Huakailani Butterflybotics

Another butterflies never cease to amaze me proud Butterfly Mama moment!



Congratulations to Team 146H Butterflybotics! We were all so proud of the girls today at the Pearl City High School VEX IQ Qualifying Tournament.

The main goal was to have fun and learn from the experiences gained from our first tournament. As usual, when Huakailani Butterflies are involved, the result was so much more!  

The girls not only set the learning bar high by entering the door to the world of integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) but also learned many other important life-long skills such as...

- What it really means to be a team member ( No I in Team) and how each member regardless of skill or lack of skill can contribute to the success of the team,

- How to deal with disappointments and failures with strength, positive attitudes, focus and good sportsmanship,

- And strengthened an already strong friendship bond with each other, while experiencing about perseverance, dedication, and setting goals.

These girls began their Robotics adventure with me (a coach who is also new to the Robotics world) only on October 16th. We began this robotic adventure one step at a time from learning the basic names and functions of the robotic parts we would be using to build a robot, building a robot X 3, modifying and improving the robot after a frustrating scrimmage tournament where the claw fell off and pins & parts constantly popped off during each match, trouble-shooting & fixing the problem areas on the robot, lots of practice, practice, practice & even painting it. The girls on the team stayed (because they wanted to, it was not required) after school every day the week before the tournament to practice.

Drum roll please ....

I am proud to announce that out of 19 Elementary and Middle School teams, Butterflybotics came out in 11th place, just missing an opportunity to compete in the finals to participate in the final matches for the top position for the State Tournament in February.

Although they missed this opportunity, the girls sat on the sidelines and cheered on all of the other teams in the final with a positive attitude and were proud of their accomplishments.

Then at the award ceremony we learned that we won the "DESIGN AWARD"! This award is presented to a team that demonstrates an organized and professional approach to the design process, project and time management and team organization.



This means that our team was able to describe how we implemented an efficient and productive design process to accomplish the project goals. 

One of the primary missions of the VEX IQ Challenge is to help students acquire real world life skills that will benefit them in their academic and professional future. 

Each of the girls kept an "Engineering Notebook " to document how the VEX IQ Challenge experience has helped her to better understand the engineering design process while also practicing a variety of critical life skills including project management, time management, brainstorming, and teamwork. 

The team was interviewed by the judges where they explained their design and strategy. They obviously knew their stuff!

Our robot was also the sharpest looking Robot with a painted design. 


We had the coolest T-Shirts too! The back of our T-Shirts said ...



The icing on the cake? This award qualified us to move onto the State Tournament!

So Team Butterflybotics is on their way to the State Tournament in February at Pearl Ridge Mall. WOO HOO! The girls will be receiving their trophy in December.

In the meantime, there is no downtime for our eight energetic engineers! They will be participating in another Qualifying Tournament on January 18 at Island Pacific Academy.

One of the team members said it best, "We are tiny but we are mighty!"

The team has jumped over the high bar and are committed to jumping even more to come!

The Robotics Program is obviously here to stay ay Huakailani! It has already inspired one of the team members to become a mechanical engineer when she grows up! Another team member that absolutely loves art, now loves robotics more! Most of all it is great for me to see how girls who have listed math as one of their least favorite subject areas, exclaim "Now I finally get to put all this math I've been learning to good use!"
We love math!

GO BUTTERFLIES GO!


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What is the "cattiness" level in an all girls classroom?

A classroom of all girls? Anyone who has daughters or is a teacher has experienced "girl cattiness."

Girl cattiness = A lot of "me me me" and at the same time "it's not fair," and "everything must be the same" yet they know that there are differences, "she looked at me mean", "she talked to me in a mean way" ....

The sweetest girls can sometimes get caught saying the nastiest and sassiest things to each other when so and so is not their best friend any more!

So I get asked often doesn't the all-girl environment just ask for a elevated "cattiness" all day long?

At first I was not so sure what would happen because as a teacher I had my fair share of this cattiness amongst my female students in coed classroom. This was my first time teaching in a single gender classroom and was not completely sure how it would be with "girls only."

What I have experienced with my all-girl multiage class is wonderful! The key is the multiage... the girls are balanced out in the different stages/phases they are in. For example, a group of 10 second grade girls in the same classroom all aged 7-8 are all basically in the same stages - what aggravates or frustrates one second grader socially - frustrates the others. The result - Cat Fights!

In our multiage classroom, the ages and stages are dispersed from age 5 - 12. The result, a peaceful, calm harmonious group of girls. With most of the any minor issues occuring amongst girls in the same grade level. Interesting! The younger and older girls all help and support each other and that keeps good manners in check and bad manners out.

We have Friendship Circle twice a week where we talk about conflict resolution (how to productively resolve problems and conflicts with others) and have lessons on topics such as "manners" and " how to share" and basic social skills. Learning how to get along with others and to solve problems is just as important to learning how to read and to do math. That is why I incorporate these lessons into the Huakailani program. Social skills and socialization is so much more important to girls than boys. Girls need to talk and share their feelings. Our environment supports that need.

They all still get along great 95% of the time and you won't find that in any other classroom setting so I am fortunate for that. Lucky me! Each student although different in shape and size fits perfectly into the Huakailani Girl puzzle.

On the other side of the coin - some of you may say "Well - that's not the real world" but there is plenty of time for them to learn to deal with "the real world" later on. Kids have to grow up way too fast these days. This is elementary school and we should support our kids to be kids.

My job is to give them the skills they will need to be able to cope with and to deal with the issues and conflicts that life may present as they grow up. We do just that.