League of Learners!

In conjunction with the CHS League of Legends Club, we're offering a one unit course this Spring titled 'League of Legends: Teamwork in Electronic Sports'.

We will use the rich context of the world's most played video game to not only have fun with some friendly competition but also develop communication and teamwork skills that can benefit you both in and outside of the game.

If you think that would be awesome to have a credit for "League of Legends" on your transcript, this is what you need to do:

1) Join the CHS League of Legends club: click here to go to the CHS LoL Facebook group and join it.

2) Earn 20 of the following "Achievements" (10 week course/by May 28th): 

Some achievements may be earned multiple times, others may be earned only once. The number of times you may earn an Achievement is listed before it in parenthesis (example: (5) “Meet Up” means the “Meet Up” Achievement may be earned up to 5 times). Document your progress as you complete Achievements. Turn in a record of your Achievements to Mr. Olson to earn credit for the course.

• (5) “Meet Up”: Participate in a Team meeting (May earn up to 5 times)
• Record date, time and location of meeting.
• List key topics discussed/key insights gained
• Share how you participated in the discussion.
• (5) “Player”: Play in an organized CHS Team match. This can be all CHS-ers (“practice”) or a team of CHS-ers against another team/group (“competition”) (May earn up to 5 times)
• Record date, time, champion played, K/D/A record and result of the match (W/L)
• (5) “AAR”: Conduct an AAR (After Action Review) for a match played in (May earn up to 5 times). This Achievement pairs well with the “Player” Achievement above.
• Address the four elements of an AAR:
• What was your team’s plan?
• Example: Champion composition, starting lanes, how to counter enemy Champions, etc.
• How did things play out?
• What went well?
• What could be done better?
• Share your experience on our Facebook group. Team members from the same match can comment on the same post to keep things organized/in context.
• (3) “New Blood”: Play a champion you’ve not played before from the current week’s Free Champions list (May earn up to 3 times)
• Consider sharing some of the following to spark discussion:
• How did you play the champion (AD, AP, Support, Jungler, etc.)? Was there an online build guide that helped you how to approach the match?
• What did you like best about this champion?
• What did you like least?
• How might this champion work well with a team?
• Share your experience on our Facebook group.
• (1) “Favorite!”: What’s your current favorite champion?
• Who is it?
• Why?
• Performance considerations?
• Any non-performance (aesthetic) considerations?
• Share your thoughts on the Facebook group.
• (1) “Dreaded Opponent”: What champion do you have the hardest time defeating?
• When played well, what about the champion makes them hard for you?
• Share your perspective on our Facebook group and solicit advice regarding how to handle them.
• (1) “Don’t Die!”: Set your new PR (Personal Record) for the least number of deaths in a match against real players.
• What was your strategy to stay alive more than before?
• Do you feel that fewer deaths contributed to the performance of your team? Support your answer.
• Share your results on the Facebook group
• (1) “Roll Your Own”: Design a LoLrs Achievement (approved by Team) and get someone to complete it. Share the results on our Facebook group.
• (1) “Well played Sir/Ma’am”: Post up something on the team facebook page that another CHSer did well in a match. Use the expression “Well played Sir/Ma’am” (gender appropriate version) in the post. Emphasize the accomplishment, not a negative result that someone else experienced (Keep good sportsmanship in mind: avoid being negative about another player or embellishing their defeat)
• (2) “Organizer”: Set up a team match (CHS team vs. CHS team or CHS team vs. others) (May earn twice).
• (2) “Good Host”: Promote team involvement by inviting a CHS player to play in a match whom you’ve not played with before (May earn twice).
• (3) “The Great Communicator”: Present to the team on a LoL relevant topic at a meeting (short but high quality information) (May earn up to 3 times). Some example topics include:
• What’s the goal of the game? To Win!... but how do you do that?....
• The “Meta Game”: Mid vs. Top vs. Bot.
• Champion Archetypes: AD, AP, Support, Jungler, etc.
• Team Strategies for winning.
• How to “Cross Talk” on a team - fight in relation to each other.
• (1) “Go Postal”: Make at least two different posts on our team Facebook Group.
• (1) “Comment Early, Comment Often”: Leave a comment on at least 5 different posts on our team Facebook Group.
• (2) "Getting Out": Attend a LoL related event/tournament. Post to our Facebook group where you went and what you saw/did (May earn twice).

