Meet the Blue Team : "The Senior Savers"
Mateo, Joe, Logan, Joey, Max, Adam, Kyoo Hun, Eric
Senior Solutions Research has begun!
11/24/12
We had a great meeting today. I was really amazed at the quality of the information that was obtained through the homework assignment. We really have some intelligent kids! Anyway, today we worked on the skit and a poster of the ear. We put some really good ideas together and I think we are almost done with the contents of the presentation, we just have to get it put into order and start memorizing some lines. I will probably send out a script or something like that this week. This is based on the meeting today. I think everyone should read over it several times. I'll give more instructions later.
Next weekend will be our last weekend to practice for the tournament.
Next weekend will be our last weekend to practice for the tournament.
11/10/12
Last Saturday was another good meeting. We spent some time re-visiting some of the things we have covered in past meetings, like who our Senior Partner is (Sharon Cowley) and some of the different types of hearing aids we have learned about. We had two items that seemed to tie as far as fun for me:
1. The kids returned with great pictures of ears and they named each part. It was great to see their eyes light up as they told us what they learned about the ear.
2. They all presented drawings of their vision of what the rev.0 prototype should look like for the glasses they are designing. They really have some great ideas!
Initially we were thinking of creating a PowerPoint Presentation to help the kids describe what they have learned these past few months. On second thought, I am thinking of having the kids explain about the ears, what contributes to hearing loss, the past technologies used to help hearing loss, and finally what the kids have decided would be a great solution to helping Seniors with hearing loss. I want to try to spin it that they thought outside the box and wanted to use one of the other 4 senses that may be more heightened since the hearing loss.
I did find a couple of articles myself that I gave to a couple of the kids who were interested in reading it. Here are the links in case you want to indulge in some technology that would help the kids to actually see their solution work.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/08/microsoft_english_chinese_demonstration/
https://successforkidswithhearingloss.com/interact-as
I sent everyone home with a pair of Safety Glasses. They are to be modified to look like a version of the glasses the kids are trying to make. Anything from home can be used to make it look like the actual thing, but obviously it does not have to really work. The kids are to return Saturday and describe their prototype, then take all the good things from the 8 different prototypes and make one final prototype.
I am having fun with this, but will need some help in the coming weeks to come up with a fun and different way to present the findings of the research. Any volunteers to get me over the hump?
Next meeting is at 1pm on Saturday.
1. The kids returned with great pictures of ears and they named each part. It was great to see their eyes light up as they told us what they learned about the ear.
2. They all presented drawings of their vision of what the rev.0 prototype should look like for the glasses they are designing. They really have some great ideas!
Initially we were thinking of creating a PowerPoint Presentation to help the kids describe what they have learned these past few months. On second thought, I am thinking of having the kids explain about the ears, what contributes to hearing loss, the past technologies used to help hearing loss, and finally what the kids have decided would be a great solution to helping Seniors with hearing loss. I want to try to spin it that they thought outside the box and wanted to use one of the other 4 senses that may be more heightened since the hearing loss.
I did find a couple of articles myself that I gave to a couple of the kids who were interested in reading it. Here are the links in case you want to indulge in some technology that would help the kids to actually see their solution work.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/08/microsoft_english_chinese_demonstration/
https://successforkidswithhearingloss.com/interact-as
I sent everyone home with a pair of Safety Glasses. They are to be modified to look like a version of the glasses the kids are trying to make. Anything from home can be used to make it look like the actual thing, but obviously it does not have to really work. The kids are to return Saturday and describe their prototype, then take all the good things from the 8 different prototypes and make one final prototype.
I am having fun with this, but will need some help in the coming weeks to come up with a fun and different way to present the findings of the research. Any volunteers to get me over the hump?
Next meeting is at 1pm on Saturday.
11/3/12
Hey everyone, hope you had a great weekend. We had a fabulous meeting on Saturday and really broke some ground. The kids all completed their assignment and came up with some great ideas that would help Seniors with hearing loss. We had new ideas for hearing aids and a robot dog that did different functions according to what sounds it would interpret. (turn around in a circle for the doorbell, turn on a red light when the toast is ready, etc.)
The one concept that really stood out to the team was developing a pair of glasses that interpreted sound into text. Similar to a heads up display on a fighter jet. The kids decided that instead of developing a new hearing aid that may not work, they would develop something that would use one of the other 5 senses (Seeing) to compensate for hearing loss. I really got goose bumps as the team generated this idea and started brainstorming. This is soooo much fun!
Assignment this week. Learn the three parts of the inner ear and draw a picture of the inner and outer ear. Come up with ideas that may help to develop these glasses. What does it need to work?
The one concept that really stood out to the team was developing a pair of glasses that interpreted sound into text. Similar to a heads up display on a fighter jet. The kids decided that instead of developing a new hearing aid that may not work, they would develop something that would use one of the other 5 senses (Seeing) to compensate for hearing loss. I really got goose bumps as the team generated this idea and started brainstorming. This is soooo much fun!
Assignment this week. Learn the three parts of the inner ear and draw a picture of the inner and outer ear. Come up with ideas that may help to develop these glasses. What does it need to work?
10/27/12
We had a great meeting and only one team member was missing. We spent some time talking about different technologies, different hearing aids and sharing. Eric showed them a video on a device I ordered from Living Social. He thinks if it works the technology may be able to help the team. Everyone on the team thinks it will be a piece of junk when it arrives. We'll see. Here is the link. What do you think?
Homework is to pay attention to surroundings and everything you interact with. Can it help with the project? Also, draw and design something you think will help with Senior's hearing. Be prepared to bring it Saturday and talk about it. Sharing it.
