Blog 1: Chatsworth High School Can-Struction

Can Struction

Judges Notes

By: Scott Andrews

President

Andrews Powder Coating, Inc. and

Business Sponsor and Advisor

GO GREEN! A.C.E.R.

Chatsworth High School Can-Struction Contest November 21^st 2008

     Judging has many facets. Competition judges are asked to evaluate someone or something as compared to a standard that has been set based on following a set of rules. The judge's job is to choose who or what has best addressed the challenges that have been placed upon them and award that challenge winner with a prize of some kind.

            The Chatsworth High School Ed Tech staff gave me the honor of this assignment at this year's first Can-Struction Contest that was held on the school campus Friday, November 21st.  The teachers of CHS Ed Tech developed a concept this year to test the students engineering and design skills, while also learning to give back to the community in the process. 

The Challenge: Create holiday themed, student generated designs. These designs were replicated in three dimensional models by using canned goods as the main construction material.  When completed, the projects represented a creative process that the students developed. They learned that teamwork that was necessary to complete the construction of their concepts.

            These Chatsworth High School Chancellor EDTech students have met their challenge!

            The overall winner of this years contest is the Zeldin Homeroom students who modeled a harvest pumpkin that was very creative.  The design was the best balance of labeled can based construction, while simultaneously using the undecorated cans to create the body colors and face details with classic simplicity. One of the best aspects of The Great Pumpkin was that it was better seen from a distance and through pictures than when viewed up close.  Congratulation to the Zeldin Homeroom students for developing a good geometric holiday based design that was well engineered and executed.

      Second place in the Can-Struction Competition was awarded to the Aviv Homeroom students for their Christmas tree.  The students decided that the large amount of green cans that had been donated to them should have prominence in their final design.  The Christmas tree was an excellent way to display the green color of the can while also getting the triangular shape of the Christmas tree.  The adornment of the wrapped gifts was a nice addition.  And if they needed any more attention, the students decided to go the extra mile of lighting the tree with small lights.  This was the beauty queen of this year's competition.

      Coming in the Show placement were the Salazar Homeroom students and their "Campbell's Soup Racing" depiction of a racetrack with race cars zooming around the track. 

     The finish line was accented with a can built pylon sporting the checkered flag waiting for the winner.  This was the hardest place for me to decide.  These students may have placed higher but they missed the holiday theme of the contest.  The props came from the fact that all aspects of their can-struction were done with cans.  The track outline was nice but it was really the creativity of the cars being built from cans that gave this display the edge over the "Corn"….

     The best concept design must be given to the West Homeroom students that decided to build an ear of corn.  This drawing was absolutely the best initial design concept of the contest.  The drawing was well represented in the final model of the ear of corn.  These students may have finished in third or even higher if the cans color had been used in the design.  The wrapping of all of the cans was a good way to develop the corn model but it was not the best way to use the color of the cans in the natural design concept.  Extra credit was given for the green paper leaves, nice job.

Skating away into the upper half of the field was the skateboarder design of the Bishop's Homerooms students.  This small design was very good.  The depiction of a skateboarder was really in the spirit of the design portion of the contest.  The design was developed with the use of cans only; this was a bonus in my book.  I would have given this design a mark up with a bit more size.  The design was really good and needed a bit more room to allow the full effect of the concept to be seen.  These students clearly understood the rules and with some minor improvement this one could have been a title contender.  Excellent use of cans only to create the design!

     Dole has nothing on these students.  The Pineapple from the Homeroom of Barnett was one of my favorites. 

This design was so immediately obvious from quite a distance.  The bright yellow pineapple was bordered by the rind of the sweet fruit and the great use of the green plants to create the top of the pineapple was perfect.  The outline was well represented but the body of the pineapple was developed with the use of yellow craft paper.  This did give the pineapple a good visibility however use more cans to fill the center and this will be next year's big apple. 

 Cluck cluck cluck.  This was no chicken little. 

     This was one of the better concept drawings that turned into a good final design model.  "Chicken" from Gonzalez' Homeroom was a good combination of the single height can outline design construction style.  This design was easy to indentify and this is what helped the concept work.  I was amused by the cartoon look of the chicken and the size was proper to give the right look.  This model was well constructed and thought out.     

Gobble it up.   The Brownlee home room was working the stuffing out of this turkey head. 

This class knew what they wanted as far as a holiday themed concept.  They hit that part of the contest with a perfect score.  The turkey head was complete with the red snood/ waddle.  Something with the scale of this turkey had me looking for the nearest ladder so that I could see the turkeys face.  I knew it was a turkey so you students presented that idea, but the scale made the turkey look a bit ungainly.  Give me more beak and step up the snood.  This was one of the best theme correct entries.

            Sheriff's Homeroom also was on the right track with their theme.  While not many people use a corn pipe today, the old ways of Thanksgiving would have included the tobacco harvest.  Corn pipes were used extensively during the early days of the country and that is what made this theme work.  It was a good idea that the concept drawing was prominently displayed over the model.  I needed to refer to it to give me the concept idea.  The pipe head was well sized but the stalk and mouthpiece were a bit too short to give the pipe the look of a real corn pipe.  Extend the stalk and this model would have smoked the competition.

     The second of the Christmas tree displays was done by a homeroom colaboration of students from the DeFranco, Goldnerg and Dunbar homerooms.  This display was on the money with the holiday theme.  The students clearly understood what time of year the theme occurred in and they came up with a good idea.  In the end this design was a bit short on the number of cans used.  This display did not give the students enough challenge with the engineering of the cans.  Use the cans to create more of the design and this Christmas tree will have a more stately standing in the forest of competition next time.

Native Americans have given us the Thanksgiving that we have come to relate to.  They really understood how to balance the spirit of the harvest season while keeping the conservation of their land in mind. 

These proud principles are represented in the Teepee can design that the Winter Homeroom students decided to show.  Again this was one of the best displays that understood the theme of Can-Struction but the engineering portion of the model was missing.  The cans seemed to play a supporting role to the creative artwork that went into the Teepee design.  Follow both aspects of the contest to allow these great art concepts to align more correctly with the underlying engineering tasks and a higher mark.  

     The second Pumpkin theme came from the homeroom of Josephs.  These students had a good theme drawing and this was obviously an idea that drove the class to a high standard.  Sometimes there is a disconnection between the design and the final product.  This was one of those efforts.  The design concept was not allowed to be best represented with this model type.  The thought was there, but the execution needed a bit more work to fully develop the original theme. In the final model, more face detail was needed.  Students needed to work more as a team to put more of their individual thoughts together to develop their pumpkin more thoroughly. 

     It was my distinct honor to be your judge this year. Thank you.  All students in the EdTech Academy should be proud of your accomplishments.  I was genuinely excited to come and review your hard work.  The designs were creative and the efforts were obvious.  All of you had to engineer around less-than-flat ground that also had a gradient change.  Some had more cans than others, but all of you did a great job.  The real benefactor is the charity that we have donated these food products to.  The fun of the Can-Struction is what allows for you students to learn while working as a team, but you have also given to the local community along the way.  For that, you are all winners in my eyes.

            Congratulations to all of you, you all deserve it!  Continue to keep learning and giving back to your community. It benefits all of us.

Even the local Channel 7 ABC News came to take a look! Here is the cameraman interviewing Ed Tech lead teacher, Amy Aviv.

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