Students in Mrs. Pawlewicz's class create a Simple Machine

8th Graders Learning about High School

6th Grade Snowshoeing at Beaver Lake

Tech Class Takes Hovercraft for a Test Drive!

Technology 8 class made a Hovercraft! The paper below was written by Kendal Koloski to describe the work they did. They tested it out in the gym and made revisions before doing a second test drive. See pictures and video below. Nice job Mr. Hagan and the 8th grade Tech class!

The big idea of this lesson was energy is needed to do work of any kind whether it be done by a machine human or other source. Even though we learned this to be very true we also learned that teamwork, innovation, motivation and determination are extremely important in any kind of building process

This project got started when we were asked to create a flying machine using a propulsion system and we stumbled upon the idea of a hovercraft.  This project would allow us to not only create something that fits the criteria of the project but also create something that lets us use modern technology and our creative minds.  Included in the design process would not only be our brains, but also the use of multimedia sources to help get ideas and information that trigger ideas and thoughts.

When the idea of the hovercraft became solidified, we spent days researching what would be needed to make a successful product.  The research process included comparing the different styles of homemade hovercrafts and deciding which one would work the best.  We then researched how much the components of the craft would cost to make sure we found the best deals.  We made sure we completely understood the building process so when we got the parts to build we could manage our time efficiently and get it done as quickly as possible.

When we finished the building process, which took us about three class periods, we then tested our product.  We were still some what skeptical whether or not the hovercraft was going to work but once we got it going it proved to work extremely well.  We did find that towards the end of the test trial however, we ran into a small issue when the bottom of the hovercraft ripped.  This allowed for too much air to filter into the shower curtain making the craft impossible to ride. With this we knew that we had to innovate and change the design in order to prevent this from happening again.  Once this flaw was fixed we went and tested the craft again.  More confident in our design, the innovation proved itself in durability but the substitution we made to the craft prevented enough air from reaching the shower curtain to get it off the ground.  So the craft did not move as well as it had in the previous trial.  This did not stop us though we took the craft back to the tech room where we made another innovation to the craft.

Learning from our successes and failures this project has taught us a lot of the necessary means to work in an engineering team, how to accept failure and turn the failure around to make the product work better.