Submarine SMASH Day Reflection

1. Summarize --
-- What did we do for SMASH Day?
On the SMASH Day, Ms.Smith had divided all our class into four groups with three people. The title was "we all live in a yellow submarine", which is very exciting. All the groups got some supplies that Ms.Smith had provided for us. Our mission was to make a telescope, which can help us to check what is inside the box. The rule is you can't go above the table because you live in the submarine, which means under the table is the ocean, and above the table is the island.

-- What was your mission?
Our mission was to make a telescope together as a group and try to use the supplies to make a tall and big telescope to find out what was inside teacher's box.

-- What supplies were you given?
We had got several pieces of paper and a small box, two pairs of scissors and four small mirrors which two of them are zoom in magnifier mirrors and two normal mirrors, we have a roll of tape to use to bind all the supplies together.

2. Reflect -- Scientists often make a hypothesis, test it, and then change (or modify) their design to make it work.
-- How many times did you have to modify your design?
Actually, we came out with our design in a very short time and it actually works. To place the mirrors in the right angle were the most difficult part in making the telescope. We tried about five to six times to find the best angle for our telescope.

-- How did you know that you should modify your design?
I know that we should modify our design because it didn't work and so we tried to find another way, for instance, the angle of the four mirrors didn't work successfully and we couldn’t see anything, so we adjust our mirrors until we found the right angle.

-- How did you know what to do when you modified it?
We thought about many ideas to solve the problem such as the angle of the mirrors, while we were making the telescope, you are not a hundred percent sure what will really work, in the process of try and errors, you just adjust the angle little by little until it works.

-- How did your team communicate to decide how to modify your design?
Our team members had good relationship, we communicated and made the group decision together. If any members had any new ideas, we will bring it up, then discussed about it with other members and worked together and concentrated on the problems until it works.

3. Tips and Suggestions
-- If you could give a list of tips and suggestions to someone who is doing this for the first time, what would it be? What would you tell them to help them out?
If there is someone who is doing this for the first time, I would suggest the person not to think about the angle too much because you will end it up thinking about the problem but not actually doing it. The best way is to try every possibility and learn from errors. The more you try, the faster you will figure out the problems.