MOTAT trip | Inquiry | Mind Lab

LI: To invest more of technology and transport.

This week LS1, LS2 and rm 5 had the opportunity to go and have a visit at MOTAT, MOTAT stands for Museum Of Transport And Technology. We went there to invest more of our topic we are learning for Cybersmart. We had three hosts, they were Emma, Kenza and D ( aka Damen ). Emma and Kenza were doing activities with us based on technology and transport. We were going to be doing a lot of collaboration in our activities.

Making Electric cars
LS1 year 6 started with Kenza first. We had a challenge to try make a electric car with a small motor, battery pack and a propeller. We worked in pairs. My partner was Angelica. We first started off with our wheels. We connected our wheels on with a skewer and piece of tape. Me and Angelica were under a lot of pressure because we only had 30 minutes. We spent most of the time creating the wheels and trying to start our motor and connect the propeller. We had some help from Kenza. We used some cardboard to make the body of the car. We first made the base. We connected the bottom of the car with the wheels. Unfortunately we never had enough time to finish our cars because we had to move on to the next activity with Emma.

Making a flashlight
We then moved to Emma. With Emma we made motor powered flashlights with LED ( Light emitting diode). We worked as a trio. I worked with Angelica and Hosea. We had to connect the LED to the motor and make sure it was working. After that we had got our blocks and gear we needed. We had to try make the flashlight work without using so much energy. We first made the foundation than we made our body. We used cogs, stoppers and axels. These were kind of like Lego. Our idea was to make  a cranker to turn the cog on motor easily. Unfortanately we never finished but we were happy with what we almost made. 

Next we had a tour around MOTAT. LS1 split up into groups. I had went with Mokai's groups ( Te Raumati's mum who volunteered). We visited the MOTAT village first, it showed artifacts from the 19th - 20th century. We also visited the Innavators, which showed new made technology that will help with the future. We also visited the car exhibit showing race cars from the 1700 - 1900. We had also visited the telephone exhibit, it showed how people communicated back in the day. We had an awesome time. I'd like to thank Mokai for coming to supervise us for the day. 

Trip to the Stardome

LI: To invest more of space from the Stardome.

This week Panmure Bridge School had gotten the oppurtunity to go to Stardome to help understand more of our topic ( Space ). When we had got there we met our Host, his name is John. John first took us the the room to talk about the planets and the things we see when we look in the sky.

First Lesson:
In that room students asked questions about the planets and the stars. There we found out that the only star is the sun. We also found out how do many days it takes for the different planets rotat around the sun. Then we had did a activity that was like a scavenger hunt but we had to find information.

Scavenger Hunt!
We were in groups of 5. We had a tablet to record down our information. We were on a quiz and look for information. It was a cool experience because we could look at the different rockets made of lego.

Planetariaum:
Next we went into the Planetarium.In the Planetarium there the class looked into space. We sat in chairs. There we saw the planets and their weathers. There we found out that there is only one planet that humans and that is earth, but another planet or moon that has rivers and lakes.

Then we left with an excited mindset ready for more information we can learn.