Period Fliers!

Ready to launch!:


Lexi, Jordan and Will built this remarkable aircraft that was designed with bio-mimicry principles in mind:


Blake and Jesse's airplane was perfectly balanced. Low and level flight gave it great distance results!:


The basketballs came out and it was all over for 6th period...

5th Period Fliers!

Some shots of 5th Period's balsa fliers in action today!

First!

Sammy showing off his glider, the first one I've seen completed. Nice job!:

Jackson, time to bring your Kinect in!

I recieved our copy of "Making Things See" yesterday. This book is about hacking the Xbox Kinect to work with your own hardware and software:


Wow, look who's brother is in the book?!

Branch Functions

We're getting into our RoboPro visual programming environment and Fishcertechnik robotics hardware in the Principles of Engineering courses.

What does this program do?

Wild Wings

One of the challenges for our Model Aircraft fabrication project is to come up with the neatest decorations in your class.

Here are a few designs under way in 5th and 6th period:

Aircraft in Progress

Isreal and Chase papering the wing of their model airplane:

"Pretty much the only way to get an F in the course"

That's what my old West Point room mate told me when he saw this picture of one of our engineers!

Super Advertising 2012

Who are your rooting for in this year's super bowl? The motto that "the best defense is a good offense" is one that resonates so I'm putting money on the Patriots. I have some important friends from back in the day that are giant Giants fans so I'd be glad to see NY win as well.

Many people in "the industry" (the advertising industry) consider the Kid Vader VW commercial the advertising winner from last year's super bowl media bonanza:



What commercial caught your attention the most this year?

What about the commercial made it memorable?

How much does it cost to air a commercial during the super bowl?

How many "widgets" (whatever the company is selling) will the company have to sell to cover the cost of their commercial?

Finals - Engineering Projects

The Engineering Projects course presented their work during our finals week.

Here we have our Minecraft crew describing what they worked on. I think they just said something funny!:


Marco and Hunter made a "bubble wrap" style mobile game called Tiki Smasher. Awesome!:


Cody and Gustavo designed and implemented some neat Portal 2 levels using Valve's Hammer Editor:


Kacie treated us to some awesome Pancakes... yum!: