Saturday, February 15th, 2003

Official:

About half an hour ago, I was sparked by the fact that a team had used almost all K'NEX in thier 2002 entry. I went straight to my vast collection of K'NEX and started prototyping a device for the canopy climb. In half an hour, after my third attempt, I built a device that hung on a rope by the traction of two wheels. By itself, this doesn't amount to much but if you add a motor, it might just be able to climb up! With a catcher, motor, and a few more things, we might actually have a working prototype!

What I really gained from this was the experience of having the tools at my fingertips and being able to go from idea to creation in minutes. This put me in a state of mind like what brainstorming really is, as I overcame one problem after another. I think that if we could get the whole team to do what I did, but together as a synergistic group, we could accomplish a lot and be on our way to a contest entry. I think that although the Tech says brainstorming works with paper, we haven't done very well and maybe we could really brainstorm if we had something like K'NEX on hand.