The ultimate design challenge

For the past month and a bit my class and I have been working on a project about surface area and volume that we called The Ultimate Design Challenge. You might be thinking how can you make a project about surface area and volume, we had a group of 3 people and we had to design and 3-D print an object. We had to calculate surface area and volume and aim towards one more than the other. We had to come up with a couple ideas before we got into groups my ideas were a mini home a pool or maybe a suitcase. After that we got into groups of 3 or less my group members were  Amy and Kate you can go check out their  blogs if you want. After consulting with my group we decided to redesign a plane bathroom because nobody likes plane bathrooms and they are so small. 

These are my ideas

My group and i created a 3D design of a airplane bathroom the bathroom was meant to get maximum volume and minimal surface area, we each made different parts of the bathroom I made a mirror and the room Amy made the sink and Kate made the toilet. We made all the calculations that we needed, for the toilet we were going for maximum volume but it didn’t get there the toilet looked good but it didn’t meet the expectations this was because we used more long skinny objects rather than wide fat objects, the sink was also going for maximum volume but it also didn’t meet the expectations the sink ended up with more surface area than volume like the toilet we used to many long and skinny objects that have more surface area than volume, lastly the room and the mirror the bathroom was going for maximum volume and this did happen but only by a little bit the volume and area numbers were very similar but it did work, the mirror was going for maximum surface area and in the end it did get there and I was really happy with it. 

Competencies

For this project we were working with 3 competencies reasoning and analyzing, applying and innovating, and lastly communications. I am going to write a short paragraph explaining how I used them what I did good and what I can improve on. 

Analyzing and Reasoning

This means model mathematics in contextualized experiences I used this a ton because we had to understand and study the formulas of volume and surface area. I believe that I can improve on this skill because I didn’t really try my hardest to understand the math and what it is used for but I did apply this well into my project. 

Applying and Innovating 

This means to contribute care for self, others, community, and world through personal or collaborative approaches this is a very important competency for this project because we were working in groups and we had to work well together to get the best final product. I believe I portrayed this well I worked well with my team and we all gave good advice to one another so that we all loved what we made and were proud of it as a team. 

Communicating and Representing 

We had to explained and justify mathematical ideas and decisions I think I did this well but only in the presentation that we did after we had finished the project. We had to present our final project to the class and explain how we got there using our ultimate goal, what we needed to do to get there, and what mathematic equations we used in the end to get there. 

Thanks for reading my post I hope you enjoyed my 3D creation of an airplane bathroom 🧡

Hi everyone since January I have been practicing for a competition called Destination Imagination aka DI, DI is a competition focused on young people learning and having fun. There are 5 categories that my program (PLP) was competing in Engineering, Improv, Technical, fine arts, and Science I was in the improv group. All of the groups had a different challenge to solve we had to come up with a skit on the spot including sound affects, a villains power, a underwhelming hero power, and a conundrum. We don’t know what the conundrum, hero power, or what the villain power is until the presentation time. 

The Challenge

The skit can has to be 5 mins and no longer and we have 2 minutes of prep time we learn the conundrum and the villain power when the 2 minute prep time starts then we learn the underwhelming power sometime in the skit, You can’t have costumes, you cant use props, you can’t do anything that is a safety concern (falling, dangerous action, anything that could possibly result in an injury). 

Requirements 

The skit must include a sound box with a lid, a villain power that causes a conundrum and an underwhelming hero power that must be included in the play but doesn’t have to fix the conundrum, as soon as you pick up the underwhelming power you have to use or you get disqualified. The skit must include sound from the sound keeper to help the story line. 

Score

If you would like to know what we were being marked on and what the maximum amount of points available i have a list of them below

Conundrum 

Integration of conundrum into skit- 25

Creative portrayal of conundrum- 25

total- 50

Underwhelming power

Effective portrayal of power- 15

Creative use of power- 20

Integration of power in the skit- 15

Total- 50

Villain power

Creative use of power- 20

Effective use of power- 15

Integration of power in skit- 15

Total- 50

Skit

Creativity of the skit- 20

Clear and effective storyline – 20

total- 40

Teamwork 

Overall teamwork- 30

total- 30

Sound effects 

Variety of sound effects- 10

Creative use of sound effects- 20 

Integration of sound effects into skit- 30

total- 60

Overall presentation- 30

Final raw score- 310

My experience 

In DI there is so much preparation you have to do since I am in improve I don’t have as much prep but I do need to practice and write all of the forms. I did have to study all the rules and make sure I understood what had to be done to get a good final score. For practice we had some grade 11’s who had gone through DI write some conundrums and powers so we could practice making improv skits in use in all of the required elements. I had a group of 4 other people Nya, Amy, Cam, and Simon we all have very different talents and that is helpful because we can use our talents to make creative skits. Here is a video of our final performance

On the final day of DI we were very nervous and had some tough competition to compete against. When the time came that we had to present we got to the room we were assigned to and waited for them to introduce my group then they call out our conundrum (school doesn’t let out for summer) and the villain power (telekinesis) it was a hard one but I think we did really well I was very proud of what we presented. When we presented we were all confident we projected our voices well we didn’t use the sound as much as I wanted but I think we followed our story line and we were all proud of what we did. Some things we could improve on are the sound and our teamwork we thought we did well in the team work but the judges didn’t see our teamwork as much as we thought we presented. In the end the judges said we got an average score we got 144/300 it doesn’t sound like much but we were proud of this score. 

Thanks for reading my post I hope you enjoyed reading my experience of DI 🧡

Hello everyone 

For a month and a bit my class and I have been working on a project about the renaissance and changes in our life. The final product that would come out of this project is a parody of it’s the end of our world as we know it and the parody is about our transition from elementary school to high school. We all wrote our own songs then got into groups of 3 to combine our songs and record ourselves singing the song in garage band. My group was with Sophia and Nya we combined our 3 songs and each sang a verse to go with the song we also had to make a slide show with pictures of us in 6th grade, 7th grade, and 8th grade.

  

Driving question

who or what challenged my world view from elementary to high school? We have a driving question for every project that we do, the question is what we are trying to answer and understand throughout the entire project. The question we used was pretty specific but it does require a lot of thinking and detail answer it. My teacher created a very creative way of answering the question, we had to create and sing a song about our experiences and what has changed our world view. 

Milestone 1

The first milestone we did was making a mind note about our world view but not about the world technically it was supposed to be about our view of high school and what we thought was coming for us. The mind note had to have 7 branches with the aspects of world view on them- beliefs, knowledge, time, geography, economy, values, and society we had to add 3-4 branches off of those to explain our view of the aspects. the point of this milestone was to help with our lyrics of the song we would make later and they helped me a lot. 

Milestone 2

Before you create a song with a group you should always think of your own ideas first and that is exactly what we did, our task for milestone 2 was to make lyrics for an individual song we had a template of lyrics from the song it’s the end of the world to help us create our own version. when I was creating my song lyrics I had to look at my mind note so I could have a reference of what to write. The song had to answer the driving question and make a little bit of sense. After we finished writing the song lyrics we showed them to a classmate who would help make the song better and make sure it answers the driving question. 

 

Milestone 3

Milestone 3 was continuing milestone 2 we had to sing our song that we had written and revised a couple times. When I first herd that we were singing I was kind of scared because I love singing but I hate letting other people hear me sing but in the end you got to choose who was listening to your voice. We had a track made for us already, I had to put the track in garage then record myself over the music, when I was recording myself i was a little off beat and a little slow while I was singing but overall I think it was pretty good. 

Milestone 4

This milestone was more about the renaissance than about the song, our task was to make a small presentation of the cause and consequence of the renaissance we had to choose a topic with our song group to research about. My group chose to research and present about art we created a small keynote with pictures and different topics. Our slides talked about the artists some famous art from the renaissance and how it influences art today. 

check out my slide show Renaissance Art

Milestone 5

Milestone 5 was the last thing we had to do that involved the song. We got into groups of 3 my group was with Nya and Sophia we all took parts of our song and created a new one, we divided up the verses between us and all sang the chorus. When the song is finished we did a small peer critique with another group for some constructive criticism. After we finished the song we created a small slide show of pictures of us in grade 7-8 to go with our song. 

Milestone 6 

milestone 6 Is present and reflect we had to hand in our final song and video for our teacher to mark and to show to the rest of the class. I was really proud of our song and video but I was nervous to show it to the class. All of the songs were cool to listen to and I love seeing the pictures of everyone, in the end showing the song to everyone wasn’t as bad as I thought and I think our song turned out really well. 

