Trig Lasers

One of the things I don't get to do often, but love to do is observe other teachers. I get to see how they run the classroom, how their routines are set-up, and sometimes see really cool lessons. In Basic Geometry Mr. Fick and Ms. Groth had a lesson they were talking about that seemed really cool to observe. They had a bunch of different targets printed, lasers, and protractors.

To review the trigonometry they have been practicing in class. Ms. Groth had one student come up and set a target on the front wall of the classroom. She had already set a piece of tape on the ground, she wanted to know the angle that would make it so a laser would shine and hit the target. She asked the class what angle they thought it would be and students guessed. She then asked what other information is needed to know so they could accurately calculate the angle. A couple of students said the height and the distance. Those two students came up and measured both of those. Students were given a handout to write down and then calculate the given angle.

Ms. Groth then did another example where she already gave them the angle and height and they had to calculate the distance away.

I think a great extension to what I saw would to give each pair of students a target, laser, and compass. Then have students calculate their own. Or possibly have some sort of putt-putt kind of station moving from one target to the next.

Domino's Pizza Linear Math Activity

Mathalicious has lots of great activities, but this one might be my favorite.

Here is the link: http://www.mathalicious.com/lessons/domino-effect

All I do as the teacher is give them this prompt:

Domino's pizza is delicious. The company is tech savvy, you can order online and even track your pizza delivery.  The website is great, but not transparent.  Domino's does not tell you how much the component pieces cost; they only tell you an item's final price after you build it. Your job is to find the base price of a pizza and find the cost per additional topping. You need to have enough information to do a 2 minute presentation to the class.




I don't grade the presentations, but look for slope, y-intercept, a graph, an equation, and an explanation of the graph.  It is a fun 30 minute project that fits at the end of the unit.

Algebra Racecars

There are lots of ways to do this activity, if you want your students to construct the same type of car (which is fine) you can follow these links, then come on back.

http://www-tc.pbskids.org/designsquad/pdf/parentseducators/4wheelcar-english.pdf

or

https://www.questacon.edu.au/outreach/programs/science-circus/videos/balloon-powered-car

One way is I have some of the materials that students may need and some others. These are the items that I bring to school:

• balloons
• bottle caps
• smaller dowel rods (from our shop teacher)
• cardboard
• tape
• rubberbands

I give them 15 minutes to create a car. I normally have them as a group create the straw and balloon together so they have the same propulsion system. They have 15 minutes to create and test their car before we record them with our iPad. I normally have them record 2-3 times just to make sure, during this time other students are collecting how far the balloon goes and the time. 

Our next step is to collect our data. 

I ask students to find the speed their car went and ask them to put a graph on Desmos. We then collect our data together as a class and talk about what each line means who's went furthest who had the top speed.

Clash Royale and Unit Rates

First of all, what is Clash Royale?

"Clash Royale is a fast paced, card based PvP brawler.  Collect Clash troops, and use them to wreak havoc on your opponents tower." (ClashRoyale.com)  At our school Clash of Clans has gave way to the new Clash Royale game of choice.

During the game you have battle decks or characters that you play to defeat your opponent friend or stranger.  The goal of the game is to get your characters to take defeat your enemies and take your enemies towers.   So to do that easier is to create a really well put together battle deck.

As a class we would discuss what some students do to build a really well put together battle deck.

Student examples may include: damage, elixir, and different types of cards.

We would further discuss that a combination would be the best way to go, but we are going to put together a battle deck based on damage.  But, further more we are going to put together the best battle deck based on damage per second.  The more damage you are dealing per second the higher chance you are to claim the enemy tower faster.

Here students can download the app and see what to play or they can look online at all the different characters and use their knowledge of unit rates to put together the best deck.  Here are some example characters.

Here is a list of characters and damage and hit speed.

Character          Damage             Hit Speed (in seconds)

Knight                  75                         1.1

Archer                  40                          1.2

Bomber               100                        1.9

Giant                   126                         1.5

Musketeer           100                         1.1

Baby Dragon       100                         1.8

Mini PEKKA      325                       1.8

Witch                   38                         0.7

Skeleton Army    30                           1

Prince                  220                      1.5

Goblins               50                          1.1

Goblin Spears      24                        1.3

Valkyrie               120                       1.5

Minion                40                           1

Skeletons             30                          1

Balloon              600                         3

Giant Skeleton   100                        1.5

Barbarians           75                        1.5

PEKKA              450                        1.8

Minion Horde     40                          1

Hog Rider           160                        1.5

There are other characters they can research, but the work that students will do will be to:

1. Calculate the damage per second of each character.
2. Develop their top 8 characters to go in their battle deck.
3. Develop a written reasoning of why you selected those characters to be in your battle deck
4.  EC. Try it out, did you win? Did you lose? Write a paragraph on why you won or lost?

I want to engage the students next year.  I know that quite a few of my students play this game and I think this is a great one day project to get students thinking and evaluating data to influence decisions they make.