June 24, 2019

Spring Exhibition 2019!

Hi y’all! This is unfortunately the last blog post of grade 8! This has been such a great year and I have enjoyed it so so much! But let’s get onto what I am going to be really talking about in this post. So, just like the winter exhibition, we had to present our project(s) to an audience. Now, let ne explain the projects that I presented at this exhibition.

First, let’s start off with our science project. For our last project of the year (in scimatics), we had to choose a telescope (since we were learning about electromagnetic radiation) and create something that shows information about that telescope. My group (Kaia, Rhiann, Ally and I) all chose to make this “dome” that would hang from the ceiling, you would put your head into and see what our telescope of choice would see with a keynote of course for the information. We then found out that we wouldn’t be able to present that “dome” together since we would be presenting in our own groups for our BlueSky so we decided to just present our keynote which was still pretty well done.

Here are some pictures of what the presentation looked like, you would press on a button to see the information about it but I don’t really know yet how to export it onto my blog.

We also had to present our PGP Time Machine, here is the link to that post.

And lastly, our Blue Sky, I found this project so much fun. Here is my keynote, same problem as my science presentation:

The only two rules for this project were that one, it is something that you are passionate about and two, that you designed. I am pretty proud of how my Blue sky turned out, although, if I were to do it again or fix it, I would fix the look of the inside and find another way to keep the door of it closed. It’s just that the most important thing was that it worked and mine did so I’m pretty happy about that.

See you next year (in my next blog post)!

Here are some more photos of the exhibition:

Also, the people in my spring exhibition group were Ciara, Anthony, Thomas, Noah and Luciano.

June 5, 2019

PGP Time Machine Post

Hi! Welcome back to my blog! School is coming to an end, which means that there will be lots of final projects coming: you can expect to see a post on my tPOLs (just like mPOLs, click here to see it), my spring exhibition (click to see my winter exhibition post here) and my Blue Sky (it’s a project near the end of the year). But that’s not what we’re here to talk about today! So, you may be thinking, what is PGP? Are you making a real Time Machine? Like, a Back to the Future Time Machine? Or something along those lines… Well, PGP is this new course that was introduced to PLP, it stands for Personal Growth Plan, it teaches you how to become a better learner or just a better person overall.

Now for the Time Machine, I’m sorry to let you down, but it’s not a real Time Machine. My PGP Time Machine is my final project for this course (PGP), it is supposed to be something that we can present to our past self to educate our past self about all the wonder-ness of PGP and about things that I should know that I “wish I knew before”.

So now, let’s get onto the actual process of this project.

Since I chose to do a puppet show, I had to make the puppet (s), I had to write the script/what I was going to say, I had to film it, I had to edit it, I had to prepare my conclusion/reflection and now, this!

Our first step was our Proposal form, what we wanted to do, here was mine:

2. Making the Puppets

I made lots and lots of research to find a really good puppet with the materials I had at home, I finally found this video on Youtube:

It was pretty well explained and understandable.

The materials consisted of cardboard and fabric, since I didn’t have fabric in those type of squares and made for that specific craft, I used a shirt that I didn’t use anymore and it worked just as well!

It took me about two days to finish everything but it was definitely worth it because I think that they turned out pretty well!

3. Script

For my script, I wanted to include an introduction for people that don’t really know what a Time Machine is, so I made a small introduction for them to understand it better.

Then there was my story, my story is between two friends: Procrastinating Peter and Productive Penney, this also kind of reminded me of the type of relationship between my brother sometimes (that’s why I got him to be the voice of Peter), he always wants to do the things he wants first (like video games) before doing work. Procrastinating Peter was also kind of like my past self as well because I used to be like that and think the same way.

Lastly, for my conclusion, I reflected on the time of my past self, how I’ve changed and how my productivity has “evolved”.

Here is my script, is the last version but it was way different before.

4. Filming

Now, this was quite a struggle, I wanted to find a way to have my backdrop being hung up in the background with me sitting under it so you couldn’t see me in the shot. Since I had nothing but scotch tape to hang it up, it kept falling down. So, I took the back of one of my chairs to hold it up. For filming, I had to film it myself so I had to pile up a bunch of boxes on a chair to get the right angle. It was quite the challenge

5. Editing

This took me the longest to do, it took lots and lots of time since I wanted it to be absolutely perfect. I tried many different ways to get my audio in the story: I tried talking, subtitles and then I ended up going back to Talking.

6. Conclusion

This was a very fun yet challenging project to do but, everyone likes a challenge! I really wish I knew about Things, Time Blocking, the 7 habits and Goal Setting because I would’ve been a lot more organized, having a balanced life and setting goals!

My Time Machine had 2 drafts and there is quite a drastic difference between the two:

Now, in the words of Ally, thank you for attending my TedTalk.

-Alex