Competencies 

We worked with 2 competencies and I will talk about how I used them in my project. 

Create

in this project we had to use this competency a ton because we had to create a very creative song and make it describe how our transition from elementary to high school challenged our world view. I think I successfully used this competency in my project I created a song which is a very hard thing to do and I also made it sound good as a song as well. 

Cause and Consequence

This competency is pretty much part of our driving question, what happened during the transition and what was the consequence. I don’t think I used this competency as much as I used create but I think I did well incorporating it into my song and the whole project. If I did use this competency more I believe I could have made my project even better than it is now so in the future I will work on improving this skill. 

Thanks for reading this post I hope you enjoyed it 🧡

For the past couple of months I have been working on a project about the Middle Ages and all of their customs. Through the entire project we read a book called the book of the lion it is a very interesting but very confusing book, if you are interested in the Middle Ages or the crusades I would recommend this to you. During class we did little simulations of the Middle Ages and we all had different roles that you may have in the Middle Ages (surf, peasant, knight, lord, king) I was a knight so not very important, we had to write a letter through the eyes of the character. My letter was very interesting it was to my parents who had sent me off to serve as a knight and I talked about my siblings I had a lot of fun writing this because I love making up stories and writing about different lives. The final project was a presentation about 2 examples of continuity and change. The first step was to research about 2 topics with a partner my partner was Randy, we did a lot of research on 5 topics and chose 2 that we liked the best for our final presentation, the 2 that we picked were clothing as change and food as continuity. What we had to present about is how the topic has changed or continued in time. We had to use keynote make a good looking presentation and a good script that was 4 minutes long. I believe I did well on this project although it took some practice to make the presentation 4 minutes I originally started to ramble on about one topic for 3.5 minutes and Randy only got to talk for 40 secs but we fixed it so it was exactly 4 minutes. 

There were some competencies I had to use during this project Continuity and Change, Comprehend. 

Comprehend 

This competency is about what literacy skills I used to read, listen, and view texts for understanding. in this competency I didn’t really pat attention to what skills I was using while I was using them but I did use different skills to accomplish my reading goal like: highlighting names, places and important phrases, and I also made a schedule for the times I would read because we needed to read 14 chapters a week (which is a lot). 

Continuity and Change 

Continuity and change were a lot more significant in this project than the Comprehend competency. This entire project revolved about continuity and change we had to find all the things different and the same from the Middle Ages to now the culture, the hierarchy, and many more things. For the final product we researched 2 examples of continuity or change for continuity I chose livestock for change I chose clothing both of these could be used for both continuity and change but we had to only show examples of the assigned one. I had to do a lot of research to get enough info and evidence but I got a sufficient amount of information. These competencies are very important to have as a life skill being able to comprehend the need to change, what has changed or being able to comprehend what has continued over time and things that should stay the same. 

Here is a small  video of my presentation slides if you would like to watch it

IMG_1700

one small tip if you are ever presenting I know it can be nerve racking and scary and sometimes embarrassing, but if you ever are presenting and get embarrassed remember me because while I was introducing myself I said the wrong name you cant get much worse than that so keep presenting and say the right name!

I hope you enjoyed reading through the process of my project and all the things I learned. 

Thank you for reading and have a great day🧡

I have been working on a project in scimatics for the past month, the project was called chemistry coding. What I had to accomplish in the end was a game that showed the KMT (the kinetic molecular theory) in action, we had to code it ourselves and make it an interesting game. To make and code our game we used a website called scratch it doesn’t have professional coding built into it but it was ok to use for a small game with little coding needed. The first step we had to do was learn about  KMT and atoms so we read a couple text book pages about the things we needed to know and did a couple worksheets then we started planning. 

Here is a mind map of what I knew at the beginning (not much)

My project was a game where you are a molecule and you have to find other molecules to make a state of matter big enough for a human to see. You can either be a molecule of beryllium (BE) and make your self identifiable to people, you can be a molecule of Nitrogen (N) and find other nitrogen molecules too make yourself a gas and lastly you can be a molecule of sodium (NA) or chlorine (CI) and find other sodium and chlorine molecules to make some Sodium Chloride (NACI). There will be different levels to this game. If you get big enough to be seen by the naked eye you go up a level and you keep trying to get bigger each level, but there is an obstacle first there are other molecules that are not the ones you want to connect to and if you do the you explode and have to restart the level that you were on and one more obstacle you have to avoid Is people and animals if they grab you or step on you by accident you have to restart the levels. Each time you go up a level the obstacles get harder to avoid. 

The scene in the first level will look like  space because you cannot see any solid matter yet then a couple levels will look like a science lab and the last scene will be outside in nature. Here is a picture of the cover to my game

We were getting marked on three curricular competencies Questioning and predicting, Scientific communication, and finally Reasoning and analyzing i will write a short paragraph on how I improved or need to improve on these skills

Questioning and Predicting 

This is about showing curiosity about a topic or problem. I believe I did well on this but there is always room for improvement, I showed this because I was interested in coding I haven’t had much experience with coding only a couple games I have done in elementary school (so like I said pretty much no experience.) The topic is really interesting and a good skill to have I was very excited going into this project so I had this motivation to do well and find all the answers to my questions. 

Scientific Communication

Scientific Communication Is about. Communicating ideas, findings, and solutions to problems. I used this skill not as much as the other skills but I did use it. I used it by talking to others to help them with problems and them helping me with my own problems. For example I needed to fine a way to switch backgrounds during the game and so did another friend of mine to we both brainstormed ideas and eventually came to a conclusion. This was a. Very useful skill and I think if I used it a little more I could make my project even better. 

Reasoning and Analyzing 

This is the last competency and it is all about using logic and patterns to solve problems. This is a competencies that doesn’t really fit with my personality but it is very important for this particular project because it is very important to use patterns and logic for coding or anything that has to do with mathematics and science. To use this I used patterns in coding to make the game work as smooth as possible and look nice. I looked for certain things that could help my game and what people would like to see in it. I also had to think of all the ways I could incorporate the kinetic molecular theory to my game and make it interesting so others would want to play my game. 

I hope that was a good explanation of my project. I also hope that you enjoyed reading about the process of how I went through the different steps. 

Thanks for reading🧡

So far this year I have done a lot of work but I do need to work on some things. Some things I need to work on is getting less distracted in class, less procrastination, and think more positively about my work. These are all goals I would like to work on but the main thing I would like to work on is my procrastination I can do many things to meet this goal, I can set schedules for when I will work and when I will take breaks, also use it another goal (thinking more positively about my work) i will try to look forward to my work and think of the positive things that will come out of the thing I am doing. 

Humanities 

In humanities I kept consistent work habits but they are not all good, for example I have finished all of my work but it is not the best work I can do and some of the smaller assignments I do not put all of my effort into it, and I could. Here are some of the assignments that stood out in both good and not so good ways. There is one more project that I am proud of it is not a big part of the project but it was my launch journal for the winter exhibition I thought I did well and I was creative with it, this video is in my winter exhibition blog post. And second it was the first thing I did for humanities it was a dissection on a commercial called  welcome home and I explain it in another blog post called The Media Is The Message is the message 

Scimatics 

Scimatics is a subject that I am not very passionate about but some of the projects we do are fun and I really like working on them. For example working on the Mazer Tag project was interesting because we got to build a space ship from Star Wars and use lasers  to make a right angle triangle. but I feel I could use my class time better and try to get less distracted. And scimatics is a subject that I procrastinate in more than other classes so when I get a worksheet to finish I leave it to the last moment but I can fix this by using all the free time I have to finish my homework and then do fun activities. 

Maker

maker is a subject that I really enjoy but there are some times that I decide to not do my work as well as I can no matter what there will be times that I just don’t want to do work but I can reduce the amount that happens. There was one project that I really enjoyed that I would like to talk about, the project was called the power of a pencil this project was about using and Apple Pencil for art and note taking. All of the art I did in that project is n that blog post.

PGP

So far there has only been 1 assignment for PGP it was a blog post about a trip to Oregon went to with my class. The blog post had to reflect on our learning on the trip and how all the places we went to influenced our learning. 

All the projects I have done I think I have done well,  the work I have is good but it doesn’t stand out. All of my work isn’t gonna stand out but I would like to get some of my work to be a nice project that people to remember. During all the projects I have done I have done really well on some of the competencies and not so well on others because when I am doing the project I want to focus on the end product instead of the process and the small details that make it better but overall I have done well with the style of learning in PLP and worked well with the people in PLP. 

My Question is how do you think I can find a routine that works for me and stick to it?