Physics Camp 2009

Guess I had better write about this camp before I have completely forgot it, with Calculus and Physics figures replacing it.

The major goal of physics camp was to create a theme park (a map of the park and three working rides). So the first day, the kids had to come up with a them for the theme park and a logo (instead of a patch). My team had a lot of great ideas and it was hard to narrow it down to just one. We eventually decided on Marine Land (like the ocean, not the military), but none of us could figure out how to spell Marine (I don't think I have quite gotten it yet), so we would use the theme of Marine Land but give it a better name. I thought of Oceania, and I was strangely reminded of 1984, but none of the kids knew about that. After much brainstorming and compromising we came up with Oceania Reef (which has a nice ring to it, even if it does remind me of 1984).

We then had to work on our logo and our commercial. We decided that we would do a compare and contrast thing for the commercial and we would have a crab holding up a piece of coral saying "Oceania Reef" for the logo. I divided up the team into the artists and actors. The actors set to work on the commercial and the artists started drawing the crab. I was so excited for that crab, and it was a really good looking crab. The artists finished the crab, after having a small crisis, of completely using up a blue pencil to the point where it could no longer be sharpened, but we still needed the pencil, fortunately John's team was nice enough to share with us.

The actors had been making good progress on the commercial, but needed a little bit more help, so we got the whole group together, and had them preform for us what they had so far. It was a really great commercial, it just needed a bit more structure, so we worked it out together, and it was a fabulous commercial. We won top logo and I think that we won best commercial, but I can't remember, some of the other teams had really cool commercials too.

The next day we started work on our theme park and we had the great idea to have the park's midway be in the shape of a hurricane, or a long spiral descending into the ground. We then divided the park up into different areas, such as sponge bob, hurricane, pirates, tropical paradise and atlantis, just to name a few. We started adding rides and attractions to the park on the sketch on the white board. We then started working on a draft, and got some major things added to it. Then we put it all on the real thing. It started to look really cool. By this time, the rides had also begun to be under construction. We also did our four 1 hour missions. It was a crazy hectic day!

On the third day, we went to Lagoon, and that was fabulous. We went around with the kids to different rides and just had a blast. To start off the day we got to have a glass of water on the white roller coaster and try to keep as much in it as possible. We also got to take washers and stuff on the rocket and see them in free fall!

Last day, and time to finish up the theme parks. We had some crazy last minute rushes, but in the end it all worked out well. The rides were pretty cool and our map was amazing!

We had the two hour mission, eek! and we didn't do so well. We were in the cockpit and we had a lot of missed switches and stuff. And then on the space walk, the satelite was turned off mid repair, so nothing worked. Eek! But we had a great time during the mission!

Then it was time to judge the theme parks. Mr. Williamson came up special from Pleasant Grove's Space Education Center as a special judge. Ed, Lois, and Maren were the other judges. And our team won the theme parks! We totally had the best theme park! I love Oceania Reef! It was such a fun week!