Hello, my name is Sam and welcome to my blog! Today we will be talking about what I did in my Humanities class and my Science class. If you read my previous posts from this year, you’ll probably already know that this has something to do with a video! So, PLP 9 is based off of video making. We do a lot of filming, editing, and than make a blog post about our learning! Anyways, let’s jump into this project shall we?

The Industrial Revolution 

First, let’s start off with the industrial revolution. So what exactly is the industrial revolution? When’s society shifts from using tools to making things to more powerful machines making things instead. The rapid change in ideas and making new useful tools that can make people’s lives easier. That’s basically the brief intro to industrial revolution. So when did this all happen? Well it all started in the 18th century in England….

That’s basically what we learned in the industrial revolution section. Maybe not all of it. We did learn more things like the Power Loom, The Iron Factory where people found out that coal was a good resource for fuel, and others like the Steam Engine. Now let’s move on.

Steampunk

While we were learning about the industrial revolution, we learned about something called Steampunk. Before I go any deeper, make sure you read my steampunk post. For now, let’s start off simple. So what is steampunk? Steampunk is a not so advanced steam powered machine that could’ve existed. That’s only if humans didn’t modernize that fast. Later in this post you will know why we had to learn something about steampunk. Back on track, steampunk isn’t totally dead today. By dead, I mean forgotten or non-existing. In some places, people dress up and make all sorts of steampunky(doubt this is a word) things and have ceremonies. It’s like a tradition. Let’s not worry about that though. Before we move on, I do have more information in my steampunk post if you want to check it out.

Oh, I almost forgot, we also read a book called “The Leviathan.” It was a quite interesting book. I won’t spoil the book for you but it’s about steampunky(still not sure if this is a word) machines and cool fabricated creatures at war while the story of a girl and boy continues to become more fascinating. I do recommend reading it, and there is three books. It’s like a series. Except is a short series. 

Metaphors

Now let’s move on to the main part of this project. Or should I say, one of the main parts in this project. It’s all about metaphors. So, what are metaphors? They are something that compares two things without using like or as. With the use of like or as, that’s a simile. So what are some examples? Well, let’s use a tape roll as an example. What could that be a metaphor for? Maybe the tape represents time. Time sticks to everything, and eventually, time will run out. There are many different uses for metaphors, but for our project, metaphors is part of it.

Rube Goldberg Machine

Before I talk about our project, we also learned something called a Rube Goldberg Machine. A Rube Goldberg Machine is designed to do a simple task but in a complicated way. Our project is based off of that too. Here’s a video of one.

Crane Brinton’s Stages of a Revolution

I know I know, you want to know about the project. Well I’m sorry, I’m not quite done yet. There’s one last thing I want to talk about. Guess what that is? It’s Crane Brinton’s four stages of a revolution. First it starts off with the incubation stages. Then it moves on to the moderate stage. After that, it moves on to the crisis stage. In the end, it is the recovery stage. I won’t write too much about what each means because here’s a sketch of what each stage represents.

The Main Project

Finally, so what is our main project? Well, have you heard of Revolutions? Probably have or have not. Let’s start simple. What is a revolution? When you hear the world “revolution,” you most likely think of revolt. I mean, your not wrong. A revolution is basically or most likely, when a group of people overthrow the government and gain power to create a new system. That’s the definition of revolution. Let’s now talk about our project. Well, our main project is all about revolutions(as you probably already know). So how did we start? First we took notes are the following revolutions: American Revolution, Russian Revolution, Haitian Revolution, French Revolution, and XinHai Revolution. After that, we were put into groups. The groups are based off of what Revolution you liked the most. For me, I chose the XinHai Revolution because I want to learn more about China(I was originally from China too). Somehow in someway, but before I continue, I just want to say there are four asians in my class. Well, guess what? We all got put in the same group. What a coincidence am I right? Anyways, my group includes, Emerson, Kiera and Jason. Feel free to read their blog posts too. Moving on, after researching a bit about our revolution, we had to create metaphors for the most important part of the revolution. Then make a Rube Goldberg Machine to represent each metaphor. The metaphors are suppose to explain the revolution but not so literally. That was only part of the assignment. We had to make a video too.

The Video

Now let’s talk about the video. So what is in the video? In the video, it explains our revolution, our metaphors, and our machine. The video also includes how the metaphors connect to our machine. It also explains Crane Brinton’s 4 Stages of a Revolution. The video cannot be over 5 minutes and it needed consistent audio, as well as music. Here is our video.

The Other Side of This Story

At this point, you probably think it’s all over. Let me tell you something. You thought wrong. I got a couple more things to talk about before I finish this post. Let’s talk about the science side. I bet you forgot about what I mention in the beginning.

The Blueprint

Obviously, we couldn’t just start making a Rube Goldberg Machine without anything such as measurements. That why we created something called a blueprint. The blueprint shows everything including the measurements and the materials used. The blueprint also had to include a circuit(which I will talk about in a sec). We may start the making of our machine after the blueprint is finished.

The Circuit

Ok, the last thing I’m going to talk about is the circuit. In our science class, we learned how circuits work. There are the parallel circuit and the series circuit. A parallel circuit is when the current divides into to or more path while the series circuit is when the current stays on one path. For our group, we decided to use a parallel circuit. Since we had 5 lights, it was better when the current traveled in different path and not just one. Oh, and the most important thing, there should be a power source and the circuit should be closed. Or else it won’t work. Trust me. Anyways, that’s about it.

Finally

In the end, this was a pretty fun project to do, and the I was in was kinda sketchy. We got our work done and I’m happy with it. I thought the video was pretty good and our machine worked ok as well. The one thing I do recommend you do is read the book “Leviathan” because is good. Other than that that’s pretty much it. Feel free to look at more blog posts if you like but his was definitely a long one. For now, I will say bye and see you next time. Peace.