posting of results

When I look on the partners map, I see scores posted for our partner school. I assume that these scores are for THEIR packages. There are no scores posted beside our school. We are #11 on the partners page, Jersey Shore Area Middle School (us) and Stonewall Jackson Middle school.

Mr. Lindgren, did you receive our scores for Stonewall's packages? (I think that these are the posted scores, but I'm not 100% certain.) Did you receive scores on our packages from Stonewall Jackson MS? Is there just a backlog in getting them posted - a huge job, I'm sure. Students were asking if they could see their scores on the website.

Can you comment on any of this? Thanks.

Last Call!

It's time to end this. For those of you who haven't posted your scores, get it done this week. If there is a problem in getting that done, just let me know. A million thanks to all of you that participated in the challenge. We had more than 5,000 students this year sending chips across the country. Watch the website to see when the Challeneg will happen again. I'm toying with doing it twice next year. The number of schools was very difficult this year. Maybe running it once in the fall (October-November?) and then in the winter (January-February?) would be easier. Your thoughts?

Have a great remainder of the year!

Charlie

Huge Thanks to Charlie

I would like to take a moment and thank Charlie for the tremendous amount of work that has undoubtedly gone into the Challenge this year. Opportunities like these don't come around every day. My students had a wonderful experience with the Challenge. Keep up the amazing work! I look forward to collaborating with you on the Pringles Challenge and any other activities/ideas in the future!

The Scores are Posted!

Please take a minute to check out the scores. See if I've made any terrible mistakes. If there are any (and I'm sure there must be one or two!) let me know and I'll correct them. The easiest way to do that is to resubmit the spreadsheet, don't make me hunt through 400+ e-mails. Just tell me what's wrong, and I'll try to make it go away. There are still many blanks. Send the data as soon as you can.

Clear Skies (not here, we're buried),

Charlie

I'm Back!

Greetings! I had a great time on "The Coast." We came back to the other Coast just in time to catch the eclipse. We got the cats back this morning, and I saw that I had 453 e-mail messages! I'll start to add your results to your pages. It looks like I have about 70 messages with scores from you. They shoul all be up by the end of the day tomorrow. We're getting a major snowstorm tomorrow, so I'm not going anywhere.

Clear Skies,

Charlie

Need email address

I need the email to send scores to.

Mike

Final Posting of Results

Greetings! Hopefully you're buried in packages, and amazed at the schemes and strategies your partner school used. If you post me your results by Wednesday of this week, they will be posted immediately to the website. We are on vacation after that, so don't look for anything to be posted until after the 20th. Speaking of the 20th, there's a total eclipse of the Moon that night. Don't forget to tell your students about it. It's tough for me because we're on vacation, but hopefully they'll remember.

Clear Skies (especially on the 20th),

Charlie

Writing on Packages

Can packages have both "FRAGILE" and "HANDLE WITH CARE" on them? Or, can they only have one or the other? Just want to be consistent.

Thanks!!

Cost of Challenge

I mailed off my packages yesterday - all except for 2 that the post office refused - one didn't meet 1st class mail criteria and the other used a priority mail box. I sent them home with the kids today to fix and I am going to mail them tomorrow. My total bill came to right over $110! The kids really enjoyed this project and I feel that it was a wonderful thing for them to participate in. But how does everyone else pay for this? I was able to tap in to some money through a science consumable fund that we have. But, this is the last year for this fund so I am brainstorming for next year. I can't ask the students to pay, but I can't pay that much myself either. I hate to do it in only one or two classes - the other classes just wouldn't think that is fair. Most students worked in pairs already, so even if I required everyone to work in pairs, it wouldn't cut the total cost by very much. How does everyone else pay for this?

Score Those Packages

This is the best week! Hopefully packages have started to arrive at your school. If you haven't already done so, please visit the "How to" guide at http://www.gatesscience.info/teamescience/howto.htm and scroll down to "Receiving Packages." At the very bottom is a link to an Excel spreadsheet you can use for scoring. Send me only the school's scores when you think you have all of the packages. Remebr, I'm dealing with 132 individuals. DO send the scores to your partner school as you record them. These people are anxiously waiting for their results.

