Category Archives: Maker

Work that I did in Maker class.

Home Security 101

It’s June, which means that BlueSky has made its “triumphant” return. You know what that means.

EXHIBITION POST.

So, the exhibition went by pretty fast, and before we knew it, we were ripping paper off of the walls and tearing down hours of hard work. Here’s a quick edit I made of the chaos at the exhibition.

 

So with that out of the way, let’s start at the beginning. I’ll be telling this story through the LAUNCH cycle, because that’s the order we did everything in. We also did everything using the LAUNCH journal, which gave us prompts to try to help us achieve our goals.

L – Look, Listen, And Learn

This section featured a few writing prompts, including how might we’s, and also some world issue analysis. One specific prompt… prompted us to write about some pressing world issues, and from this, my project was born.

As you can see, I started researching and looking at home security. Safety and well-being was a topic that I still feel is under-recognized as a world issue, and my project was meant to change that. My first plan? A Home Security System.

A – Ask Tons of Questions

As you can tell from the title, in this section, we asked questions. Tons of questions. We looked at a helpful question formulation infographic-thing to help get the creative, questioning juices flowing. Ew.

The first step for this section of the journal was to make a chart of NTK’s, or Need To Knows. This was a chart featuring 3 columns:

Know – Something we already knew

Need to Know – Something we don’t know relating to something we know

Next Steps – What we’ll do to find out the NTK.

Here’s my chart.

The next, and final step was to make a timeline. Not too much to explain there.

 

Pitch Form

This was a break from the LAUNCH cycle. Mainly because P doesn’t fit into the word “LAUNCH”. But also because our teachers didn’t trust us (not all of us at least) to create something brilliant on the first try.

Long story short, I got rejected. Not fully, though. The main reason was because I am incapable of making a functioning security system in 3 weeks. So….

However, like someone going through a breakup, I bounced back, and a few days after, I settled for the next best thing: a Guide for Home Security. This was pretty much the same, but it featured myself, writing down my thoughts and home security research down into a digital book.

U – Understand the Problem and N – Navigate Ideas

I’m clumping these together, because A: I’m lazy and B: These steps kinda belong together. With that out of the way, U was pretty much the research stage.

 

However, N actually featured taking all of your research and plotting it out onto a post-it board, grouping similar ideas.

 

C – Create a Prototype

This section featured not only the prototype of your project, but rapid and live prototypes. Here are some links explaining rapid and live prototypes.

I created some wild prototypes, such as storyboards and mind maps. Here’s my mind map, which I used to try to figure out my accessibility.

H – Highlight and Fix

This is blatantly obvious. Revision. For my revision, I decided to add some minimalistic icons to my bland, colourless guide. I went into keynote, made some icons, and added them into my book, reformatting it so that it looked simple, but not effortless.

 

Launch!

Before we presented, we created interactive KeyNotes. These were called our Launch Portfolios. These are what we put our LAUNCH process into, like our blogs. These had icons that linked to different slides, featuring the L A U N C H.

As always, before we knew it, the exhibition was here. We (our group) was named “Home Products”, so our minds immediately jumped to home decor. Our group of Grade 8’s and 9’s set up decently well with the time we had, and soon, we Launched.

Reflection

There’s not much to say about BlueSky that I haven’t said before. BlueSky is great for practicing critical thinking, and with my digital book design, it really helped me work on my project design and my writing. I was able to kind of “find” my writing style, as I mixed elements from my essay writing (informative) and blog writing (humour and “charisma”). It also helped me figure out minimalism, as I think I did a pretty good job with the minimalistic design and formatting.

Conclusion: BlueSky was a pretty nice experience, and helped me work on skills I hadn’t really thought about before.

This is Jason, signing off.

Workplace Safety

  • Fact: Did you know that working in a wooded area can lead to tick borne diseases?
  • Fact: Did you know that kitchen equipment exceeds the maximum noise level for workplaces?
  • Fact: Did you know that a back pain is different from a back strain?

Hey everyone. It’s Jason and this post is gonna be about workplace Safety, our latest Maker unit. Seeing that we are all at the working age, our teacher and the curriculum thought it would be a great idea to take a quick lesson on workplace safety. Before I start, we were tasked to make one piece of media to show our learning. I created an info graphic to show what I had learned and to display it in a clean, well designed way.

 

Now, workplace safety is serious stuff. There are many hazards associated with many different jobs and occupations. Every workplace has its own dangers. For example, if you’re working as a dishwasher, the biggest hazard is cutting yourself on the knives and other sharp objects. If you’re working at a lumber mill, one hazard is the use of chainsaws and other power tools to cut down trees.

However, there are many lesser known, equally dangerous risks at every workplace. While washing dishes, you may cut yourself, but the building you are in might have been built before 1975, leading to asbestos. You may severely injure yourself cutting down trees, but there is also a threat of tick-borne diseases.

