Steve Runnels from National Weather Service, Springfield, MO

Here are some facts that we learned from Steve Runnels from the NWS.

J.L.

 

-75% of the time the National Weather Service issues a Watch when conditions are right for a tornado but no tornado forms.

-In a super cell the up draft is the storm tower and the down draft is the rain.

-Even when a tornado is on the ground, its exact path is unpredictable. Therefore NWS is never sure who is going to be hit.

-the NWS issues tornado warnings in polygons of the most likely affected areas. This is more specific than the previous entire county warnings.

-Impact Base Warning system created to include

1. Why is warning/watch being issued.

2. What is the confidence level of their prediction? 

3. What is the impact of the storm.

-The barometer drops suddenly as a tornado passes. This means that the pressure inside a tornado is much lower than outside of the tornado. But the pressure just a short distance away does not change much.

How did we come up with our robot

How did we come up with our robot?

1st-- We decided what missions we were going to do and how to do those missions, and that told us what the robot needed to have to do those missions. So then everybody went home and built a robot
that would work for the missions that we were going to do. After each of us had built a robot we looked over them all and talked about what was good and bad about each of them. That allowed us to combine all of these robots which gave us a great robot.

2nd-- We took that robot and built a 3D model of it in LDD (Lego Digital Designer). 
Then we could share instructions so it would be a lot easier to build duplicates of it.

Here are the instructions for our robot Rolla Regional Robotics Green Team Robot Building Instructions

Team Name

Every body with an idea pick 1team name you thought of.  And then we will say which one(s) we like the best

Project Meeting Update Nov 7

Hello Green Team,

     Good job everyone at participating and contributing to today's meeting at the library! 

      First of all, Mr. Steve Runnels with the National Weather Service, will be meeting with us at the robotics lab next Wednesday the 13th at 2:00.  We put together a list of questions to email him.

      I mentioned core values, but then had trouble remembering very many of them.  Here they are:

~ We are a team.

~ We do the work to find solutions with guidance from our coaches and mentors.

~ We know our coaches and mentors do not have all the answers; we learn together. (So true on my part!!)

~ We honor the spirit of friendly competition.

~ What we discover is more important than what we win.

~ We share our experiences with others.

~ We display Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition in everything we do.

~ We have fun!

Also, if you haven't looked at the judging rubrix recently, here is a link for it:

http://www.firstlegoleague.org/sites/default/files/Official_Event_Info/CombinedRubrics.pdf

Here is what we accomplished today:

We assigned team members to write up descriptions of our meetings with various professionals and post it on our blog. 

Brooke - Intercounty Electric

Luke - Lt. Rick Williams, City of Rolla Emergency Supervisor (that may not be the correct title)

J.L. - Mr. Steve Runnels, National Weather Service

Katie - KRCG weather station field trip.

Additional posts from Ryan about selecting our team name, and Nathaneal explaining how we developed our team's robot.

Brooke - organize tri-fold poster board

Ryan - Flyer to pass out with team info, tornado safety tips, and grab and go bag info.

Everyone - keep thinking about a team name, possibly a candy (lollypop?) to incorporate..

Presentation - 

Nathaneal - Introduction

Salesman - J.L.

Scientist - Brooke

Pig #1 - Ryan - no precautions

Pig #2 - Luke - relies on cell phone app, should he make it or not?

Pig #3 - Katie - prepared,  practices tornado drills, grab and go bag, etc.

Wolf / Tornado - David

We weren't sure if McKenzie will still be with us, so can still include her if so.

Instead of having just one person write the script, we thought we would have each person write a possible script for their character, and then mesh them together.   Bring this to the lab on Monday and we will take about half an hour to discuss it.

Items to find - labcoat, pig ears, tail? wolf / tornado costume

Think about house structure...

See you Monday!