Enjoy this week and the next. Send me any images or anecdotes that you want, and I'll post them to your page.

Enjoy,

Charlie

Volume question

Greetings! A student asked me a question about the way that the volume of the container will be calculated. He wondered if the package could be made of two distinct sections attached to one another: a container for the chip and an outer cage to protect it. Would the volume of the package be calculated as the volume of the outside shell (of the cage) or using the displacement method? Any input would be most welcome!

What e-mail?

I don't know what happened! I went back and looked at all of the posts. According to me they all have two people receiving the e-mail. Therefore I have no way of knowing who didn't get what. Send me a note if you haven't received a message, and I'll copy the e-mail message and send it as a reply, or ask your partner school to do it.

Sorry about that!

Charlie

Pringles Challenge Laugh

Two students came to me with a brilliant plan for the Pringles Challenge. They assured me they had tested their idea thoroughly and that their Pringle would NOT break in the package they would be using. Keep in mind these are two of the sweetest girls on the planet as far as middle school kids go. One of them pulls out a ziploc bag from behind her back and explains: "Mr. Williamson, we filled the bag with Splenda and put the Pringle inside." She then tossed it on the floor, picked it up, tossed it back and forth to her partner and said "See, it didn't break". My calm reply: "Girls, this is great, there's just one thing..." Puzzled looks on their faces..."Do you think it's really a good idea to send a ziploc bag filled with white powder through the postal service to another state?" Wide eyes, red faces and huge laughs from then on...One of my coworkers and I joked later when I told him they were going to be sent to Pennsylvania about the headlines "Pittsburgh Postal Service Evacuated...Mysterious white powder leaking from package originating from middle school in Newport, North Carolina"...ah, the joys of middle school!

Email?

Help! I did not get an email???

Am I able to participate?

Sincerely, Mrs. Welsh
Fort Cherry SD

Begin!

I've created 66 web pages, and sent 132 e-mail messages. I must be done! Now it's your turn. You should have received an e-mail from me entitled Pringles Partners with a #___ That should correspond to your pairing on the website. According to the timeline, no packages should be mailed until the 29th. Feel free to make other arrangements. Just be sure to let your partner know. Please do not send me any data until you have all of the packages from your partner. It was fun to update the packages with 15 schools or thirty schools. It won't be fun with 132! Speaking of your pages - I created one for every pair of schools. I made a stab at your school colors. Some websites actually gave the colors - thank you! Other colors were based on what the school website displayed. If I made a huge mistake, let me know and I'll change it. As far as I could tell, I only didn't include one person's name in my "Dear . . . " introduction. Don't take it personal Laura.

This has been a wild experience for me. I never had this many participants! PLEASE let me know if there are any other mistakes other than the "Dear Peg and Laura" slip!

Have a great time with this. Now I've gotta finish my grades before tomorrow!

Clear Skies,

Charlie

And so it begins!

Okay, the partners have been selected. I hope I haven't made any huge mistakes! You'll be receiving an e-mail message by the end of Monday with your partner's name and address. Note, some of you may have more than one partner. Those are usually the folks who said they were sending 50+ packages. It's up to you to communicate with your partner school and set up any final arrangements. Be sure I haven't made any mistakes with the mailing addresses. If I have correct them with your partner. Also, I'm creating pages to receive your scores. If you have any images you want posted of either your students making the packages, testing the packages, or opening the packages feel free to send them. Before you do, check with your school on its policy for displaying images of student faces. If there are any problems, especially if you know that you can't send the packages, let me know, and I'll try to reassign people.

Clear Skies,

Charlie

Excited to Be Participating

We are glad we made it in by the deadline. Our 7th grade math teachers talked up the basic concept of the challenge last week. The kids were quite excited about it. It will be interesting to see who our partner school is. Thank you for your efforts in organizing this.

