That Noah is a quiet one! I wish he would tell us more about the things he is doing. I ask, boy do I ask. But he keeps it to himself. Poor me! So, I am grateful for teacher's who now email with such mundane tasks as packing a bag lunch for the field trip that is" tomorrow". So, I knew to ask Noah about his field trip and how it went yesterday after school. And I was the happiest that I did.
Noah had a great day yesterday. The first time I saw him was at his school basketball game. His team was playing Redland. The middle school team is not what I consider to be the feeder team for the high school, so I consider it to be extra practice time in a real-time situation. And what I love about this year is that the coach has put Noah in the game as a guard. Noah is not truly a ball handler and neither is he usually the smaller kid on the team, but being forced to play where he in charge of the ball and trying to control it is great for Noah. I think this will make him a better player even as he moves to be a bigman, a center or power forward. I love it!! Noah did great in the game and it was fun to watch. This game was probably the biggest challenge but they still won fairly easily which meant that Noah got in for a good amount of time. So, I was full of praise for him about his moves on the court.
But then on the car ride home our conversation gradually turned and I remembered the email and to ask how the field trip had gone. I had a vague sense of it being something sciency and technology related, but truthfully, it was one of those things I listened to with half an ear when it was first brought up. I also remember an email about chaperones and thought it sounded cool then, but read it and promptly forgot about it after I decided I couldn't chaperone. I'm sorry Noah. So, as Noah started talking and telling me about it, I grew more and more impressed and Noah grew more and more excited. For the past 9 weeks Noah has been working during Tech Ed to build a robot with a team of classmates (none of whom I know). It has taken a long time to build and a lot of effort went into it Although Noah tells me that he has done most of the work on it (being a teacher I know how group work can desintegrate into one person doing all of the work and the others sitting around and lettng them). The unit culminated with a field trip to the Naval Surface Warfare Center where the classes were to test out their robotic machine to see if it could do what it was designed to do. I am so impressed hearing this I can't wait to hear more...so the robots were submersed in water where they were to pick up ping pong balls from both the bottom of the pool and those floating on the water. Each team was given points regarding how many ping pong balls they could pick up. Noah's team collected the most balls which earned them 24 points! I haven't even told you the best part yet! The robots were submersible and moved under water with propellers that Noah and his team built onto the robot which is pretty amazing to me, but the really great thing was that the ping pong balls represented globs of oil that would float in the ocean after an oil spill!! How cool is that? That my Noah, my 12 year old, was creating a robotic machine that could pick oil up out of the water-who knew!! That is amazing! What a real world connection. And what a smart, engineering mind Noah has.
Fast forward to dinner. Andy was making it and just as we were sitting down, I whispered to Andy to ask about the field trip. So, that is just what Andy did towards the end of dinner. He asked about the game and he asked about the field trip. It was when Noah was talking about the field trip and his robot that he beamed! I mean seriously beamed! It was so fun for me to realize that while the basketball game was important that on that night it was not the privileged accomplisment. Noah was more excited by what he had accomplished in the water at that science center than what he had done on the court that day! Guess what-I'll take it! Go Noah!
Because of the security at the Naval Center, there were no cameras allowed. I am so sad that they couldn't take pictures.
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