Problem Solving Through Science, Tuesday 3rd period

[what_the_shock]

"Right." Miguel clapped his hands together. "So, we've done the introductions, now we get to the fun stuff. Here's today's problem to solve with science." He keyed in some things in the Danger Shop controls, and a series of walls popped up, one for each student. They were solid and slightly shiny, and went from floor to ceiling. Between them were intersecting walls so they couldn't look around.

"Get past a wall. And before you all go in there with explosives or punching or whatever, you don't know what's on the other side, you don't know how thick it is, you don't know what it's made of or how it'll react to what you do. You might want to use science to figure out some of that first. Use the room to fabricate any sensors or equipment you might want, but you can't use it to straight-out tell you the answers. Go."

Comments

Re: Class Activity!

[white_oleander]

Well, this was going to go well. Astrid considered the first two possibilities to pop into her head: going over or going under the wall. She scuffed the floor beneath her slightly with her toe, already imagining a prison-break-like scenario, which made her favor that, and then taking a second to judge the distance overhead and then the wall itself.

She bit her lip. Even if she knew what to ask for to help her test the material or anything else (poison on the brain recently made her wonder if that's what the sheen was all about), she wouldn't know how to actually do it. So...not very scientific, maybe, but perhaps practical, she took a moment to just poke the wall, see if the material was anything that she could climb easily or, hey, who knew? Maybe it might even give away and wasn't as solid as it look.

Re: Class Activity!

[what_the_shock]

It was in fact solid, and not slippery, but there were no handholds. Or anywhere to go.

Miguel walked up. "If you're not sure what to do, just ask the shop," he said. He pushed a button on the console. "Give me something to find out how thick a wall is."

It came back with...a ruler.

He looked at it. "How about something to electronically read how thick a wall is?"

He got some sort of gadget with a few buttons on it. "There, see? Piece of cake." He handed it to Astrid with a shrug. "The object's not to make you figure out how to get the information, just what to do with it.

Re: Class Activity!

[white_oleander]

Astrid took the gadget, then looked at Mr. O'Hara for a second before looking back at the thing.

Because that didn't exactly answer what she was supposed to do when she didn't even know what information she needed to get, and she was feeling for not the first time that he vastly overestimated just how scientifically inclined she was.

"Okay," she ventured, a bit skeptically, holding up the device and pressing the buttons until it managed to give her the information she'd want. "So I determine the thickness of the wall, and then what? Probably determine what kind of material it is, or something, right? And then I can try to figure out how to break it down from there, but that assumes I already have the knowledge about the different materials. I don't even have the knowledge of what lies beyond this wall, like you said. Maybe I don't really even want to get to the other side."

She realized she was being a little contrarian, but she couldn't help it, because she found the whole premise frustrating in its vagueness. She didn't do well with vague, open parameters, she'd never been good at just thinking on her own...

"Can't I just...think of a ladder and get a ladder and climb over it? And if that ladder's not tall enough, just keep getting taller and taller ladders until I get there?"

That didn't seem very scientific, just...practical.

Re: Class Activity!

[what_the_shock]

"Sure," Miguel said. "But in this case, the wall goes up to the ceiling, so it won't help much. That is a good thought, though - not everything has to be complicated. And you can ask all the other things. Get the information from the scanner, put that into a computer. Science isn't about having all the answers, it's about finding them."