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These are the team members and alternates who prepared to represent Gilmour Academy June 25-27 at Alfred University in New York State when the 2007 edition of the 48 Hour Challenge Competition was conducted. The competition supports teams from 20 schools as they perform laboratory experiments and design a strategy to solve a new problem while living as the guests of the university's engineering department.
Log of On-Site Activities at the 48-Hour Challenge Competition...
Monday, June 25th
5:00 PM
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The stalwart Gilmour Team has arrived safely at Alfred University and lodged in two of the freshman dorms, Tefft Hall (Rebecca, Janice, Grace, and our liason, Alexis) and Reimer Hall (Gregg, Derek and Br. Ken). We are already off-and-running, Gilmour having dominated the "Race 2 - GPS" competition. Dinner follows and more competing tonight! Stay tuned... |
Tuesday, June 26th
10:00 AM
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This year's new "challenge" asks the 18 student teams to determine the properties and the source of a "frozen sample" (aka hailstone or meteor, etc.), ostensibly dropped out of the sky onto the Alfred campus. Gilmour received its sample at 7:30 PM last night, and had about 2 hours to run some preliminary analyses, with more study to follow today. Teams will each spend all day and evening today in a series of eight laboratories to continue their study. More later... |
Tuesday, June 26th
7:00 PM
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It is difficult to know how well we are doing at this point, but the GA team members are determined, and working hard. They came to meals today with a new Gilmour slogan "tatooed" on their arms: "Refuse to Lose 48 '07" The GA group has completed five of today's eight one-hour lab sessions, most of which involve new techniques of analysis that they can apply to the (now melted) sample. (A favorite was the chem lab doing flame tests and pH measurements.) Tonight involves three more labs, and late tonight they will begin to summarize their findings on a poster for judging in the morning... |
Wed., June 27th
9:00 AM
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Students, liasons and mentors from the 18 competing school teams are arriving with their posters in the display area, "The Knight Club," in Alfred University's Powell Center. At 10:00 AM, teams will either have photos taken or visit the campus PR show in the auditorium while judging takes place. (Some nail-biting going on right now...) |
Wed., June 27th
11:00 AM
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The GA team's poster went up with drama 5 minutes before the deadline, when GA pulled in, decked out in "warpaint" (blue eye-black). There was a lot of last-ditch scurrying between 7 AM and 10 AM (they skipped breakfast, lived on snackfood, and dug in to finish the work). This effort resulted in a fabulous poster (according to B. Ken). What we know now is that the 48-hour challenge event was extremely competitive, with some groups from science-magnet schools. We'll find out the scores at 1:30 PM today... |
Wed., June 27th
6:20 PM |
We are finally home at Pender Plaza. All we know at this time is that Gilmour's scores did not place us in the top four of 18 teams. The poster and some scoring materials were retrieved for later study. The GA team slogan, "Refuse to Lose" still applies, since much experience was gained. We thanked Alexis, our university liason (a senior in biomedical engineering), prepared some gifts to bring home to Blaine Westropp (our team alternate member) and now await further details from the judges by mail. |
This page was also a meeting place for the team members to receive clues provided by Alfred University! Below are the clues as provided by the engineering department at Alfred, led by Dr. David Toot, Ph.D., the program director. (Br. Ken's comments and suggestions are in bold red text.) The clues below were ported over to this site for the convenience of the team, although they and anyone may find other information about the competition at the front of the Challenge website directly: http://engineering.alfred.edu/challenge .
Clue #1 |
January 26, 2007: THE FIRST CLUE!!!!
OK, let's get started.
Go to this web site from JPL. Then memorize it. OK, I'm kidding, but it has some cool stuff you MIGHT want to know....
http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/ |
Clue #2 |
February 8, 2007: The Large and the Small of It.
Take two positive lenses, put them together, you get a telescope. Take two positive lenses, put them together, you get a microscope. How can that be? How can you get two different systems from a simple combination of two positive lenses? Why does this work? How are magnifications calculated for each kind of object? What is a positive lens anyway? Are you sure?
I would be glad at Gilmour to show you what this lens clue is about if you like. Just catch me in the computer lab or near SC01 whenever you can! B. Ken |
Clue #3 |
February 20, 2007: Birds and the Bees?
Check this link out....
http://pollen.usda.gov/index.htm
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Clue #4 |
February 23, 2007: Have a Clue Where You Are?
This link is to a company web site, but it provides some good basics... (No, we don't get any money for referring you!)
http://www.garmin.com/aboutGPS/ |
Clue #5 |
March 12, 2007: Less and Less......
The following terms should be familiar to you...
radioactive, half-life, alpha, beta, gamma, ionizing radiation, Geiger-Muller tube, isotope, abundances
Your chemistry text (Chemistry, Connections to our Changing World, Prentice Hall) summarizes these in Chapter 24. Several library texts (e.g., Physics, Principles with Applications by Giancoli, have isotope abundances in an appendix. If I, or a chem teacher, can help, say the word. B. Ken |
Clue #6 |
April 3, 2007: Alphabet Soup -- Just some letters/abbreviations you might want to know.
SEM, XRD, UV/VIS,GIS,CCD,Mass-spec
E.g., Scanning Electron Microscope, X-Ray Diffraction, etc. (Can you ID the rest?)
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Clue #7 |
April 16, 2007: Shameless Plug?
OK, so this is partly an ad for our our own (Alfred U.) programs, but.... You might want to know that at least SOME of the following may be available during the Challenge...
http://engineering.alfred.edu/facilities/
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Clue #8 |
April 17, 2007: It's not all fun and games Folks
This web site is a sobering reminder as to how science and technology can be used for grim purposes. Still, it was very important that we know just why things went bad for Columbia.
The tools used combined basic physics and GIS.
http://www.fri.sfasu.edu/Columbia/pages/pub_maps.html#recovery_update
Hmm. Since GIS (Geographic Information Systems) has come up TWICE in these hints, that may be a tip. The following site is also helpful if you aren't that familiar with GIS: http://www.gis.com/
Do you own a GPS receiver? I have an old one you can practice with. - B.Ken
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Clue #9 |
April 25, 2007: Into each life........
It all actually starts as snow, you know. Or at least tiny, light, little ice crystals. What happens next, determines whether we shovel it, slip on it, wade through it, or run for cover.What are the different forms of precipitation in our atmosphere? How are they similar and different? What processes generate them?So, get your head in the clouds and look into these things!
You might take a look at this link to familiarize yourself with the terms and ideas. - B.Ken
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld/home.rxml
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Clue #10 |
May 18, 2007: Rumors that spread like wild fire.....
Late last night,
when we were all in bed,
Old Lady O'Leary
lit a lantern in the shed.....
And the rest is history. Or is it??
Do we think this is a reference to the Great Chicago Fire of October, 1871?
You might try checking the web, or Googling. This site is particularly interesting:
Great Chicago Fire controversy -- http://www.thechicagofire.com/
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Clue #11 |
June 5, 2007: States of Matter
What are the four states of matter? What makes one state different from another? What do intermolecular/inter-atomic/electrostatic forces have to do with it?
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Clue #12 |
June 11, 2007: What's it all made of?
Our solar system has a specific composition to it. It also varies in composition as you get further from the Sun.
How? Why?
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Last Clue! |
June 15, 2007: The Final Clue!
Just a few cool websites that may or may not help.
See you soon!
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?meteor_streams
http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/choices/smallbod1.htm
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/316/5829/1264
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/home.rxml
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld/prcp/home.rxml
http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-win/wwcgi.dll?WWNEXRAD~Images2
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/datacenter/archive.html
http://flightaware.com/analysis/allflights_movie.rvt
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