In the process of making our slingshot basketball arcade, personally, I think our biggest success was the cutting and the cleanliness. We did a great job cutting straight lines and keeping things neat. We also did these things in a very efficient way reducing the time we spent on cutting out the baseline pieces. I also think we did very well on making the slings-shot because it was my first time making a slingshot that worked. It also surprised me that it worked so well. In the rubric, we had trouble finding the design of it.

Something very challenging was thinking about what we would do after we finished our game ahead of time. Our game was a very simple game that still worked but, to make it more complex, I tried to get my teammates to agree on building a tunnel which in my terms, was complex. Building the tunnel was a very complex task because that meant that we must take apart our other parts to make it into that tunnel support. 

If I did this again, I would leave the game that we originally created and create another game that we have originally planned to do. (We would have created a bolling game if we didn’t choose to upgrade that first game.

Cup insulator 

My plan for the prototype

Problem: We are trying to make a cup insulator that can preserve heat for a long period. Middle school teachers who are drinking coffee need warm, protective, shaped, mug insulators.

Prosses: We are trying to solve this question; what will preserve heat the best while making the water drinkable? Thinking logically, we tried a way to cover the hole in the mug. (obviously, that is where the heat gets released.) Acknowledging that it had to be removable, we plan out the mug as a two-piece cover. We first focused on the outer side of the cup, making it comfortable, neglecting the part of the lid. Time was tight for us, as we only started working on the lid in the time that was provided in the last class. It was a challenge making the lid fit, concealing the space completely while having a pleasant look. Our goal was to make a lid mimicking the design of the lids in Starbucks or any other café would have (The lid that incurves in and grips the outside.) After all the experimenting and measuring, we finally gave up the idea since we didn’t have the proper measurement and it was too complex to make by ourselves and went on to plan B, taping the lid to the outer shell with aluminum tape. (The outer shell (outside pieces that wrap around the cup) made of felt on the outside with a layer of cotton on the inside.) Once we were done with the taping, the class was over, and would have to test in the classroom. Experimenting, I did have some regrets since I found out that there was a hole in the foil tape and there was water evaporating from it. The results of the first 10-minute test were 69.6. Once we opened the lid, the hot glue was already melting. Since the lid of the cup was cardboard, the gas must have condensated and was trapped by the cardboard (by the layers) the heat was forced to be used on the glue. In the second testing, we tested with a higher temperature and secured the hot glued part with paper so it wouldn’t melt and for it to cover the gaps of the aluminum tape. (That is the improvement I made) This time, we did have a slower decrease since securing the hole with a paper towel, but it still had a massive decrease in the middle of the test. Meanwhile, I had a very interesting observation: The water was rising and soaking the entire cup

Thinking about making the prototype better.

insulator, I don’t think there was a hole in the cup, nor I thought it was because it was full but, I don’t know any other explanations. The test results for the second test were about 74.3. The decrease was about the same as the first test, but, when I moved the thermometer making the top touch the top of the mug, (lid made of plastic) the temperature instantly jumped up by 5 degrees. This supports my claim that the gas gets trapped and preserved in cardboard due to the multiple layers.

This is the model of our cup insulator( it was supposed to be on the piece but it fell apart)

Claim Evidence Reasoning

C- Covering a cup from top to bottom without a tight bottom is not a good way to make a cup insulator.
E- As a person holding the cup, I could feel the heat at that particular opening at bottom of the whole piece.
E- The temperature was at a dramatic decrease from the start, starting with a temperature of 87 and ending with a temperature of 69.9. That is a difference of 17.1 degrees. This is also linking to the evidence I mentioned before from personal experience.
R- Trapped as is trying to find a way to get out and evaporate. It’s like the only route for the gases. Since that’s the only opening, all the atoms are trying to squeeze out causing the temperature to decrease.

The hardest task in the process was trying to figure out how to fit the lid on the cup without falling and finding the measurement for it since you can’t have a defined length for it. Making a lid that relied on itself with no connections was even harder so, we eventually gave-up due to the time and made a combined version.
If we did this again, next time, I would find a better way to secure the bottom part into a tighter shell so the gas wouldn’t keep leaking from it

The inside of the cup insulator.

. In the CEER I said that there was a dramatic decrease in the temperature throughout the test due to the gap in the bottom. If we fixed that, we would have gotten a better score.