Homework is to pay attention to surroundings and everything you interact with. Can it help with the project? Also, draw and design something you think will help with Senior's hearing. Be prepared to bring it Saturday and talk about it. Sharing it.
10/20/12
I would like to thank Sharon for coming in today and meeting with the team. She didn't quite know what she was getting into, but in the end, I think we all had fun and learned a lot about Seniors.
Everyone was in attendance except one person who had a soccer conflict. We are starting to wrap up soccer season, so hopefully our meetings will be full in the near future.
We asked Sharon all of the questions we came up with last week. We learned that Seniors have a hard time getting around, moving and seeing. We even learned that driving cars can be difficult because reaction times and awareness of surroundings is limiting as you get older.
After we asked all of our questions, Sharon was very surprised that nobody asked her about Seniors being able to hear, and the decline of the ability to hear as a person gets older. She mentioned that the technologies that have been created do not help as well as technologies for eyesight, walking, or mobility in general. Hearing aids do not work very well and people stop using them because they do not work well.
This really caught the teams attention and when put to a vote, the team (which apparently is now called THE SENIOR SAVERS) decided their Senior Solution was going to be based on helping Seniors hear better.
I have attached the Power Point slides I used to get us through the process thus far. It also has the answers that Sharon provided paraphrased. The team knows the homework assignment, which is:
Research 5 technological advances in hearing that have already helped in the field of hearing. Write down the advances in technology and capture the source of the research and be specific as to where they found the info. An example is onthe last page of the PowerPoint presentation.
We will be using this information for two things:
1. Getting an idea of what has been done, so the team does not re-invent things that have already been invented.
2. Getting an idea of what technologies exist to help the team innovate and think outside the box.
Next week Saturday OCT. 27, 2012. Same location- 1PM.
Everyone was in attendance except one person who had a soccer conflict. We are starting to wrap up soccer season, so hopefully our meetings will be full in the near future.
We asked Sharon all of the questions we came up with last week. We learned that Seniors have a hard time getting around, moving and seeing. We even learned that driving cars can be difficult because reaction times and awareness of surroundings is limiting as you get older.
After we asked all of our questions, Sharon was very surprised that nobody asked her about Seniors being able to hear, and the decline of the ability to hear as a person gets older. She mentioned that the technologies that have been created do not help as well as technologies for eyesight, walking, or mobility in general. Hearing aids do not work very well and people stop using them because they do not work well.
This really caught the teams attention and when put to a vote, the team (which apparently is now called THE SENIOR SAVERS) decided their Senior Solution was going to be based on helping Seniors hear better.
I have attached the Power Point slides I used to get us through the process thus far. It also has the answers that Sharon provided paraphrased. The team knows the homework assignment, which is:
Research 5 technological advances in hearing that have already helped in the field of hearing. Write down the advances in technology and capture the source of the research and be specific as to where they found the info. An example is onthe last page of the PowerPoint presentation.
We will be using this information for two things:
1. Getting an idea of what has been done, so the team does not re-invent things that have already been invented.
2. Getting an idea of what technologies exist to help the team innovate and think outside the box.
Next week Saturday OCT. 27, 2012. Same location- 1PM.
10/8/12
We had a great meeting today, we were only missing one team mate. Hopefully he can attend the next meeting on Saturday Oct.20 at 1pm at the Hopkins home.
We started out with introductions since not everyone knows me, I also asked them to tell me why they were excited about Lego Robotics. They all had great answers and all of them were different.
The team then took turns reading through The Project and we stopped every few paragraphs to go over what we had read. I am pretty sure the whole team understands what the goals are. You may want to ask them what we discussed.
We then wrote down several questions that they felt would be great to ask a Senior.
1. Why is it hard to do active things? 2. Why do Seniors get sick more often than younger people? 3. Is it hard to eat food? 4. Why do Seniors have less energy than younger people? 5. What is harder to do now compared to when you were younger? 6. Is it hard to walk when you are older? 7. Can you control your movements well? 8. Is it harder to move around? 9. Is it harder to see? 10. Is it hard to control TV?
And the most important question, WHY?
The team has armed themselves with these questions and are ready to go to Vermont Hills Marquis to find some answers.
The boys were asked if they know any Seniors that may be able to be our Senior partner. They decided Logan's Grandmother would be the best partner, so their homework assignment is to make a nice handmade invitation to give her. The invitations are due at Thursday's Lego Robotics practice. They are to be given to Logan to safely deliver to his Grandmother Sharon.
We started out with introductions since not everyone knows me, I also asked them to tell me why they were excited about Lego Robotics. They all had great answers and all of them were different.
The team then took turns reading through The Project and we stopped every few paragraphs to go over what we had read. I am pretty sure the whole team understands what the goals are. You may want to ask them what we discussed.
We then wrote down several questions that they felt would be great to ask a Senior.
1. Why is it hard to do active things? 2. Why do Seniors get sick more often than younger people? 3. Is it hard to eat food? 4. Why do Seniors have less energy than younger people? 5. What is harder to do now compared to when you were younger? 6. Is it hard to walk when you are older? 7. Can you control your movements well? 8. Is it harder to move around? 9. Is it harder to see? 10. Is it hard to control TV?
And the most important question, WHY?
The team has armed themselves with these questions and are ready to go to Vermont Hills Marquis to find some answers.
The boys were asked if they know any Seniors that may be able to be our Senior partner. They decided Logan's Grandmother would be the best partner, so their homework assignment is to make a nice handmade invitation to give her. The invitations are due at Thursday's Lego Robotics practice. They are to be given to Logan to safely deliver to his Grandmother Sharon.