Week 7: October 13 and 17

These meetings seemed to build on the momentum of the breakthrough meeting, although there were certainly moments of high emotion and lack of focus.

Some challenges are emerging as they try to integrate the missions, and they discover that clever attachments aren't compatible with the alignment jigs or other attachments. Being kids, they still expect their first solution to be the final one, and it always brings out the emotions when someone realizes that after hours of hard work, yet more hours are still required.

They currently have solutions for the cable testing truck, the pizza molecules, and placing the dirt trap. The stuck nanotip was solved by team members who took the model home and worked on it between meetings. Another team member has developed a solution for the buckyball/bone, but the team still needs to navigate the robot into position.

Three missions at the far end -- unstainable fabric, molecular motor, and self-assembly -- are all so close yet so far, as all the ideas to navigate to those missions are proving more difficult than they had expected. One determined team member keeps on working toward this goal between meetings, and he seems to be getting closer, but they're still not there.