Personal Narrative: Swiper Go Swiping
Swiper Go Swiping
“Okay find your launcher and car and then set it up behind the blue line,” the event supervisor instructed, pointing us to a small closet. It was State for Science Olympiad, and my partner and I were placed on the event Scrambler. Scrambler was a physics based event where you had an Egg Transport Vehicle (ETV), and a launcher. To put it simply, an uncooked egg would be tapped onto the front of the ETV and then launched at a wall anywhere from nine to twelve meters away. The goal is to go the furthest distance without hitting the wall, while going as straight and as fast as possible. This was my second year on the event (the first year on the event was an utter failure), and my partner Burgundy's first year for Science Olympiad in general. But in order to even test the darn thing, we had to find it first. …show more content…
Combining my handy dandy backwards marching skills and her directing me which way to go skills, we managed to come out with us and Swiper unscathed. After carefully placing Swiper down on the blue line, we checked to see if everything was in order. “Ugh, Houston, I think we may have a problem,” I whispered to my partner.
“What? What’s the problem?” she whispered back.
“I thiiink the launching mechanism is illegal. You know how we have to hold the launching mechanism? Yeah umm...it needs to stand on its own.”
“You have got to be kidding me...we didn’t notice that AT ALL???”
“Well, at least we caught it,” I sighed. Luckily, we could still do minor adjustments. After a quick panic, the gears in our head started turning. Then, like a sack of bricks, it hit us, “wait you thinkin what I’m thinkin?” Burgundy asked.
“I’m hungry?”
Burgundy shot me a look and sighed, “Dude…just no.”
“Kidding kidding,” I laughed, “Well...we’ve got a shelf on the top. We could probably just push the weight off the shelf to start the pulley system. It won’t go as fast but it’ll be
“Okay find your launcher and car and then set it up behind the blue line,” the event supervisor instructed, pointing us to a small closet. It was State for Science Olympiad, and my partner and I were placed on the event Scrambler. Scrambler was a physics based event where you had an Egg Transport Vehicle (ETV), and a launcher. To put it simply, an uncooked egg would be tapped onto the front of the ETV and then launched at a wall anywhere from nine to twelve meters away. The goal is to go the furthest distance without hitting the wall, while going as straight and as fast as possible. This was my second year on the event (the first year on the event was an utter failure), and my partner Burgundy's first year for Science Olympiad in general. But in order to even test the darn thing, we had to find it first. …show more content…
Combining my handy dandy backwards marching skills and her directing me which way to go skills, we managed to come out with us and Swiper unscathed. After carefully placing Swiper down on the blue line, we checked to see if everything was in order. “Ugh, Houston, I think we may have a problem,” I whispered to my partner.
“What? What’s the problem?” she whispered back.
“I thiiink the launching mechanism is illegal. You know how we have to hold the launching mechanism? Yeah umm...it needs to stand on its own.”
“You have got to be kidding me...we didn’t notice that AT ALL???”
“Well, at least we caught it,” I sighed. Luckily, we could still do minor adjustments. After a quick panic, the gears in our head started turning. Then, like a sack of bricks, it hit us, “wait you thinkin what I’m thinkin?” Burgundy asked.
“I’m hungry?”
Burgundy shot me a look and sighed, “Dude…just no.”
“Kidding kidding,” I laughed, “Well...we’ve got a shelf on the top. We could probably just push the weight off the shelf to start the pulley system. It won’t go as fast but it’ll be