Science Infoblog

Introducing the teams.

Team Helicoptinator:Mason Maddox (bot pilot), Jacqeus van Burick, Christopher Trotman, James Whitehouse, Andrew Gill.

Team Topbot: Alesha Murray (bot pilot), Arielle Sullivan, Jason Blakemore, Nicola Summerfield

During a day of intense practise and competition Team Helicoptinator maintained a 100% record to win the event. Team Topbot won their second game in great style and were narrowly edged out in the other two games.

The Road to the Final.

Team helicoptinator agonised a great deal about the value of their helicopter adjustment but in the end it did frustrate the best efforts of the oppostion to score. Team workand good offensive and defensive strategies were the key to their success. They won their three group games, a semi final and the best of three final 2-0.

In the semifinal watch the helicoptinator blue team bot piloted by Mason scoop up the counters and drive them into the corner for a big score.Watch also as the platforms are maneuvered onto their side of the field for extra points

Team helicoptinator won the first two games to take out the best of three final. These games were made more difficult by the fact that lights were dimmed to make the conditions more challenging.

Team topbot had a thrilling win in their second game. Watch how Alesha maneuvers the blue flagged bot with the yellow card on the rear bumper to position the platforms on their side of the arena for extra points. She followed this up by scoring with counters in the corners. Good strategies and teamwork.

FIRST stands For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Two teams from Green Bay attended a Robotics boot camp yesterday and today their robots will be in competition with more than 30 robots from other schools. They were given some instruction and ideas by a team of students from California….. and then asked to build their robots.

Both teams had their robots up and running within and hour and by the end of the day were training how to beat other teams in todays competition. We have future robotics engineers at Green Bay…..next step designing a robot to explore Mars perhaps?

During your geology course you will have found that igneous rocks form large crystals when they are allowed to cool slowly and small crystals when they the cool fast. When a volcano spews lav out into the ocean volcanic glasses (obsidian) or special formations called pillo lavas can result.

Pillow lavas form when molten rock comes in contact with cold sea water. Toothpaste shaped tongues of lava are squeezed away from a large feeder tube. We can see this happening around Hawaii today. Kilauea burst into life about 500,000 years ago and has been pumping huge volumes of lava into the ocean ever since. There is evidence to suggest that similar activity was responsible for producing rock structures at Te Henga on Auckland’s west coast. The volcanic region that existed then must have matched the size of the Ruapehu massif which has been around for the last 250,000 years

If you head towards the southern end of Te Henga beach the rocky cliffs are mostly quite spectacular formations of pillow lavas. They originated in the same way Kilauea produces them now. They lie on top of slightly older volcanic conglomerate.

Now try the quiz if you are really bored and don’t have a life.

<a href=”http://www.mystudiyo.com/act69605/mini/go/te_henga_beach_rocks” mce_href=”http://www.mystudiyo.com/act69605/mini/go/te_henga_beach_rocks”>Te Henga beach rocks</a>