Another size question

I see that the 3"x5" meant minimum size, right? Well, I have some students who have some containers smaller than that, like a travel soap container. Can these still be used? Will they be disqualified? They really do not want to have a lot of volume! Thanks!

A couple of questions

Hello,

I assume the package sixe limit of 3"x5" is a minimum. Is this correct? Also, does the mass used in scoring include the mass of the chip?

Thanks

This is our first year particiating and we are very excited. We met yesterday and made packages to send out as a test run.

Representing the Big Sky state

I was excited to learn of the Pringles Challenge, and so were my students. I hope the represent Montana well.

Kids are excited.

The students are excited and have many ideas. This is my first year in the program, but our school has participated for several years. I will learn more than the kids, I'm sure.

Very Excited, too!

This is our first year participating in the Pringles Challenge. Our (Investigative) Science Club will be the participants. We are looking forward to the challenge as well as communicating with others across the country!

MrsH2003

Registration is Closed!

Greetings! Well it's Sunday morning, so that means that our little group has been created. Last year is was bombarded by more than 30 schools doing the Challenge. This year we have 114 teachers in more than 100 schools! I'll be creating the pairs this week, but I can't guarantee that it will be done by next Saturday. I have a lab report and test to correct, and grades close Friday. It's the first time I've ever needed a snow day! I'll give you until Tuesday to change your mind about participating. I can feel the enthusiasm in your e-mails. There is nothing worse than not having a school participate. If for any reason you don't think you'll be able to do this, don't hesitate to tell me. Because of the large number of schools, I had to change the map. It will no longer have active links to your schools. To paraphrase "Jaws," the police chief says to the captain of the shark boat "You're going to need a bigger boat!" Well, I need a bigger map! The individual yellow dots have become smudges in some states. I've placed the active links into the school names located under the map. You'll start to see the pairings appear on the page, and eventually you'll get an e-mail from me with all of the information about your partner school. Please make contact with that school, especially if I've made a mistake with the address.

Clear Skies,

Charlie

Cornerstone Academy says Hello

We'll look forward to hearing which school we'll be judging. Does anyone have an Excel spreadsheet with formulas already programmed they'd be willing to send to me?

Erin Cook

Hi, this is my first year to participate in the Challenge also. It looks like so much fun. I have 8th graders and invited some students to participate while requiring it of another class. How is everyone else doing it, as part of classwork or extra curricular.
RE: the plastic container.
I believe the formed plastic container for 20 chips will have a fairly high mass and a volume that will prove difficult to measure to 3 significant figures, therefore, removing itself from the packaging. So I'm letting my kids use it if they want. Inquiry, inquiry, inquiry

Packaging info

This is my first year joining the challenge with my students. Just curious as to how the kids go about sending the packages. Do you incorporate having the kids investigate the post office to find out how they can send the packages? I don't know myself. Can you basically cover any container with a brown paper bag and send it by mail??? I just want to make sure I am sending the kids on the right path.

cc?

Hello all!

This is my first year teaching 6th grade and the first year teaching in a departmentalized format (I'm not a Science teacher by nature). I do not know how to figure out cubic centimeters. Can someone help?

Pringles make a container for its chips!

The teacher I am working with on the PC, just told me that he is aware of a container that was put out by the manufacturers of Pringles. The container holds about 20 chips and is "form fitting", made of plastic.

Just posting here so that we might all ban this container, or possibly have it incorporated into the rules that they are prohibited.

Mike

Welcome!

The Challenge page had almost 500 hits yesterday! It could be a very exciting year. I'm using a new background map this year. The outlines for the states are barely visible, but the topographic features are modified. I hope you like it. The success of this project is based on your participation. Please only sign up if you know you will follow through and send the packages. If for any reason you find it necessary to not participate, let me know as soon as possible. There is nothing more disappointing than having a school send out packages not not receive a reply.

Please use this forum for any questions, comments, ideas! It will be my way of communicating with you, so please check in at least once a week to see what's happening.

Welcome, one and all. Enjoy!

Clear Skies,

Charlie Lindgren