We did DI again this year, much to my dismay.

This year I didn’t do the structural challenge, instead I did Project: Outreach.

In Project: Outreach we had to take a real community in the world, with a problem and solve that problem.

My group decided on the trout population of Taylor Creek. The trout live in polluted waters and our solution to that was to create a hatchery with a water purifying system for the trout to lay their eggs and give them a safe environment so they might have a chance to survive. The water purifier would take in water from the creek and filter it into the hatchery and the overflow would go back into the creek thus attempting to replace the polluted water.

We began with doing research on hatcheries around the world and key components that a hatchery must have.

After some research we determined that what we wanted to do, by creating a miniature hatchery that would be inside the creek, has never been done before.

We then emailed a couple of local hatcheries and Stream keeper organizations to find some additional information.

After that we took the class trip to Florida. When we got back we began putting together our presentation.

Tatum started to write the script, which had multiple drafts and ended up being a really good script.

Ryan, Reid and I started building the props and background items.

For the main prop/impact prop we started with the idea of fake eggs to show how they would prosper if the hatchery worked. We started by spray painting it to give it a better look but the paint wore off so we used lead shot instead, that worked a lot but we never used that prop(I’ll explain in a bit)

For the background we started by constructing trees out of cardboard and spray painting them. Our original idea was to make them stand up but then we decided to get a shower curtain and attach the trees to the curtain. Tatum has a stand at home so we used that. I also grabbed some tarps from my garage to use as the stream.

Now for our costumes. I was a troll, so we ripped up a shirt and I painted it with brown and I wore old track pants that are a little short on me.

Reid wore a large parka and brownish, blackish pants and then he made a bear mask out of felt.

Ryan was a fish so he wore a mermaid tail, that Tatum got from the drama room, and a blue shirt. During our performance we attached trash to his costume to show the pollution in the water.

Tatum was a fairy so she made wings and pretty much covered herself in glitter.

On Tuesday last week after doing a project breifing(where we talk about our solution to the problem) Willemse and Hughes took us aside and talked about our project. They pretty much said that we carry out the service side of the project, which is true, and that they were a little disappointed with us because they thought we would get that done. Now I don’t want to make excuses but we could never of made a legit hatchery because we would need permits as well as huge amounts of funding (around $15000 worth)

So after that meeting we decided we are going to make the best of this and do an attempt of turning this around.

We started off by scartchimg the eggs as an impact prop and actually build a hatchery model because we were going to pour the eggs into the river to show that the hatchery worked but that didn’t happen so we couldn’t show that. This is also when we came up with the curtain idea.

On Wednesday, Tatum gave us a revised script with evidence that we didn’t actually do the service and we practiced and practiced so we could be ready for regionals, which was that coming Saturday. On Thursday me and Reid cut the wood so I could start glueing the model. It took 2 hours just to cut the wood and then I spent the rest of the night glueing it together.

On Friday I glued some more in the morning and then I had to go present at a teachers Professional Day thing. After that Reid and Ryan came to my house and we made sure everything was ready for Saturday and then we tried to finish the hatchery by finishing glueing but of course it fell apart. So we tried to screw it together without drilling but that definitely didn’t work so we drilled and then crewed everything and that seemed to hold together.

One the day of the tournament I woke up at 6:00(which sucked) and I got a ride with Robbie. When I got there my group and I went up to a room to store all of our stuff and we went to the opening ceremonies. Then we went to our instant challenge, I can’t talk about other than saying that we did really well. Then it was time to prepare for the presentation. Tatum forgot to bring the cross beam for the curtain stand so we went for a walk in the woods and found a stick that would work but it still wouldn’t stand up, so being in PLP we came up with a solution, grab another stick to use as a support to hold it up. As all that was happening the hatchery slowly started to fall apart. At first I just used a little bit of tap to hold some pieces together but then it progressed to more and more parts of the model and the entire began to look like a mound of tape. When it was our time to present we came in and just presented like nothing had happened.

Then during the presentation the curtain stand decided that it couldn’t stand up anymore so we had to hold it during the entire performance and when we had to bring out the hatchery I had to hold it so it wouldn’t fall over and look like this.

All-in-all it was a good experience that despite the set backs still turned into a good project.

Since we have been told that we are going to provincials we need to come up with a new problem which we can actually solve. We have come up with a couple ideas but as I’m writing this Ryan is texting me with an idea that just might work.