Names Section

Precision at its Finest

Are You the Next Fine Motor Skills American Ninja Warrior?

SWBAT:

Utilize their frontal lobe and muscle memory to demonstrate precision in completing several small
scale tasks.

I. Cognitive Ability

II. Muscle Memory

III. Small Scale Task Review

1. Slips of paper

2. 6-Pyramid cup stacking

3. Ping pong ball return

4. 90 Q-tip rotation

5. Tracing shapes

IV. Data Collection

Directions:

1. Create a data table to collect your results for each small scale task, including two trials per
group member.
[see example below]

2. Complete the following tasks as many times as possible in 30 seconds to demonstrate your
dexterity and prove that your fine motor skills are superior to that of your competitors.

Note: Complete in pairs, one completing and one timing.

 Katya T1 Katya T2 Nicole T1 Nicole T2 Mya T1 Mya T2

1. Slips of 29 30 20 21 28 31
Paper

2. 6-Pyramid 6 7 6 7 6 7
cup stacking

3. Ping pong 17 29 26 21 18 32
ball return

4. 90 Q-tip 84 83 53 60 43 57
rotation

5. Tracing 25 25 14 15 9 16
shapes

V. Reflection

Note: Each person should answer reflection questions, #s 4-8 individually. Each persons name
should be in bold and underlined before their answer for questions.

1. Explain the role that the frontal lobe plays in a humans ability to complete the small scale
challenge tasks.

The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that controls important skills like, problem solving and
memory. The frontal lobe helps complete small tasks in the second trial, by remembering the
mistakes you might have made in the first trial, and fixing it.

2. Identify what dexterity is and how it affects the rate of speed in which one can complete the
small scale tasks.

Dexterity is performing tasks mostly with your hands.If you have good dexterity, the tasks you
perform will turn out better.

3. Identify [2] variables that can affect muscle memory.

Two variables that could affect muscle memory, are repetition and doing it wrong. If your
muscles start to remember the wrong motion, you will be doing it wrong.

4. Based on your day I data collection, rank the small scale tasks in order from least to most
challenging. Be sure to include data from the data table to support your ranking.

Katya. B The hardest task would be the pyramid cup stacking because in that area the data was
the smallest.However the easiest task would be the 90 q-tip rotation because we had the
largest number in data.

Mya. G The hardest task for me was tracing the shapes. It was hard to keep my hand focused the
whole way through. The easiest was probably the cutting slips of paper because I made the
scissors slide across the paper so it would be quicker.

5. Identify the small scale task that you completed with the most success and explain why you
were most successful at this type of task.

Katya. B The most successful task would be the q-tip rotation because we had the largest
amount of data in it and the 90 turn was done in the quickest amount of time.

Mya. G The most successful task we completed was the Q-tip rotation. The group's numbers for
this task were very high.

6. Identify the small scale task that you completed with the least amount of success and explain
why you were least successful at this type of task.

Katya. B The task that I personally had the least amount of success on was the ping pong ball
bounce because I had a issue with the dexterity because I was terrible at the actual skill of
catching the ball.

Mya. G The task I completed with the least amount of success was the shape tracing. It was hard
to keep my hand steady throughout the activity, so my numbers were very low.

7. Explain what happened when you completed the small scale tasks, cutting slips of paper, and
tracing shapes, with your non-dominant hand? Be sure to include data from the data table to
support your response.

Katya. B When I tried the tasks with my non dominant hand the data shrunk and became a lot
smaller than my dominant hand data.
Mya. G When I tried to complete the tasks of cutting paper and tracing shapes with my opposite
hand. They turned out much worse than the same task with my dominant hand. For example,
tracing shapes with my dominant hand, I traced 16 shapes on my better try. WIth my non-
dominant hand, I traced 2 shapes.

8. Do you believe humans are genetically inclined to use one specific hand or both [ambidextrous]
or are they taught to use one hand more over the other?

Katya. B I believe that humans humans are generally inclined to use one hand or both because
when humans are born when the first pick up a object are try to do something with it they will
generally use their dominant hand so the can have more control and power over what they are
doing.

Mya. G I do think humans are genetically inclined to use one specific hand. Most people are
right handed, and are trained to do things with their right hand more than their lefts.

Nicole t1 Nicole t2 Mya t1 Mya t2 Katya t1 Katya t2

Slips of 6 11 15 16 13 14
paper

Tracing 1 1 2 4 7 11
Shapes