Mission 16
Power the Village
Larch Hollow sits too far up the valley for the big power line, so it makes its own power. Give each house a lamp, count what the water wheel can run, plan a whole day of sun and wind, fill a battery for the evening, and choose the design that keeps the lights on all week.
- 5 parts
- 10 to 15 minutes
- Grades 4 and 5
Who is playing?
Each age gets its own version of the story. Any of them is fine to play.
Grades 4 and 5
A Battery for the Evening
The job: Light Larch Hollow's winter evenings for 50 coins or less, and explain why your plan works.
- Spare and Short With a PlayOwl plan
- Panels and a Battery With a PlayOwl plan
- A Dull, Breezy Day With a PlayOwl plan
- Inside 50 Coins With a PlayOwl plan
- The Hut on Pine Pass With a PlayOwl plan
For grown-ups: what this mission practices
One-to-one matching, counting and adding to a limit, reading a small table, and balancing a simple, stated model of supply and demand in whole units: power used cannot be more than power made plus what a battery gives back. Older children work to a budget, compare two designs over a week of weather and justify a choice.
- Ages
- Five versions, from Preschool to Grade 8. They are different designs, not the same task with other numbers.
- How it is checked
- Every answer is checked by rules the child can see at work on the screen. Any answer that meets them is right.
- Help
- Olly can read any line aloud, give a hint that points at where to look, or show one way. A report says where help was used.
- Time
- Nothing is timed. A part takes a few minutes and progress is saved after each one for a signed-in child.