Homeschooling: Taking the kids to Shell Eco-Marathon 2015

Shell Eco-Marathon happens yearly, that’s what I found out when a fellow blogger commented on a photo I posted on Facebook. I know I must have heard of this event before, but I guess I must have had too many things going on that time I came across it that this momnesiatic brain of mine must have filtered it somehow.

Anyway, we learned about free tickets to this year’s event being given out through Shell Eco-Marathon website from Homeschool@the Fort’s Administrator, Edgar Cartera, so I signed up for it right away. It’s something I know my 9-year old will be interested to see.

Momnesia attack stage 1!

When I registered the kids, I registered them using Jay’s name and contact details. It’s been weeks since I’ve done it that I have totally forgotten about it until we received a text message from Edgar Cartera, asking for confirmation from those who will go.

I asked Jay to prep the kids because I was logged in for work, I was not able to take a leave and couldn’t just take off. I was just hoping that we would be able to catch the presentation before they close for the day.

Shell Eco-Marathon 2015

The good news is that it’s a yearly thing, so whatever it is that we missed this year, we can make up for it with the kids next year.

When we got there, we were told that they participants were still putting together their futuristic cars. We were invited to come back again the next day if we want to see the cars in action.

We considered coming back but the traffic we had to ford through going there and the difficulty of finding a cab from Rizal Park to SM Mall of Asia where we spent a few hours to wait for the traffic to subside were too much to experience two days in a row.

Anyway, the event caters more to older students. At the time we got there, our kids were the only ones who were not in high school yet. A lot of the things included in the exhibit involved touchscreen monitors and there were a lot of texts to read.

Younger kids will need an adult to help them figure things out and explain what the exhibit was about. I let my kids line up for the touch screens and let them participate as much as they understood.  We would supply some explanations from time to time, like the types of cities there are around the world, but what we really did was let them experience it according to how they would enjoy it.

Bright ideas!

There was a station where participants were encouraged to draw a car of the future based on their imagination. Pablo drew a robot, then explained to me later on that it’s a robot cop that transforms into a car.

Of course, no one will get that from his drawing, haha!

Lukas was not interested in cars, he drew a rocket. That’s the dream mode of transportation he and Judah share. They both want to go to the moon.

Mini Car that runs on salt water

Our biggest disappointment for the day was that the kids were not able to experience building a mini car to run on the miniature race track. The girl at the booth said they just closed and told us to come back the next day.

I saw someone post a photo of the manual, so I downloaded it and will just try doing it here at home with the two older kids.

 

Human Energy

My favorite station at Shell Eco-Marathon was the one that assesses human energy and makes an estimation of what type of contribution the participant would have to the advancing world.

Pablo was disappointed that he was a “Connector” because he sees himself an Inventor (which is his motivation in persisting with his computer programming lessons and video researches).

I explained to him that being a Connector doesn’t mean he cannot be an Inventor, too.

A Connector, if you sum up the explanation, is actually a leader, because he’s the one that puts together the right people to complete something. To be able to know who the right people with the right skills are, you need to have knowledge of their areas, as well.

Pablo was happy with my explanation.

Lukas and Judah came out to be inventors. They were so cute when they were posing for pictures that a couple of students requested to take their pictures, too.

See you next year!

Shell Eco-Marathon’s main event is the competition of 500 young innovators from 50 countries in from Asia, America and Europe, who created unique, futuristic cars that are energy-efficient.

Here’s a video to help you understand it more:

It’s sad that we won’t be able to see these cars run on the race track this year, but our kids are still small anyway. We can take them to see the cars next year.

I wish that next year, we can let our kids watch some of the teams put together their cars. We did get a chance to observe a couple of groups from the distance and saw some of the cars on exhibit but we weren’t allowed to go nearer.

It would have been fantastic for Pablo to see how they do the wiring and everything else that they were doing, after all, he’s figured out how to make a functional toy gun using his lego bricks and rubber bands and recently, he made a slider.

This is a video of him demonstrating his slider:

http://youtu.be/PZxdrS0SxR0

These things may not be much right now, he’s only 9 after all, but he dreams of coming up with an invention that will change the world someday.

In the cab, all the way to SM Mall of Asia where we had dinner, I told him about Google X and the many inventions that are being funded by Google and he was really interested.

He was fascinated with idea of the Hoverboard but he and Lukas couldn’t believe about the elevator that will go all the way into space.

Overall, I think it’s an event worth taking the kids to, if not for the comprehension, at least for the exposure. I’m a big believer of raising kids for the future, and it all starts by showing them what they can be capable of doing.

If you want to see more pictures, I posted them on Fully Housewifed Facebook page.