To fully understand dangers in the workplace, we watched a slightly disturbing workplace safety video. You might be asking, “Why I see it disturbing?” Well, it featured LIVE RECREATIONS. So while this woman was talking about losing a finger, it was happening ON THE SCREEN. However, it was still pretty educational, and gave us some great stats, such as 34 young workers are injured every working day.

Now, onto less grisly topics.

Many young workers are injured due to lack of instruction, even though they have the right to refuse work they believe is unsafe. The mandatory three steps for new workers are pretty simple.

Orientation: This is the introduction to the job. This is usually done in big groups and a PowerPoint or booklets are shown to the new workers.

Training: This is more specific, and the role of everyone at their different jobs is explored thoroughly.

Supervision: At the end of it all, a more experienced worker will follow the younger worker around and help them out, completing the process for training.

We learned this through a series of videos (thankfully not so grisly) that gave an overview of this whole process. We also took some notes on videos detailing the instruction process for other local businesses. I chose PlayLand/the PNE, and I learned a lot from their orientation, ride instruction and training, demonstrations, and the supervision.

Now, workplace safety was a pretty interesting unit. Yes, nastier topics like workplace injuries can be interesting to me, but I really liked this whole unit. Although I don’t have a job yet, this unit set me up pretty well, teaching me to refuse unsafe work and to have a sharp eye for possible catastrophes. That’s a big part of why I like this unit. It’s something that will undoubtedly help me in the future, when I become a working man.

The way this unit was presented was also pretty interesting (sorry, I’m using this word a lot). The videos we watched helped our understanding a lot, and it was a cool way to deliver them, because all of the training videos were from local businesses we knew.

Altogether, the workplace safety unit may have been short, but it was incredibly informative and was something I enjoyed.

This is Jason, signing off.

Time 2 DI

DI happened.

We got second.

Thanks for reading.

Just kidding. As you all know, after regionals come provincials, and this post is all about the magic of provincials.

So, after regionals, a lot about our performance changed. For one, we lost a group member. No, he didn’t die, but unfortunately, Caleb, (AKA Moses) was unable to come to provincials, so we had to rewrite our story. However, it may have been a blessing in disguise, as we smoothed out all the lumps in our story and it turned out better than ever.

For the most part, I’ll handle this post as I did the regional post. I’ll go section by section and talk about what changed.

Story

Our original story was about three good friends on vacation in Costa Rica, but because one of our characters was no longer here, we had to revise it. This was our new story.

Mee (Sam) And Yu (Amelia) are siblings on vacation in Costa Rica. They go to party, but Mee ends up contracting musical hallucinations. They go to see Dr. Martin (Alex), but he is not of much help. Stuck, they decide to move on and go on a jungle tour with Mr. Martin (Alex again), until Martin warns them of a witch doctor in the area and drops his map. The siblings take the map and go to find the witch doctor. The group is separated, but Mee And Yu find The Witch Doctor (Jason). The witch doctor gives Mee antidepressants to help stifle his hallucinations and the two siblings leave. On their way back, they get a ride from Martin (Alex, again) with Martin’s Cab Service.

As you can see, quite a bit changed with the loss of one character, which goes to show how important everything is in a destination imagination challenge.

Sympt-O-Matic

Now, for the Sympt-O-Matic, we took out the original drawings on the interior of the skull model, and we put in new, coloured drawings for the circuit to light up. Also, if you watched the regional performance, you’d know that we didn’t really have a stand for the Sympt-O-Matic, and it just sat on the ground in 2 pieces. We made soooooo many repairs to the Sympt-O-Matic this time around. So many that I need a separate paragraph just to explain them.

So, the biggest struggle with fixing up the Sympt-O-Matic was the fact that it was lopsided, so it kept falling over, taking a toll on both its structural integrity and our patience. To fix that, I went out, bought a big ol’ bag of stir sticks, and we attached them to the base of the crooked side, and that way, it stood up much better. We also attached a makeshift “hinge” by attaching many layers of duct tape to the back side of Sympt-O-Matic, making it able to open and close. Nice.

Double Vision

Double Vision didn’t really change. The story aspect stayed the same, but the stage blocking changed. Our idea went through a few changes, starting with draping camouflage material over a hook at the top-middle of the backdrop. This idea was quickly veto’ed, and turned into gluing sticks and other material onto a wooden base to separate the stage.

Also, sorry for the lack of photos. You’ll see everything together in the performance video.

The team choice elements didn’t change, so I won’t explain that, so here comes the day of.

The Day Of

We only had a month between regionals and provincials, and the progress we made was incredible. It was like we had separate performances rather than a revised performance. However, the day of DI came with its own set of problems.