Mrs. Williams

     This is a link to a website I found about TOTO.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/meteorological-instruments/totable-tornado-observatory3.htm

Below is a link to information about the number of tornados near Rolla with a chart of frequency and number of deaths and injuries.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArrVIKfXU9TndEl5UE5vN1JIc1hUVkF6T0FMM1dCOFE&usp=sharing

Information gathered from www.homefacts.com
(Contributed by John Lewis Koenig)

This link is a blog from the Rolla Police Chief relating to the Rolla area tornado from December 31, 2010.
http://rollacity.blogspot.com/2011/01/police-chief-chat.html

This is a web site from the city of Rolla about their procedure for setting off sirens. It also has information about tornadoes.
http://www.rollacity.org/emergency/emergency.pdf

This web site is from NOAA and is about using cell phones to warn people about tornadoes.
 http://www.nws.noaa.gov/com/weatherreadynation/wea.html#.UlLG0RrnaJl

David

This is the weather station box that I was talking about http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lthiery/apitronics-wireless-platform?ref=live

Dividing up the research...

Hi Team members and parents,

    At our last meeting we spent some time discussing our project and how we might divide up our initial research.  Here is what we came up with:

J.L    1)  Does Rolla experience tornadoes?  How often?  Have they caused much damage or deaths?

David  2)  How are people currently warned about tornadoes?  Where do the announcements come from?  Who activates the warning sirens?

Luke   3)  How does a tornado form?  Are there things that help predict when one will form?  

Brooke  4) Does air pressure have anything to do with it?  How is air pressure measured? 

Katie and MacKenzie  5)  Would taking a tour of a TV station's weather department help us?  The closest one would be KRCG, Channel 13 in Jefferson City.  Would talking to weather spotters help us?  Does anyone know one?

Nathaneal and Ryan  6) How many people carry cell phones?  In a town the size of Rolla, about 20,000 people, what percentage might have one?  Would one of the cell phone companies (Verizon, AT&T, for example) give some estimates on this? Is it possible to use cell phones to measure air pressure?    

Everyone keep track of these...  7)  What potential obstacles or problems might we encounter with this project?  

8)  Perhaps you have thought of something related to this project that I haven't!  Go for it!

Parents,  if possible please help your child find resources   Be sure to share your answers, research, links, videos, etc. with everyone using the blog rollaregional.blogspot.com

Please ask if you need more info.  I know this is somewhat abbreviated...

Thanks,

Mrs. Williams

Hi ___________ (something)  Team!

Hopefully everyone felt that today's meeting was productive, both on the project and for the board strategy.

     I just wanted to give everyone an update about what was discussed about the project.  Just to remind everyone, the project consists of choosing a community, identifying what natural disasters can affect it, choosing a problem it has in preparing for, during, or in rebuilding after a natural disaster occurs, and finally  arriving at a solution for that problem. 

       In order to make good use of time and energy, the planning team presented an idea for each team to consider along with their own ideas of what to pursue.  After some discussion, our team decided to go with that idea.  It was recognized that what we lose in being creative in coming up with what to research will be gained in time spent actually working on it, especially since we only have 2 months or so.

       The general idea:   Is there a way to use cell phones to collect data in a more localized area which will better predict tornadoes (direction and intensity) to aid people in moving out of the path of the tornado or taking cover, and then use cell phones to distribute that information back to those affected?  It was decided that our team (which will need a name at some point) will work on the data collection end of this project, and the other team will work on the distribution of that analyzed information.  This will be the first time both teams will be working on a project together, but on different aspects.

        So, to get us started, there are several subjects we will want to find out more information about.  Here are some to get us started:

1)  Does Rolla experience tornadoes?  How often?  Have they caused much damage or deaths?

2)  How are people currently warned about tornadoes?  Where do the announcements come from?  Who activates the warning sirens?

3)  How does a tornado form?  Are there things that help predict when one will form?  

4) Does air pressure have anything to do with it?  How is air pressure measured?  Is it possible to use cell phones to do this?    

5)  Would taking a tour of a TV station's weather department help us?  The closest one would be KRCG, Channel 13 in Jefferson City.  Would talking to weather spotters help us?  Does anyone know one?

6) How many people carry cell phones?  In a town the size of Rolla, about 20,000 people, what percentage might have one?  Would one of the cell phone companies (Verizon, AT&T, for example) give some estimates on this?

7)  What potential obstacles or problems might we encounter with this project?  

8)  Perhaps you have thought of something related to this project that I haven't!  Go for it!

I would like for each team member to pick one of the above to research or work on.  Siblings can work together if they want. Please say which one you are working on so we won't be repeating work.  Also, this way I will know if everyone is using the blog. Be sure to share your answers, research, links, videos, etc. with everyone using the blog rollaregional.blogspot.com

Happy Researching!

Mrs. Williams