We can add/edit/change Achievements based on the consensus of the team. The goal of the Achievments is to incentivize experiences that support the team and the development of your skills in and outside of the game.

A Day at the Races!

4th Period inaugurated this year's round of RC prop car races. A good story is full of unexpected moments. This race was exciting! Lots of twists and turns (bad pun!).

Congrats to "The Racing Stripes" who ended up prevailing in the end:

Problem Solving In Action!

We don't have a scale at home and we needed to figure out how much the squash weighed so we can cook it the right amount. What was the solution? This should be easy for anyone who's had our Principles of Engineering course!

The weight is 5lbs and located 10" from the fulcrum. The squash balanced out at 14" from the fulcrum. Why did I choose 10" for the distance of the known weight (why not 1')? How much does the squash weigh?

First satisfactory answer given to me gets an Awesome Point.

Design Thinking in Action

Juan, Austin and Augie were showing how to get things done today. You'll do lots of projects in college and more often than not, one person will do most of the work. Not the case with these guys. Here they are, each working on a separate aspect of our Architecture Capstone Project:

March Madness

I usually have students in my classroom at lunch so I couldn't figure out why no one was here today...
Then I remembered that Mr. Farrar has his annual student organized Super Smash Brothers tournament going! A lot of engineers in the mix over there. Fun!:

Fail Early, Fail Often!

I say it all the time and we got to experience it first hand during our RC prop car time trials today.

What did you learn about your car design by testing it against the reality of our race course?

I knew my car was fast but had no idea it would fall apart by repeatedly bouncing over each crack in the walk. My potential "killer" didn't even finish the course. What should I change? What will you do for yours?

Mo Fire!

Another fire alarm this week. Good job staying organized 3rd Period.

Land Shark!

I modified a failed RC airplane design into my entry for our Prop Car Races. How do you think it'll go?

Lego NXT Design-Build Challenge #1

A short course to start with for our autonomous robot challenge. Using a set pattern proved to be ideal in this case. You can expect that later challenges might be more complex! :)

FIRST Robotics

Crown City Robotics had a great time at the FIRST Robotics competition today. I brought The Danish with me to see the extravaganza (He loved it!). The team did well finishing eighth out of more than 60 in the qualifying rounds before the final. Each match is played with an "alliance" of three teams competing against another "alliance". The eighth place finish qualified Crown City to select their alliance going into the final. Congrats team!

Crown City fixing their bot after their final qualifying round:

Cheering on Crown City with Shana and Carlos:

This is what the "arena" looked like:

Andrew and Connor helping another team with a technical problem:

Engineers at work:

The robots had to shoot frisbees through those "goals" to score points. At the end of the match they could earn bonus points by climbing those "pyramids":

Safety first! Everyone including Dane wears eye protection in the pit:

Quite a spectacle:

Those wacky engineers!:

Epic!

Andoni and Ryan sported the Mr. Olson "uniform" in class today. Nice job guys. A polo and khakis are flexible like a "mullet" haircut (which some describe as "business in the front, party in the back"). It's all about "optionality". This outfit lets a person not stick out as completely under-dressed with a professional crowd but also lets you relax in a casual setting:

First Prop Car!

Sean, Stan and Trenton have completed their first prototype. It jams!

If this was your prototype, what would you change/work on next?

Everybody Loves Legos!

In 6th Period, we're starting our unit on robotics with Legos. Fun!

What Comes Around, Goes Around :)

Mr. Hoang brought cookies to 4th period as a thank you for the delicious breakfast food they'd brought over to him the last couple of Wednesdays. Nice!