First, the backdrop. I haven’t gone into much detail over the backdrop, but it was pretty much an 8 foot long, 6 foot tall wooden frame nailed to a platform with paper draping down from it. The backdrop was a big issue on the day of, because, as you may have read, it was 8 foot long, 6 foot wide. Not good. Our genius idea was to take it apart beforehand, and piece it back together on the day of, like a pit crew.

This worked… to some extent.

Thing is, we ended up SCREWING the backdrop together, and NAILING it back together. But, we didn’t take out the screws beforehand, so they were pretty much stuck. However, we were able to get hold of an electric screwdriver, which came in clutch and allowed us to piece together our backdrop, with the help of some counterweights.

After that, we got dressed, I got painted up, and we set up. The performance can be seen right down here.

We ended up placing 2nd, out of 5 teams, which was pretty cool. We took home a considerably sized trophy, and I kept my streak of placing in the podium.

Reflection

So, in the regionals post, I talked about how I wanted to improve my communication skills, and my god, we did it. Our Basecamp (group chat) usage skyrocketed and we talked so much about everyone’s roles, our progress and we were able to improve all of our scores and aspects of our challenge in the span of 2 school weeks (and spring break).

Something else I think we did well was thinking on our feet. Throughout all the misfortune, we improvised and got everything done. For example, Caleb (Moses) not being able to come to provincials – we got a new story. Backdrop was in pieces with screws in it – we removed and reused screws to put it back together. Definitely a strong point for our group throughout the process.

Now, I talked about the knowledge that I gained in the regionals post, and not much about the disease changed. However, DI provincials was as much of a learning experience as regionals. The process of revising and refining just helped my hone my revision skills onto specific topics (Story Improvement, Model-making). The knowledge that I learned not only in this year’s DI, but in last year’s as well will definitely culminate and make next year’s DI one to remember.

This is Jason, signing off.

What to Binge at 2:08 AM when You Can’t Sleep

What’s going on my loyal viewers, it’s Jason, and it is once again time for some SBC. Now, this week, we had a bit of an easy one, we got a free week. That means your boy can write about whatever I want. So today, I’m going to give back to the community.

You ever have those moments when it’s after 1:00 AM and you can’t sleep and you’re debating whether to just give up on sleep? You ever pull out your phone, tablet, or laptop and can’t decide what to watch? Well, your old friend Jason is here to help. For easy access, I recommend bookmarking this post as it can help very much with late night binging sprees. This is:

Jason’s Late Night Movie/TV Binging Guide.

Here we go. I’m going to start by establishing some categories for the movies/tv. For each category, I will give one or two of my personal favourites and also some other good recommendations on the side. The categories will be: To Laugh,  To Scream, And To Gasp.

Also, take into consideration that I am in no way a movie critic. I have absolutely no idea what makes a movie better than the rest. These are just MY PERSONAL RECOMENDATIONS. Are y’all ready? Let’s Start.

Movies

To Laugh

This section is about comedy movies. My favourite.

The Hangover (2009)

The Hangover is one of the most well known comedy flicks in the 2000’s, and for good reason. The plot line is creative, and the characters are played incredibly well, especially Ken Jeong’s Mr. Chow. If you’re a fan of just basic slapstick humour, then this is the movie for you. However, the hangover is a movie for more mature audiences, so I wouldn’t recommend seeing it if you’re under the age limit. If you finish the Hamgover, be sure to watch the Hangover II and III.

21 Jump Street (2012)

21 Jump Street has been one of my favourite movies ever since I watched it for the first time. The storyline is developed very well, and the characters are really what make the film shine the most, such as Schmidt (Jonah Hill), Jenko (Channing Tatum), And my Personal favourite, Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). Like The Hangover, 21 Jump Street also has a sequel, 22 Jump Street.

Some other great comedies include Deadpool (2016), Super Troopers (2001), Popstar (2016), and for younger audiences, Grown Ups (2010).

To Gasp

This section is about everyone’s favourite adrenaline filled flicks, action movies,

The Avengers Series (2012, 2015, 2018)

This one’s a no brainer. Anyone who knows what a superhero is knows about the Avengers. With 3 movies in the series, and a 4th one coming in 2019, the Avengers is probably the most money-making superhero franchise. And the thing is, there may be only 3 avengers movies, but there’s dozens of Marvel movies as well, so there’s a good chance you won’t run out of superhero movies for a while. If you want more superhero movies, Black Panther,

John Wick (2014)

John Wick is a great action movie, with a good protagonist and a clear goal. The movie keeps you on the edge of your seat, with fast paced action and great acting. John Wick is also very violent, so don’t watch it if you’re underage unless you want to get scarred for life.

Dunkirk (2017)

Dunkirk is very well written and probably historically accurate (I would assume). I’m usually not a huge fan of war movies but I really enjoyed this movie.

Some other good action recommendations are Logan (2017), The Equalizer (2014), Baby Driver (2017), Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017), The Martian (2015) And The Revenant (2015)

To Scream

This last section is about the perfect late-night binge, horror movies.

Get Out (2016)

If you know anything at all about horror movies, you’ve probably heard about this one. Get Out. Perfectly written with just a hint of commentary on social issues. The perfect ratio of character development and spooky moments with just a pinch of humour sprinkled throughout the movie. Great film.

Don’t Breathe (2015)

In my opinion, what makes Don’t Breathe such a great horror movie is that it doesn’t rely on jump scares, it builds horror with the atmosphere. The lack of talking in the movie and the tension in some scenes is a great way to scare the audience without using cheap jump scares.

Hush (2016)

Like Don’t Breathe, Hush creates an atmosphere that causes so much tension. Also like Don’t Breathe, there’s not much talking in Hush, which makes the actors really step up their game, which they did. The storyline is very creative and well executed. 10/10 would recommend.

The Ritual (2017)

The Ritual has a pretty basic storyline. A group of buddies go into the woods, something goes wrong. What sets this movie over the top is the execution of the movie. The characters are played so well that at points, you can feel sorrow, or fear, or remorse for the characters. Incredibly good.

It (2017)

Ah yes. What would a recent horror movie list be without It. Where to begin. It has the perfect blend of everything needed to make a great horror movie. A great villain, good backgrounds and settings, and a charming group of kids. This 2017 remake was everything I expected it to be and better.

Some other (underrated) movies I’d like to give shoutout to are Trick’r Treat (2007), the Stephen King classic The Mist (2009), And The Belko Experiment (2015).

TV

Alright, now time for the iconic binge-worthy media, television shows. Now, I’m not going to split this one up into categories, I’ll just give y’all my favourite and we’ll be done with it. Aight?

Brooklyn 99 (2013 – Present Day)

Brooklyn 99 is one of those shows you always hear people talking about, and with good reason. The characters are the type of characters where you’ll watch 1 episode and you’ll immediately fall in love with them. The storylines are great, and the premise of the show (cop show) is something so hard to master, but the producers were able to figure it out. Watch 1 episode and you’ll be hooked, I guarantee. Definitely one of, not my absolute favourite show.

The Office (U.S.) (2005 – 2013)

The Office is another show that’s become a household name. Now, I will admit, I’m a bit of a late joiner in terms of actually watching the show (I’m still on season 6 out of 9), but I love this show so much. The characters are all so unique and different, like snowflakes. The producers have found a way to make every character still interesting and take unique storylines involving all the characters. There’s a reason this show made it to 9 seasons.

Black Mirror (2017 – Present Day)

Now, let’s take a look into the drama-horror-thriller side of TV and look at Black Mirror. Let me just say, Black Mirror is the reason I’m scared of technology. The stories are just the kind of things that would happen in real life, from DNA Cloning, to parental supervision to the max, to murder museums, Black Mirror satisfies a lot of groups of people with its eerie plot twists and haunting characters.

Rick and Morty (2013 – Present Day)

Rick And Morty is the only cartoon making this list, but it’s absolutely great. I had high expectations when I started watching, and the show blew through all those expectations. The show takes adult cartoons to a new level and sets a new standard for Adult Swim cartoons.

Well, that’s it. Got any recommendations? Write ‘em down in the comments below!

This is (as always), Jason Guan, signing off.

P R I M E Comments

Hey, it’s Jason and here’s a bit of a brief post I created for the Student Blogging Challenge, and in this post I’m going to talk about some comments I’ve left on other peoples’ blogs for the challenge.

My first comment was left on Mason‘s blog. I especially felt that his visual was pretty well done and I felt that he had put a lot of work into his blog.

My second comment was on Zach’s blog, which had a very nice rule page and was straight and to the point.

commenting

My final comment was on Louie’s page, which I thought was well done due to the highly personalized rules. I think that it’s smart for him to keep the rules for his blog not just according to the general guidelines, but also the way he did it.

How To Comment

Be on the lookout for more SBC posts. There’s gonna be a lot of base rules and also tips for fellow bloggers.

This is Jason, Signing out.

Memepunk

Have you ever wondered why steampunk gets used so much in media? No? Have you ever wondered what steampunk is? Probably? Well, you’re in luck because your old pal Jason is about to answer those questions, or die trying.

darksouls1 / Pixabay

So let’s start with the burning question: How does steampunk affect current media. By media, I mean movies, tv, current trends, video games..etc…..

What is Steampunk?

But first, let me explain a bit about what steampunk is.

In my confusing words, steampunk is if modern technology had evolved in the Victorian Era. Expect to see a lot of steam powered machines and lots of exposed mechanics. Also, for some reason, there’s a heavy emphasis on the colours brown, copper, and maybe, sometimes, if you’re lucky, gold. So lots of metallic colours as well.

Steampunk In Media

Steampunk gets its fair share of usage in media, especially in movies and video games.

I think that steampunk acts like kind of an outlet for companies to use their imaginations to create huge, hulking machines and can also act as a way of making historical games more interesting. Steampunk technically takes place in the past, but ironically (I guess), steampunk isn’t set in the past all the time. Sometimes, it’ll be set in the future for some reason, which is what you’d expect from huge metallic machines powered by gears and steam.

Some examples of steampunk in movies and TV include:

Animated movies, such as Steamboy (2004), War of the Worlds (2012) and the short film Mr. Hublot (2013)

There’s also a fair share of steampunk TV shows including Going Postal (2010) and Sanctuary (2008).

However many movies and TV shows there are about steampunk, there’s also a bounty of video games for steampunk fans. Some of the more well known titles include the World Renowned Bioshock Series, Dishonored (2012), Final Fantasy (1994), The Chaos Engine (1998), and The Order: 1886 (2015).

Even music has been hit by the train known as steampunk (bad analogy). A variety of genres, such as rock or jazz have been affected by Steampunk. Bands such as Abney Park (1997), The Synthetic Dream Foundation (2006), Unextraordinary Gentleman (2004), And my personal favourite, Steam Powered Giraffe (2008) have been doing well as the steampunk genre has been holding up somewhat steady numbers since its birth.

After doing some studying on the plots and gameplay of the media (some of the nest studying I’ve ever done), I still stick to my main ideas. The ideas exhibited in the media I studied showed tons of juicy, steampunk themes. I think that the huge Neo-Victorian cities and massive, steam powered mechs and weapons.

Conclusion

I guess Steampunk is pretty much it’s own category in media. Even a simple google search on steampunk will reveal steampunk’s heavy impact on modern and past media. If you’re a steampunk fan, you’d be glad to know (if you didn’t know already) that steampunk is here to stay.

Possession is 9/10ths of the law

Alright, so I’ve gone over the whole “Identity” part of our trip, but what did we actually do on our trip? I’m sure that was on everyone’s mind while they were reading my post, instead of “Who is this kid?” or “What am I doing here?”.

As many of you know, I am Jason, and this is my official Alberta blog post.

So, in this post, I’ll be covering most of the things that I didn’t cover in my identity Video, so if you want a bit more info on Alberta, and specifically, one of the main projects we worked on. Check out my identity post after you read this post.

Also, before you read, I’ve made a little video documenting some of the places that I will mention in this post. Make sure to take a look at that. If you do not like EDM, then you can get out.

Just kidding. If you don’t like my music then just mute it. However, I spent a lot of effort syncing up the images to the music, so it would mean a lot to me if you enjoyed the full experience.

On one fateful day in September, similar to last year, at some undisclosed time early in the morning, 17 rowdy kids departed Seycove in the ol’ faithful Seycove bus, with their bags crammed under their seats and their headphones plugged in. And just like that, the trip had begun.

Canadian Pacific Railway

Along our trip, we visited several CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) attractions. The CPR was also a pretty big focus on our trip, as we visited Rogers Pass, the Spiral Tunnels, and most notably, the Last Spike. We also did a lot of research before and during our trip, including watching the CPR movie The Iron Road and watching some short filmstrips and documentaries on our trip, such as “The War on Snow”, which we watched in Rogers Pass and taught us about how the military launched missiles into the mountains to cause avalanches. Or something like that.

Calgary

We spent a few days on the road, staying in Three Valley Gap and Lake Louise, before arriving at our final destination, Calgary. We spent 4 days in Calgary visiting some well known attractions, such as the Calgary Zoo, Glenbow Museum, And The Royal Tyrell Museum (which technically isn’t in Calgary but we went there while we were in Calgary).

Beakerhead

But now, you might be asking, why did you go to Calgary in the first place? Well I’m gonna tell you.

You see, in Calgary, we participated in a magical event called Beakerhead. Basically, beakerhead is when a bunch of scientists, artists, and other people come together, and take over the city of Calgary, setting up various “Beacons” and “Pop-Up” events. Beacons are pretty much huge attractions that combine both science and art to represent something.

During Beakerhead, we visited a huge dung beetle, a burning man recreation, an up recreation (House covered in balloons) and giant tesla coils.

Through beakerhead, I’ve gained a better knowledge of both Science and Art. Also where else are you gonna get to ram into your fellow students in zorb balls for school? (Yes, we actually did that.)

The Art Of Filmmaking

Another focus for the trip was filmmaking. We worked on both our iMovie and clips skills by creating 4 short films/movies at various locations.

Obviously, you’ve seen the identity video, which was included in my identity post, which all of you obviously read, but what were the other 3? Well, I’m not gonna tell you.

 

 

 

 

I’m not gonna tell you.

 

 

 

 

Nope. Not gonna tell you.

