By: Aimee McLaughlin Maker Day Term 3

What is Maker Day On Wednesday the 16th we had a maker day. It was divided into three parts. The first part was before recess so period 1 and 2. The second part was in between recess and lunch periods 3 4. Lastly after lunch period 5 we got to reflect. My first activity was Racing Cars. My second then was solar boats. For Maker Day we got to wear P.E because it is easier to move around than to be in school uniform. I found Maker Day partly challenging because you had to use your instincts of how to build the machine. A couple weeks before Maker day we got to vote which activity we wanted to do. You chose out of Bottle Rockets Racing Cars Solar Boats and Decision Maker. My choices were 1. Racing Cars 2. Solar Boats 3. Decision Maker and 4. Bottle Rockets. Almost everybody got there first choice and if they didn’t they got there second choice. I got my first and second choice.

Racing Cars  For my first session I did Racing Car. My partner was Samantha. We had Mr. Mckie and Mrs. Watson as our helpers. They gave us certain parts that we can only use to build our car. They were 2 big wheels and 2 small wheels, A motor, A Battery Pack, 2 Battery's, 2 small axels and a big and small cog. We also got a tin can which was the body of the car. Firstly we had to drill holes into the tin were we wanted our axels, which then on the end are the wheels. We marked the spots with blue permanent marker. Samantha and I took it in turns to drill the holes. In the last 15 minutes I was not there because I had to have my music lesson.

Solar Boats  My second activity was Solar Boats. Since I had my music lesson I missed the first 20 minutes of it. When I got there I just joined Abbi and Grace. They had already made the base we just had to add the solar panels. There was also a lot of trial and error. Richard lent us a wheel burrow to test our boats in. All we did was fill up the wheel burrow full of water. Attached to the solar panel board was of course solar panels, a motor, some wires, a switch and a propeller at the front which helps it move. If you face your boat towards you it will go away from you. Once we all thought that ours boats were ready we went down to the middle school pool to race them. Our weight was not the same on both sides so our boat just went around in circles. There was one boat I think it was Noah’s and Harry’s that went in a straight line from one side of the pool to the other.  The last thing we did was reflect which is not very interesting so I wont talk about that.