The ultimate design challenge

Hello

today I will be reflecting on my latest project in scimatics the ultimate design challenge. In this project our goal was too make a 3D model that had at least 10 basic shapes.

in this project me and my partner dries decided to make a humvy which is a military vehicle which is like a Armored suv with a turret on the top. Since we were learning about surface area and volume we had to decide if we were going to make our model have maximum surface area or volume. Since the humvy’s are meant to carry troops we decided to make it for maximum volume to hold as many troops as possible. Then we got to work. I made most of the model with a few exceptions and dries did most of the calculations. This was a really efficient strategy since we had 2 iPads and instead of doing all the work by yourself and having 2 projects we decided to make 1 model with the both of us. Below I will show you the model that I made and the difference beetween my model and the actual vehicle

 

 

 

Now I will reflect on the coricular competency’s

Applying and Innovating:

I think that I showed this competency when I was collaborating with dries I think that I worked well with him and I think that we ended up doing a pretty good job, but I think that I still need to work on not gaming in class even when most of my work is done, I should use my class time to work on everything else that is due when I am done the assignment not game.

reasoning and analyzing:

I feel that I did a pretty good job on this competency, I demonstrated this by making at least 10 basic 3D shapes and I feel that I did a pretty good job with the model but I feel that I did quite a bit more on the model then my partner.

communicating and representing:

I feel that instead of doing some of the calculations in my head I should have put all of them on the page instead, but I do feel that I did a good job with the calculations but I will show more of my work next time.

thanks for reading my partner dries has a blog to here is the link http://www.blog44.ca/driesz/

Chemistry coding

Hello!

Today is yet another reflection blog post today I will be reflecting on the last project that we had in scimatics for this project we were asked to code a game using scratch that demonstrates the movement of atoms and molecules and show the Connecticut molecular theory in some way

here are some images of the project and some of the code that I used

 

 

 

Now I will reflect on the coricular competencies

Questioning and predicting:

During the project I demonstrated this by using my class time well and focusing on the task of coding the game I stayed on task most of the time I had troubles when I was done all the code and I didn’t know what to do so I decided to play some other scratch games to help generate ideas and some times when I thought that I was done I would game I will try my best to game less on the next project

scientific communication:

I demonstrated this competency by using 2 atoms neon and oxygen I demonstrated the movement by showing them moving faster and slower depending on the tempature of the atoms I also showed that when they get really cold they stop moving all together since they are frozen I used the

reasoning and analyzing:

in my project I showed this competency by creating a pong game that has touch controls and keyboard controls so that you can change the tempature of the atoms I also made it so that the background changes depending on the tempature of the atoms

thank you for listening to my blog post if you would like to play the game that I created then go to this ling atom pong

 

 

 

 

Star-Wars Exhibition 2019

Hello!

Today I will be reflecting on the Winter Exhibition my PLP class participated in; specifically my Blue Sky Project. This year all our questions needed to relate to connections between the vast Star Wars universe and our own. We had to have a driving question for our Blue Sky Project, so I decided I would ask: How might our military benefit if they could use Mandalorian armor? to solve our problem we had to use the LAUNCH cycle. the first thing that I did was the L phase, look listen and learn, in this phase we started out by making a mind map where we would take a look at our ideas and then try to put them into a how might we question. then we could move onto the A phase ask tons of questions, this is where we would ask a lot of questions about our topic and then we could take the questions and develop answers in the U phase. some of my questions were how heavy is real body armor? how heavy is mandalorian armor? can mandalorian armor stop a bullet? etc the answers were quite complicated to figure out so I will give you the short answers mandalorian armor is 46.5 pounds evenly distributed military body armor is anywhere from 1o pounds to 40 pounds plus all the back pack weight and all the other gear weight is another 80 pounds the mandalorian armor is able to stop a bullet if you would like to know more about that then look at the explain everything that is at the bottom of this post

I have always been fascinated with military armour, from the knights to modern day soldiers. Star Wars is know for having fantastic armour from the Stormtroopers to Darth Vader and Mandalorian Armour as worn by characters like Boba Fett. I liked the Mandalorian armour as a kid due to the way it looked really cool. When I got older I started to look into the deeper fictional philosophy and characteristics of deeper Mandalorian culture. As I did my research reading books and articles about the Mandalorians (Everything in the Star Wars Universe has extensive backstory and history) I discovered that it was claimed to be the strongest steel in the galaxy. Once the Star Wars theme was announced exhibition came up I knew I  could combine my fascination with armour with a direct connection to our real world. For my

For our overall class project, I teamed-up with other people from both my grade 8 class and students from the grade 9 PLP class. As we were broken down into smaller teams, each team was tasked with presenting a room resembling a designated planet from Star Wars. My designated planet was Hoth which is the Ice planet you can see in Episode 5 – The Empire Strikes Back. Other planets designed by other teams included: The Death StarTatooine and Endor.

As I mentioned, our group task was to decorate the room so that when guests walked in, it would feel like they are actually visiting that planet. I really believe our team did a fantastic job with this task. One of the key details to recreate an “Ice Planet” experience is of course, that it has to be cold! To create this effect, we filled-up large bowls with ice and then used fans to blow cold air into the room. It was amazing, the room was like walking into a fridge, I couldn’t believe how much colder it was than the hallway just outside. For decorations. we put up white sheets in a configuration that made it look like an ice cave and we had a projector screen  playing the Hoth scenes from the Empire Strikes Back for context and mood. I brought snow flakes made out of wood that we hung from the ceiling and on the walls which spun and sparkled to add to the snowy effect. In terms of the actual presentation space for our individual presentations, we made sure that everybody had enough space to set up their project while also having enough space for people walk around and gather to look at the presentations. As this is PLP, there are always multiple subjects and projects connected together, for the secondary Scimatics component, Three of us had to was make a “Mazer Tag Laser Maze” which we built to resemble an Imperial AT-AT Walker.  If you want to discover more about that project you can check-out my blog post about it http://www.blog44.ca/liame/2019/12/31/mazertag-reflection/ The two people I built the Mazer Tag project with were Erin and Indira.

Curricular Competencies

Innovative Designer:

I showed that I was a Innovative designer when I was trying to figure out how to make my suit of armor, I did this by making prototypes by 3D modeling what the armor would look like on a person of my body size so that i could get the proper measurements so that the armor would look right and be comfortable to wear. In order to do this, I had to take a full-sized set of plans, figure-out what the conversion factors would be to make it smaller and transfer all the measurements to a smaller template. I then took this template, created a paper model for confirmation of size before cutting and molding a cardboard costume.

Computational Thinker:

I demonstrated being a computational thinker by studying different scenes in movies and looking at different sources online and looking through different books to study and come up with solution’s to the question and to see if there was any real world application for Mandalorianarmor would or if it is just something that would be used in the movies because it looked good.

Creative Communicator:

I demonstrated being a creative communicator by communicating with the audience the night of the exhibition and interacting with them answering their questions with full sentences and explaining the process that I went through to come up with the solution to my problem. I expressed my ideas creatively with multiple styles of presentation: I used videos,  showed officialbooks about the props and fictional Mandalorians. I also presented diagrams with detailed comparisons of Mandalorian armor with modern military armor demonstrating the real body armor that the fictional armour was based on. I created a full set of Mandalorian body armorwhich I wore and I brought in an actual functional military plate carrier along with fitted armour plates for guests to personally pick-up and interact with.

For our project we used an app called “Explain Everything” that we were able to track the story for the LAUNCH cycle. Please click here to see the LAUNCH Cycle video that helped inspire us to this project

 

here is a picture of me at the exhibition

MazerTag Reflection

Hello,

Today I will be reflecting on one of my last school projects this year. This project was for a class that I have called Scimatics that is a mix between math and science. The project was based on Star Wars since our Winter Exhibition this year had a Star Wars theme.

For this project we had to study lasers and the pythagorean theorem, which is a math equation that is used for finding the side length of a triangle. These are some of the equations that you could use (a2=b2=c2 or b2-c2=a2 or a2-c2=b2). We explored different things with light, like the angle that light comes into a mirror, and then the angle that it comes out.

Here is my mind map from this unit.

We then had to apply these principles to our Exhibition project.  For this project, our task was that we were going to have to make a vehicle from Star Wars and we had to incorporate a right angle triangle into the design using lasers. We were then put into a group of 3 people, and my group was Erin and Indira and myself.  For our vehicle we chose to do an AT-AT  which is an Imperial walker. You can see the walker in Episode 5, The Empire Strikes Back, in the Battle of Hoth.

Janson_G / Pixabay

And here is our AT AT during the building stage:

 

We painted it grey and had dry ice making a vapour cloud around the base so you could see the lasers. Unfortunately in all of the busyness of setting up the Exhibition, I forgot to take a picture of it that night.

In completing our project, there were several core curricular competencies that we had to meet. Here’s how I met them:

Big Idea: I was able to present my learning of the pythagorean theorem and show off what our team built on the Exhibition day, even though we had some hiccups with stabilizing our AT-AT. We were able to overcome this and present something that we were proud of in the end.
Communicating and Representing: I was able to make a right angle triangle with 2 mirrors and a laser. I was able to calculate the length of the third side from the first two sides made by the laser by using the pythagorean theorem.
Applying and Innovating: My team and I were able to make the At At Walker and make a right angle triangle around it. We were all able to contribute our work equally and effectively in setting up our room with bringing decorations and helping others to fix and set things up.
Questioning and Predicting: I was able to work on my project effectively even with some issues stabilizing the legs, and some distractions from my iPad and my friends.

I was very happy with how our project turned out. One thing I want to improve on is my ability to focus on my work and avoid distractions so I can more effectively use my class time to make my project to the best of my abilities.

SBC Reflection

Hello again!

Today I will talk about the student blogging challenge. The student blogging challenge in my opinion was a challenge and a lot of work. It piled on top of my already busy life and it took a lot of time to do all of the challenges. Despite all of the work involved, I think that it was informative and a pleasant experience with other commenters. It was really exciting to see all the people who actually took the time to read my post and comment on it and I would like to thank you all for that. It was a really big part of what kept me motivated to do the challenge. It was also really cool to see all the different countries people came from using the flag counter. This challenge was a really big confidence booster to see all the support from good people. I did not want to even start blogging because I didn’t just want to throw myself out on the internet and then allow people to say what they want about me. So I think that the challenge gave me the confidence I needed to keep blogging.

One of the tasks this week was to say if I was going to continue blogging and the answer is I will. I will mainly have to do it for school projects because it is usually something that you have to do at the end of a project. I don’t think it will be something I want to do it for fun because I don’t think that writing something about what is happening is really my kind of thing. I would rather do a video blog and want to start a YouTube channel where I will post daily vlogs. That is different because I don’t really have to write something, I just have to talk.

All in all I think that the student blogging challenge was a positive experience but it just wasn’t my thing, so I would probably not want to do it again. But I would like to thank everyone who visited my blog. It means a lot that people actually came to read my blog from around the world. Bye