 

 

 

OK, maybe I’ll tell you.

 

 

 

 

Hey, stop peer pressuring me to tell you!

 

 

 

Alright fine, I’ll tell you. Our first one was on one of the first stops of our trip. The Heritage Ghost Town In the Three Valley Gap. The Ghost Town is made up of many restored historical buildings, and is eerily creepy, due to the abundance of manniquins. And also the dental office. That was terrifying.

In The Town, we created silent films, which weren’t even allowed to include sound effects. Even though it was in a ghost town, it didn’t have to be spooky. Ours did have some spooky elements, but still has an old-timey movie feel about it. Take a look for yourself.

Our second was a while later in Drumheller, where we had to make a video telling the story of one of the fossils in the dinosaur museum using accurate facts about the fossil. Check that out as well:

Our final project was on our final day, in the Enchanted Forest, which may have been one of the creepiest places we went to. Take a look at the figures in our video and you can see for yourself.

Well, you’ve watched and enjoyed our movies (I hope) and you’ve enjoyed this post just as much (I also hope) and it is now time to cap off this post. The Alberta trip was definitely a great way to start the year and will definitely be one of the highlights of my high school days.

BlueSky

Hi there again. It’s your old friend Jason. In this post, I’ll be talking about something that happened a while ago, as most things do. That’s right. You guessed it. BlueSky.

If you don’t know what BlueSky is, don’t sweat. I’ll give you a quick explanation right here. So, BlueSky (Also called Genius Hour, 20% Time, etc.) was developed by the company 3M, and it’s pretty much when a company gives their employees some paid time to do whatever they want in hopes that it’ll benefit their company. This was later adapted by Google and Apple. This program has come up with some very well known inventions, such as the Post-it Note.

I could go on and on about BlueSky, and my experiences, and my prototypes, and all that stuff, but guess what? I wrote a BOOK! That’s right! So check out the link below to read up on that. I’ve written down pretty much everything I’ve written in this post, and more. You’ll find the LAUNCH cycle and how that worked out, my prototype process, and a lot more. Check it out!

Done reading? Nice. I hoped you enjoyed that. Well. That’s it. BlueSky was kind of the climax of everything I’ve learned in PLP throughout the years, or year. Revision, critique, teamwork, and much more. It really strengthened my skills I’ve learned throughout the year. I think the Star Wars Exhibition really helped me prepare for this, as I wasn’t nervous, nor was I timid and shy. I hope you enjoyed this post, and my book. Make sure to check out my other posts. Bye!

tPOLs

Helo again loyal readers. My name may or may not be Jason Guan, and this is my very official tPOL blog post. As you may know, I have a post currently on my blog called mPOLs (midterm presentation of learning) and now, this is my tPOL post (transitional presentation of learning). This will probably be very similar to my last post, as I will be talking about my work, ethics, and growth as a learner and how PLP has benefited my learning experience. You know. All that usual stuff.

Alright. Let’s get started by going through my PLP subjects (the classes, not like test subjects… although there were some of those as well.)

Oh Wait. My goal this post and in my tPOL is to answer the question: Why am I ready to move on to the next grade? So look out for points in which I try to answer that question.

Main Skills

The main skills in PLP 8 this year were presentations, still images and storytelling. In this section I’ll be talking about why I think that I have improved a lot at these skills that will be vital to Grade 9.

So, I think the project that taught me the most about still images was the Tempest Tableau. This was the  one project in which we really learned how to elevate and make still images tell a story without many animations. We were able to figure out how to tell one of Shakespeare’s works by using just a few poses and some backgrounds. I think the still images part really came from the backgrounds. We really learned what a background could do to influence a story since we weren’t really allowed to move, so the backdrops really had to tell the story.

Also, this was the origin to the “infamous” flaming beavers in our rendition of act IV. In the fur trading company. Yep. Get the connection?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oWCMY6vHVaM

Now, I think the project that taught me the most about storytelling was the feudalism quilt. We had to figure out how to use a still image to tell a story, while using one of my most hated art forms, abstract. *sigh* Anyways, I figured out how to tell a story well with just a still image.

Ah, Presenting. The project that really taught me well about presentations was the Exploration unit. We had  to act as crew members to famous explorers, make a comic, and present why we should be given funds for voyaging to not only our teachers, but also all of our peers. This really helped me with my public speaking and, most of all, trying not to talk unnecessarily fast. This might have been one of the most useful skills I learned, as I’ll probably need it for the rest of my life.

Humanities

Alright. On to my first subject. Good Ol’ Humanities. Humanities is probably the subject in which I learned the most. I had practically no idea what the heck the Feudal Ages were and why Portugal was so important in the Age Of Exploration, so let’s get into business.

