Make Your Own Game! - Nanogirl Task - Summer Learning Journey Rima Tekau Ma Wha

Today for the Summer Learning Journey we had a Nanogirl task. It was to make a game out of recycling.

The first traces of games created by humans were found in Europe and were found to be from the Bronze Age nearly 7000 years ago. Yet no one has found anything about the rules or the way the game is played.

It turned out that my Dad took away all the recycling in the weekend so we had no recycling. So I made a board game using paper and a few colours pencils. I also made an online 8-bit game on a site called Make code Arcade where I could code using blocks and draw my own characters and backgrounds.

The way you play my board game is you first pick a character. The characters are a mask, a bottle of hand sanitiser, a cotton swab, a QR code and a vaccine. Then the oldest playing gets to go first. If you land on a chance card, you pick a chance card and do what it says. The first one to get to the finish line wins!

I enjoyed coming up with ideas for what my games would be about. I had an idea about a Covid game; Where you had to not catch covid and get all the way to the end while landing on things that might, either, stop you from moving for a few turns, make you go up some spaces and down some spaces.

Thank you for reading my blog. Here is a slide with my Don't Catch Covid game:

Here is the code for my Make code arcade game:

And here is my game:

Musical Instruments - Nanogirl - Summer Learning Journey Wha Tekau

Today for Summer Learning Journey we had a Nanogirl task. It was to make musical instruments out of random things in your house.

Did you know that musical instruments were invented in 2800 BC or earlier? The oldest musical instrument in the world is a Neanderthal flute (I will put an image below this paragraph) Which was made from a bone of a young cave bear and has four holes.

Here is the Neanderthal Flute:

I enjoyed making my musical instruments because I could pretty much make something make noise when I hit them or make noise when I blow on them. I also liked glueing the straws together to make the harmonica.

I found it tricky to make the mugs ding when I hit them. I tried to fill the mugs with more or less water but they did not seem to change. I think that I should have used glass but because I have really young siblings we can't really have glass because if my youngest brother, who is 1, would throw them so we only have plastic glasses. I thought using the ceramic mugs we have would help make a better sound but it didn't work as well as I thought it would. 

Thank you for reading my blog, here are my musical instruments:

Optical Illusions - Nanogirl - Summer Learning Journey Rua Tekau Ma Ono

Today for Summer Learning Journey we had a Nanogirl task. It was on optical illusions. An optical illusion is something that deceives the eye by appearing different to what it is.

Did you know that people started doing optical illusions in 5 BC in ancient Greece? They used it in architecture and art. Did you know a rainbow is an optical illusion?

The most interesting one I made was the one Nanogirl did. I used a glass of water and a picture that I drew of an arrow. I put the paper behind the glass and it changed direction. Do you know why this happens? I'll tell you. The light changes direction each time it goes through the glass. This is called refraction and it happens because light slows down when it is behind and speeds up when it leaves the front of the glass. This is sort of hard to explain.

I really enjoyed making the optical illusions because it made me feel like a magician.  It was quite easy and I did not find anything tricky. I especially liked doing the pink paper one and tricking my Mum and Aunty with it. 

Thank you for reading my blog. Here are my Illusions on some slides:

Make Something That Floats! - Nanogirl Summer Learning Journey Tekau Ma Tahi

Today for a Nanogirl task we had to make something that floats on water. I decided to see which boat holds the most amount of stones. 

The way boats float is caused by how much air is inside of them. Nanogirl explained this by showing us with tin foil and rolling it into a  ball, it sank! Then she had it flat and it floated! Magic? No! The reason for this is because the rolled tin foil weighs more than the water and there is also no air inside it to balance it out because air weighs way less than water. The flat one has a lot more space around it to make it float and also is not too bunched up and heavy.

The types of boats I made were. Traditional that kind of looked like a hat, a canoe that looked a lot better in the video than it did when I made it, the one Nanogirl made, and one made of straws hot glued together.

I found it hardest to make the canoe, it had lots of very complicated folds but I persevered and got there in the end. The straws one was the easiest to make because it was just hot glue. 

Thank you for reading my blog. Here is my hypothesis and the results of my boats:

Paper Plane - Something that Flies Summer Learning Journey Toru

Today for Summer Learning Journey I saw that There was a Nanogirl task I could do. It was making something that flies. I made a few paper aeroplanes and raced them on a hill near my house. I did a hypothesis on which one would win. 

I find it really interesting the way paper planes fly. Do you know how they fly? When the air under the wing is pushing up harder than the air over it is pushing down, the plane goes up and stays up. It is this difference in pressure that makes the paper plane fly and it works the same for real planes too!

I found it very tricky to throw these in the very strong winds here in Gisborne today. I am going to try doing this task again when the weather is nicer another day to see if I get different results! 

Here are my slides with my hypothesis and results:

Super Seesaw!

Today for the summer learning journey I had to make a super seesaw out of a wooden spoon, some string, a toilet roll and a ball of paper. Nano girl gave us this task too! Did you know that a seesaw is an example of a lever? I learnt that you only need one finger to make it go! This was quite hard because the string kept rolling off. Did you know that  I enjoyed making the wevideo because there was lots of backgrounds I could choose from so I chose three of my favourites. It was tricky to hit the spoon and make it go far because I taped it to the ground. So I thought, I should use my poi rakau stick! Then I held it down with my foot and it worked! It went so high! Next time I would make a target for it to hit so I could see how well it worked.

Here is my Wevideo:

Super Columns

Today for my summer learning journey I had to make a super column that had a lot of compression. Nano Girl gave us this task too. I did not have any rocks so I used heavy trucks instead.

I liked finding the stuff I needed because it was the easiest bit.

It was hard to make the paper hold because the trucks were heavy.

Here is my slide deck of the before and after: