A lego house (valuation with like terms)

Hello, you are now reading another post about

We finished a unit about like terms and polynomials right before spring break. Our project was to use like terms and a polynomial in something for everyday life.

Below is my mindmap. In black are questions I had and in red are what I learned or answers to the questions.

Mindmap:

Project:

Me and my partner Alex decided to build a lego house and then valuation all the pieces. We tried to use as little type of pieces as possible so it would be easier to make an equation for the pieces. We grouped, for example, all the 1×6 pieces and then on the lego website it tells you how much each of them is valued and then we would add it up.

Below are some pictures

Curricular competencies:

Below is a picture of the grading we received for our final project.

Reasoning and analyzing:

This area we kind of struggled. Since also, some of the pieces we used weren’t shown on the website, I had to estimate some and therefor the final price we gave to our house was an estimate. What I did to estimate some of the pieces’ price, was take a smaller version of it, double its price and then take off a bit off my result since a bigger piece is like buying stuff in bulk.

Understanding and solving:

In terms of visualizing for a good understanding of what we were learning, a lego house is very visual. In a way we kind of succeeded in making our product easy to visualize and also the pieces we used were easy to separate into different groups to valuate them. Hnhmjuicx

Communicating and representing:

Our communicating was definitely not good. We mostly  did our presentation in the last 2 days since my partner was sick for so long. We could’ve used a bit of a notecard or something to know what we were going to talk about with more clarity.

Connecting and reflecting:

I think we connected our project pretty well to math. We chose lego, because both of us have always had a love for it especially as younger kids. And if you think about you can use quite a bit of math with legos so it was an interesting thing to link a lego house to like terms.

This project taught me about the usefulness of like terms and how helpful it can be to just group several terms or things together to simplify whatever you’re doing.

Well you have finished another post. Congrats. See you soon.

The Zookeeper (The card game)

Hello again, it’s been just over a week. This post is about our latest project in Mathematics. It was a pretty fun one once we started. The focus was exponents and everything related to them.

Mindmap:

As usual we made a mindmap at the start of the unit with questions we had, and things we already knew. However I wasn’t there for the first week back from Christmas break, I was away. So I didn’t actually make that mindmap until the end pretty much. But it’s right below.

If you click on the image, you can look at it in a bigger format.

Project:

Our task for this project was to make a game that uses exponents. The game anybody created had to include at least 3 exponent laws. It was a partner project but since I wasn’t here for the first week and my partner wasn’t here for the whole project, I was put into a group with Izzy and Jason. That turned to be a successful move.

 

Our rulesheet

 

My group’s game I think showed estimating reasonably very well. To win the game you had to have a certain amount of points, but you couldn’t use a calculator to know if you’d reached the amount. So when you thought you were close, you’d call and you’d calculate. If you went over, or under you busted and had to start from scratch. It was very easy for me especially after the first few rounds because I just memorized the results of several equations that were big enough to actually win like 9^3 or 5^4.

The whole project was also tied with a the curricular competency of develop, demonstrate, and apply mathematical understanding through play, inquiry, and problem solving. Since we were creating a game and then playing it ourselves and showing it to others, I think we met this curricular competency.

The fact we made our own cards for our game could tie our game to the curricular competency of showing mathematical ideas though pictures. To get points in the game, you had to make mathematical equations and estimate what they were right in front of you. So clear cards would help think it out and understand the concepts better.

I think my group could use this curricular competency in reflection, connect mathematical concepts to each other and to other areas and personal interests. I think this because our whole group likes cards games quite a bit, so when we were told to make a game we turned to cards straight away, or at least I would’ve.

Overall I think this project helped me understand the exponent laws better because we had severe allergies of them in our game and playing agame will make it easier  to learn just like sometimes a song will help as well.

Well that’s about it, hope you enjoyed this post.

Power is a wonderful thing (or is it)

Hello again. Today you’re here reading about my latest Humanities unit. The Power and how it affects us as humans. But actually though, the driving question was “How does power alter relationships between individuals and societies?”. Let’s get on with it.

Power

Book:

There was one person we most studied during the unit. This person was very controversial in Canadian history, Louis Riel. We read a comic book (displayed below) about his life. We read for four weeks and every week we would have to write a quick summary of what happened in each part and discuss it with our group. Between the discussions we did smaller activities about other people or things from that stage  in Canadian history. Near the end we did a debate ,with a very questionable winner, about Louis Riel being evil or good. I was on the side where we were making points about why he was an evil man. Personally I don’t really think he was a bad man. However we lost the debate because my good friend Emerson from the other side said what he had just said didn’t make any sense and sat down.

However we now know that Louis Riel is the man responsible for Manitoba Boeing a province. And his moustache is one of the greatest things your eyes will ever see.

The comic book we read throughout the project.

 

Animation:

Louis Joseph Papineau
My Power Person

 

Our main project for the unit, was making an animation. But about what? Everybody in the class chose a person important in Canadian history and we had to show how they had used the power they had and if they had empowered some people or disempowered them. To actually animate something yourself, you need to draw a lot. I wasn’t ready to make like 1500 frames for an animation so I used my lazy brain to come up with a solution. I asked my teacher if I could use PuppetPals2 where all the characters are already there and you can move them around. And she said yes. That was some good news. Any ways I picked Louis-Joseph Papineau, a French Canadian lawyer and politician. However his era was before Canada became it’s own country. He did live enough to see it though. The story of power I told about him in my animation however was the Lower Canada Rebellion. Being a French Canadian politician in a British colony, he wanted reform. May I add that this colony was Lower Canada where the vast majority of people living there were French Canadian. Louis Joseph Papineau was a great public speaker which took him far. The French Canadiens wanted more representation in the colony but Britain wouldn’t let them. Papineau kept pushing until eventually it sparked a rebellion.

If you watched the animation, I hope you enjoyed it and learned something.

Quick reflection on the unit:

I came in a bit late to the unit missing a few things about power but I was just in time for the project. It was actually pretty fun to make my animation, however I wish I put a bit more time into it. I was happy with my final result but it could have easily been better. I learned a few things on PuppetPals and that it’s a lot more useful than I thought it was. I didn’t use FlipaClip because I’m not a very good drawer and when I had kind of tried it, it didn’t work out to well. I like group projects better, because everybody can have their own specialty meanwhile in individual projects you have to do everything. I came out of the project knowing a little more about early Canada, and some key people for the formation of the country we live in today.

Congratulations you have reached the end of my post.

Good Night Ladies and Gentlemen.

Video Reflection

Helllo I´m back. This post will focus on my experience with video making. Up until now we have been making video after video in Humanities, Maker, and Science.

So far for me video making hasn´t been too fun. I haven´t really enjoyed it especially having to edit the videos. That´s why in several group videos we´ve made so far I´ve ended up as more of the actor instead of the editor. A few good examples for this past point were the 2 videos below.

Probably my best individual video so far has been my Identity video. I probably put the most time into this one and took the most photos and videos for it. Here it is below.

I think another problem, was that we had lots of requirements for each video and that made a lot less fun. I think maybe the teachers were a bit too picky for a video. But that´s what they´re teaching. I made a video completely separate without any restrictions with my friend Nik, and making that one was way more fun and somehow easier to make.

Well you have reached the end of my reflection about videos.

Oh No MPOL

Well it’s back. Mpols A.K.A. Mid-year Presentation of Learning are something that we do twice a year. If you don’t remember from last year, it’s a meeting with my parents and my teacher where I talk about some good things I did and somethings I can improve on.

Scimatics:

So far in Science we’ve worked chemistry and electric currents. I´m prouder of my electric current unit where we incorporated that into the Metaphor Machines project. Although a minor part, we had to make a circuit with LEDs and put into our machine.

However, the Chemistry Unit was harder in my opinion. The task was making an animation with two characters (atomic elements). I had a partner for the project, Fraser. And learning about chemistry seemed more confusing than the electric circuits, and currents.

A chemistry reflection

In math all we’ve done exponents as an actual project. We´re not done yet this part so all I can say is we were tasked with creating a card game that includes exponents and exponent laws. I´m with Jason and Izzy.  Since I got back a week late from winter break they already had a game pretty much so I have mostly just done like smaller suggestions fo the game itself.

I think overall in Scimatics I mostly just need to work on listening a bit more because i often find myself pretty distracted.

Humanities:

Humanities this year has been focused on the Canadian history. We’ve had to incorporate the video skills from Maker into several of our Humainties projects. In Humanities I think I’ve done a lot better than Maker and mostly staying on top of things. I’ve had a few slip ups like my Identity video, but in the end I was actually pretty proud of that video except for the fact that it was late.

I think honestly for Humanities the biggest thing I can improve on is handing things in on time. I think that the work I have done has had a pretty good quality. If I get things on time, I can get more feedback and try and improve on my projects.

Another project I was proud of was our metaphor machines. However I think I could improve on my engagement or idea contribution. For the project I did a bit of everything and went to where my group needed a bit of assistance.

A Metaphorical Revolution!!!

Maker:

Maker’s main focus this year has been making videos. Something that I have particularly struggled with. I have kept falling behind but now I’m caught up and I’m going to try and stay on time for the rest fo the year. Liked I talked about in my video reflection post, I haven’t enjoyed making all these videos. I don’t like doing it very much.

Video Reflection

 

Probably the best individual video I made so far has been my live event video. I handed it in pretty late and never got time for feedback. I kept telling myself I was just trying to improve it on my own time, but I really wasn’t. It would’ve been better to hand in something not that a good and get some feedback instead of having nothing.

PGP

This year’s new class of PGP has had a huge emphasis on goal setting. Which I understand to a certain point however I think maybe it’s a bit too much. Goals help, but so far my motivation has come more from like playing hockey or being able to go play some golf or basketball with my friends. It gives me more of a drive.

We were asked to read the book below, and I’m going to  be honest with you I found it very boring and I didn’t read it. I was given a book pretty similar or at least overlapped in a few things in my opinion but it was s more sport based. That one was less boring.

My dream board:

We were asked to make a dream board for this Mpol. Dream boards ar supposed to remind you what you want to do and keep striving for those things. MY dream board, I’ve got sports at the top. Hockey and socccer are the biggest part of my life that’s not mandatory. I want to keep playing as much possible and I would love to play college hockey when I get into university. Below, I wrote my boys. My little brother and my friends are what keep a day light at school. Without them life wouldn’t be to great. And it’s just good make friends anywhere you go, because they keep you entertained, and friends could eventually open new doors for you, like when you’re looking for a job and then you would return the favour. Below that is future interests. I’m still not certain what I want to study in university but law sounds interesting, and business, could be open lots of doors. And finally in the bottom right, I wrote down Fun stuff. If all goes well there will be time for fun stuff, so I should use those things as motivation to succeed in whatever I’m doing and have time to play golf with my friends or go to the beach.

Well this is the end of this post. In six months a similar one to this one will show up and hopefully I have improved my work by then.

Winter Exhibition, Psych I Dipped to Colombia

Hello I’m back with another post. About the Winter Exhibition I wasn’t at. This year it was a group project and I’ll get into more detail below.

Exhibition:

So, this year the exhibition was with a group. My group was the largest because 2 of us left. Jordyn to Jamaica and I left to Colombia (more on that later on). Anyways in my group was Kyle, Jason, Gabby, Jordyn, Fraser, and of course, myself. Our task was to create a story and bring it to life in a room. So get and idea for this we read a few different stories to learn how to set a mood or make the room tell a story.

That’s why we also got to go on a field trip to an escape room which was pretty fun. However it also had to include a bit of science. In my recent post about chemistry, I talk about my animation with Fraser. Well this time we kind of had to combine 3 group’s animations in to our exhibition.

In my opinion, probably my major contribution for my group was designing, cutting out and assembling the cash for our project. Below are the samples.

I honestly think I could’ve stepped up and gotten more involved because ultimately our story kind of got voted out and cast away. I

Now for the probably more interesting and definitely more fun part of this post.

Colombia:

On January 19th, about 33 hours before the start of th exhibition I was at the airport headed for Colombia.

I had a 1 day stop at the beach in Cancún and then headed for Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. It has an elevation of 2600 meters above sea level, the third highest capital city in the world. The day I arrived, my uncle took me on a hike up to Montserrate, a hill in Bogotá that goes up to 3100 meters above sea level. Surprisingly I wasn’t too exhausted and it was a beautiful view.

Probably the biggest difference between Colombia and Canada was sheer population density. There are 5 million more people in Colombia than there are in Canada and it’s almost ten times smaller. Here, motorcycles are for recreation, in Colombia it’s very important form of transportation since they’re a lot more maneuverable than a car.

In the middle right of the picture, you can see a police motorcycle cutting between cars.

 

When I got back to Vancouver it sounded deserted after Bogotá, where cars are swerving and honking, motorcycles cut between cars and there are street vendors everywhere.

However one of th highlights of my trip were some beautiful waterfalls at the end of a hike over to mountains.

Well you reached the end of this post about the exhibition and why I skipped. Sorry about the lack of pictures a the top but I didn’t really take any.

A chemistry reflection

Hello. Again. This post is going to be about my chemistry unit. Enjoy.

At the very start of the unit we were tasked with making a mind map with questions on what we want to learn in this unit. Below is mine.

Main things I learned this unit:

The main concepts we needed to know for this unit’s project were covalent bonding and ionic bonding.

Ionic bonding:

Ionic bonds on the other hand, tend to between a metal and a non metal. One of them is positive and one is negative causing an attracting effect because they’re opposites.

Covalent bonding:

Covalent bonds when two atoms share electrons in a most common example to hydrogens with one electron each will now share 2 electrons.

Chemistry Stories:

Our main project this unit was our Chem Stories video. It was a partner project and my partner was the tall man Fraser. To pick our partners we did a short activity where everyone got a card with an element on it. You had to try and pair up with somebody that would make your element stable. I got like sodium which had a +1 positive charge and Fraser got like oxygen with a -2 charge. So I needed 2 sodium to complete oxygen’s valence shell.

If you want to check out Fraser’s viewpoint on the unit hit the box below.

Chemistry

This was our finished product. Hope you enjoy.

At the very end of the unit, we were asked to go back to our mindmaps and write down what we learned in a different colour. Below is  the revised mind map.

Well that was my Grade 9 chemistry unit summed up. See you soon.

A Hockey Game (Live Event Challenge)

Hello there. Welcome back. This post is going to be about struggling to film a hockey game with an iPad.

You’re probably wondering what the video above is. Well we were given a task. Which proved to be a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. The task was to make a live event video.

To go into a bit more detail, we had film and edit a video of a sports event, party or something with action into a 2 minute or less video. Other criteria for the video included: incorporate an interview with a participant or someone there, had to have music in the background, and it had to have different angles, and types of filming (time lapse, slowmo, normal, pictures).

 

I don’t know abou you but when you watch sports on TV they have all different types of angles. They have whole teams of people on different jobs (filming, commentating, editing) and they make it live. They also have prime placing to film the games, and very expensive cameras and professional editing programs. I have one iPad.

My filming device

My first try at making the video, I went to my brother’s soccer game. This choice had way to many flaws I realized after the first few minutes. First of all I had no elevation, I was at the same height as the play. Second, you couldn’t really see what was happening on the other side of the field unless you were running down the sidelines but the footage would be really bad.

They know how to capture the sports events properly.

 

Third, I tried to capture only the highlight moments and no the whole 50 minutes. I missed the first few goals of the game. In  my plan, I wanted to commentate over the footage, but trying it to do live with only one person, while holding the iPad was a lot more complicated than I thought it would be.

Professional reporter with camera

 

My second attempt was way more successful than my first one, in my opinion. I went to my brother’s hockey game, instead of soccer. Since a rink has boards, usually the seats are more elevated and lucky for me this particular rink has several rows above so I could film with a lot better angles.

View of the rink.
I was were the red circle is.

 

For this game, I was able to get the warmups and the coaches talking. And from the point I was filming at, I could zoom in and out, and you could actually see what was happening in the game more clearly. I decided to film the whole game instead of constantly stopping and starting. That proved to be a problem later in the editing part of the video.

Hockey commentators. Probably the most famous in Canada.

 

I was able to comment over the warmup since it’s introducing the game but I tried for a bit of the game and that turned out to be horrible. So I abolished that idea. Probably my biggest setback, however was, I wasn’t able to get an interview. Nobody wanted to get interviewed and I didn’t want to interview any parents because lots of them don’t know much about hockey so it just be weird.

Editing the video was actually not bad. It was very time consuming since I had to cut a 70 minute video and put it into a 2 minute video.

Overall the making of the video was good challenge but a good challenge never hurt anybody.]

Well you have reached the end of my rant and you’re free to go now. See you soon.

Reflection Time (Week 10 SBC)

Hello there. So SBC just came to an end and this is the last post for it. It was 2 and a half months of constant blog posts.

My favourite of the 8 weeks was week 4, which involved emojis. I had a fun time using emojis to make a nhl teams quiz. I liked having to find emojis related to the name of the teams which proved to be harder than I thought it would be.

Guess the team with emojis (Week 4 of S.B.C.)

 

Final reflection:

There’s quite a few things I learned throughout the challenge. It’s honestly a pretty good idea, however I thought at times it was bit to time consuming. I enjoyed a few of the tasks like the emoji one and the everybody’s different. They were more fun to do than say, the non-copyright images post that was kind of annoying. Anyways I think overall the challenge is good for kids to teach us a few things about the internet and learn how to communicate our thoughts in a different way.

Below are the links to all my previous weekly challenges.

Week 2: http://www.blog44.ca/lucianos/my-commenting-guidelines/

Week 3: http://www.blog44.ca/lucianos/2018/11/12/non-copyright-images-week-3-of-s-b-c/

Week 4: http://www.blog44.ca/lucianos/2018/11/11/guess-the-team-emoji-version/

Week 5: http://www.blog44.ca/lucianos/2018/11/11/were-all-different-on-the-outside/

Week 7: http://www.blog44.ca/lucianos/2018/12/11/i-live-for-hockey-ice-hockey-week-7-sbc/

Week 8: http://www.blog44.ca/lucianos/2018/11/30/christmas-has-9-parties-in-my-family-week-8-of-sbc/

Week 9: http://www.blog44.ca/lucianos/2018/12/17/a-quick-coding-experience-week-9-sbc/

Well I hope you enjoyed my Blogging Challenge more than I did.

Luciano