Out of all the work I’ve done in Humanities this term, I feel especially proud of my advertisements in Oregon and Deep Cove. This isn’t because of how good my ads were. They were not good, to say the least. However (there’s always a however), this was really the main project that taught me some of the key PLP skills. First of all, it taught me how to use some apps that I would end up using for the rest of the year and probably further. It taught me how to use Pages, Notability, and an app I have mixed feelings about, Canva.

Also, I learned a huge skill that gets you MAJOR bonus points in PLP, revision. If you’re in PLP and you don’t know revision, watch out.

You can just see the difference between my first and last advertisements.

 

Yep. All revision right there. Now, on to the other side of the achievement spectrum, is the Renaissance. I feel as this wasn’t really the fault of me being bad, I’d think this was just a product of poor timing. This was right smack dab in the middle of DI (Destination Imagination). If you’ve either experienced it firsthand or read my posts, you’ll know what that was all about.

What a DI-Saster

Also, some of you may not know this, but this was around the time I had registered for the VYSO (Vancouver Youth Symphony Orchestra), which, if you don’t know, is a pretty big deal. I had registered late, so I was pretty behind. Luckily, there was not a lot of challenge as I play the oboe, which is probably played by 1 in 200 Kids in Vancouver.

Now, I’m usually not one for excuses, but I want to clarify that that was REALLY lousy timing. Anyways, I was kind of distracted for this unit, so I didn’t really pay that much attention, and that really came back to nip me later. My end project, the tryptich, was rushed, late, and seemed half-done. Not especially good.

 

I think that Humanities has really helped me develop the skills needed to “survive” in PLP. It taught me revision, how to use a variety of apps, and most importantly, to pay attention in class. As you can definitely see by my “excellent” tryptich. Now, onto a different subject.

Maker

alrighty. I think that I’ve had my biggest and most important projects in Maker. I’ve had DI (what a wild ride), and the 2 exhibitions. Those were quite the experience. I think it’s only fitting to first talk about the “horror’… Destination Imagination.

If you’ve read my crazy, incessant rants about DI, you’ll know why I have mixed feelings about it. In one hand, we did win regionals and 3rd in provincials, and yes, we had the chance to go to globals, but what did it take to get there? My sanity? My happiness? My emotional well being? Just kidding. Or am I?

Anyways, I think the main skill I learned from this whole thing was teamwork. We were all kids from different backgrounds, with different passions, and different work ethics. Fraser, Luciano, Kyle, and myself. This project kind of threw us together and basically forced us to work together. I think we all learned how to work together well, and especially how to work with kids that are CONSTANTLY TRAVELLING *cough* Kyle *cough*.

Then there were the exhibitions. Star Wars and Blue Sky. I’ll start with Star Wars. Of course, I’m sure you all know about the infamous posterboard. Yeah. Guan revision at its best. In case you didn’t know, I’ll give you a brief explanation.

So, my project for the Star Wars Exhibition was prosthetics. I had made a prosthetic hand model, which was pretty bad, but then there was my posterboard. Just look at this abomination.

Blech. Yuck. Dis-GUSTING. BUT… that day, I was roasted so hard that day that I was motivated to go home and make it not horrible. Now, look at this “masterpiece”.

Although I said I’d work on my time management in my mPOL, I still think it needs work. Also, I realized I had said the words “time management” around 1,000 times in my last mPOL, so I’d think I should probably find another goals. Time management was still a major issue in this project and it led to me having to rush many, many times through this project. Now, let’s move on to the final subject:

Scimathics

Ah, scimathics. I’d say scimathics is one of the least stressful classes. A: We get tons of time for each of our projects and B: We get pretty much entire classes to work on our projects. It’s pretty hard not to do good work in that kind of environment. But, still, I ended up hacking up not 1, but 2 projects in this class. Let’s go through my work in scimathics.

So, a unit I was pretty proud of was the first science project of the year, yes, the Massive Mighty Molecular Motion Movie (MMMMMovie). We used our time wisely, and we (I) also learned a very valuable skill: iMovie. Who do you mean by we, you say? Well, for this project, I worked with none other than the one, the only Mr. Emerson Chong. 

Now, onto the not-so-good stuff. First of all, Optics. Let me just say, the optics unit was NOT fun, at ALL. I did not understand a word of the unit. I did pretty good on the test though, but that’s probably the only good thing that came out of the unit. Also, I was an idiot and the biggest mistake that I probably made that unit was probably that I did not ask for help, so that was quite a lesson.

Now, a project that I had mixed feelings about was the Earthquake Playground project. On one side, we (Myself, Sam, Emerson, Jackson) did great. We did our presentation just as practiced and we only hacked up a couple of little parts. On the other side, we really had to work especially hard those last few days to get it all together, and, to add to that, right after Blie Sky, of course all of my group members were busy, so I ended up having to do an entire model on formit. Let me tell you, In our class, people don’t recognize formit  for being easy to use. It is absolutely not fun at all. And to have to make this in 1 night really sucks the energy out of you.

 Work Ethics and Improvements

I guess my work ethics this half of the year have really improved since the first 1 1/2 terms. Before, I’d sit around goofing off for half the time and I’d produce work that I wasn’t really proud of. Nowadays, I put a lot more effort into my work, as you can see from the 1 night model above and I feel I’ve significantly improved from my last mPOL. Even my mPOL wasn’t very good, and I’m pretty sure you could tell I winged it. I was not well rehearsed in the least and it did not turn out very well.

An area for improvement for me is probably also still work ethics and, wait for it, Time management. Blech. Even saying those words brings bad memories flooding into my mind. Ugh. Yuck. Even though I really hyped it up as something I’d improve throughout the year, I didn’t. Occasionally I’ll still get distracted by a notification or a message and produce low-quality work. That’s definitely something I’ll work on for next year. Maybe I’ll refer to it as just study habits or work ethics. That seems a lot better than throwing up in my mouth after sayignthe words time management again (a bit of am exaggeration).

I guess the main things I learned this year were kind of the basics of PLP. Critique, taking critique, revision, using apps, and paying attention in class. I do feel that I have successfully learned these lessons and skills through hard work and epic fails (the posterboard). I think that this has really helped me prepare for next year and the horrors of Grade 9 PLP.

L to the A to the U-N-C-H

Hello there, person currently reading this post. In case you didn’t know, my name is Jason, and this is my magnificent blog. In this blog, I write posts, some of which I may or may not be forced to write. Anyways, in this post I’m going to be rambling about what the LAUNCH cycle is and what it has to do with school and how it’s going to help me in other projects.

So, unfortunately, LAUNCH does not refer to actually launching anything. No rockets or space shuttles or anything physical. Just our minds. So before you get disappointed, don’t say I didn’t warn you. LAUNCH is actually an acronym. It’s an acronym for a simple method to help you with completing a task and/or finding a solution, more specifically, designing something. It stands for:

L – Look, Listen And Learn

A – Ask Questions

U – Understand Ideas

N – Navigate Ideas

C – Create a Prototype

H – Highlight And Fix

Here’s a helpful video to help you better understand the LAUNCH cycle.

So, the main project and goal for this unit was to create a sport. But, as is in every M. Night Shyamalan movie ever, there was a twist. We were only allowed to use 2 squash racquets, some plastic cups, string, balloons, and a wiffleball in terms of equipment. All this really meant was that most of our games revolved around hitting wiffleballs with racquets. So, not very much variety. It was still fun however. Here’s a more in depth analysis:

First, we started with getting into groups. Mine consisted of myself, Emerson, Grace, and Taylor. We then proceeded to research some factors of what makes a sport interesting and also what the public is into. We first did a survey to find out public opinions. We were able to figure out that the public enjoys games in which there are teams of 6 people or more, using multiple body parts, having the winners decided based on a scoring system, and games that are 1 hour or more.

We then figured out what made sports interesting and also what made them boring. Exciting sports usually weren’t very repetitive, were fast paced, and kept the action going, while boring sports were repetitive, slow, and usually have long pauses in between. We used this information and the survey data to create a draft of our game.

Unfortunately, I was sick the day we created our sport, so I’m not very familiar with the rules. If I’m doing a bad job, you can go check out one of my group members’ posts or check out the video I’m about to link below.

So pretty much, our sport is usually played on a rectangular field with goals on either side that were made of 1 piece of string attracted to two balloons. There are at least 3 players in each team and there are two teams. Each team has 1 racquet and 2 cups. The other players have nothing. Only the players on each side with equipment can touch the ball, which is being passed around. The goal is eventually for a player with a cup to pass to the player with that racquet and for that person to hit it into the opponents’ goal. There are no designated positions other than person with racquet, person with cup, or some poor sap with nothing.

Also, our sport was called LLAMABALL. Unfortunately, there are no llamas involved in the sport. Our budget was too tight and I don’t think llamas are technically allowed in schools. Or even in Canada as a pet. Here’s a short video that my teammates and I created to help explain the rules better.

Wow. Wasn’t that delightful. After some fun and goofing around, we played our game against some formidable enemies. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure we ended up losing. Here are some action shots of our team in action.

Well, I guess that’s the end of this post… wait… I forgot to say why this will help us. This whole launch unit thingy is a skill that we’ll need very soon as we tackle the terrifying sss…sss….SUMMER EXHIBITION. Make sure to be on the lookout for that post, coming soon. Ok, that’s the real end of the post. If you have any compliments, complaints, suggestions, or just to tell me I suck, go ahead and post it. Although I do have the authority to delete your comments and report you, so keep the hate PG-13. Anyways, I’m Jason, and thanks for sitting through yet another of my posts.