Monthly Archives: November 2018

Working Man

Hey there loyal viewers, it’s Jason, and today, I’m going to be talking about Take your Kid to Work Day. Now, before I start, for unknown reasons, I could not go to my own parents’ work, so I went with my friend Sam to his parents’ work, which is to sell solar panels.

For take your kid to work day, we were tasked with making a video all about our experiences, as well as making an accompanying post about our process and what we learned, so without further ado, I present to you,

Solar Science

So, on Take Your Kid to Work Day, my friend and I set off to Amray Solar in Burnaby, BC, so learn about solar panels.

HOME

The point of my video was to teach the viewers all about the way solar panels work, how they are installed, and how they are distributed. We also had to use our video-making skills to make it look more professional.

So on November 14th, Sam and I arrived around 9:30, and we had a couple of hours to film, interview, and learn. As soon as we stepped in the door, we got straight to work collecting lots of B-Roll (background footage). We also got to experience what a regular day in the office was like, including making many calls and deliveries. Along the way, we were able to snag a few interviews with the workers about the business and the skills required. We also were lucky enough for them to give us a live demonstration.

At the start, we looked around the office a while, although it wasn’t too interesting because all we looked at was people taking calls. The real fun happened when we entered the warehouse. We filmed solid B-Roll there and were able to experience the life of a Solar Panel Salesman.

After shooting B-Roll, the office workers approached us and asked if we wanted a demonstration. We (obviously) said yes. This was a great opportunity for our videos to show a live demonstration os the true power of solar panels. We were getting 14 volts in cloudy weather, so imaging what we would have gotten in the sun!

After that, Gary, one of the employees, graciously let us interview him an ask a few questions, mostly about the company itself, How day-to-day operations go, and what skills are required for the job.

Alright, without further ado, here’s the completed video!

Alright, hope you enjoyed the video and learned something about solar panels. Shoutout to Sam for letting me go along with him.

This is Jason Guan, signing off.

What to Binge at 2:08 AM when You Can’t Sleep

What’s going on my loyal viewers, it’s Jason, and it is once again time for some SBC. Now, this week, we had a bit of an easy one, we got a free week. That means your boy can write about whatever I want. So today, I’m going to give back to the community.

You ever have those moments when it’s after 1:00 AM and you can’t sleep and you’re debating whether to just give up on sleep? You ever pull out your phone, tablet, or laptop and can’t decide what to watch? Well, your old friend Jason is here to help. For easy access, I recommend bookmarking this post as it can help very much with late night binging sprees. This is:

Jason’s Late Night Movie/TV Binging Guide.

Here we go. I’m going to start by establishing some categories for the movies/tv. For each category, I will give one or two of my personal favourites and also some other good recommendations on the side. The categories will be: To Laugh,  To Scream, And To Gasp.

Also, take into consideration that I am in no way a movie critic. I have absolutely no idea what makes a movie better than the rest. These are just MY PERSONAL RECOMENDATIONS. Are y’all ready? Let’s Start.

Movies

To Laugh

This section is about comedy movies. My favourite.

The Hangover (2009)

The Hangover is one of the most well known comedy flicks in the 2000’s, and for good reason. The plot line is creative, and the characters are played incredibly well, especially Ken Jeong’s Mr. Chow. If you’re a fan of just basic slapstick humour, then this is the movie for you. However, the hangover is a movie for more mature audiences, so I wouldn’t recommend seeing it if you’re under the age limit. If you finish the Hamgover, be sure to watch the Hangover II and III.

21 Jump Street (2012)

21 Jump Street has been one of my favourite movies ever since I watched it for the first time. The storyline is developed very well, and the characters are really what make the film shine the most, such as Schmidt (Jonah Hill), Jenko (Channing Tatum), And my Personal favourite, Captain Dickson (Ice Cube). Like The Hangover, 21 Jump Street also has a sequel, 22 Jump Street.

Some other great comedies include Deadpool (2016), Super Troopers (2001), Popstar (2016), and for younger audiences, Grown Ups (2010).

To Gasp

This section is about everyone’s favourite adrenaline filled flicks, action movies,

The Avengers Series (2012, 2015, 2018)

This one’s a no brainer. Anyone who knows what a superhero is knows about the Avengers. With 3 movies in the series, and a 4th one coming in 2019, the Avengers is probably the most money-making superhero franchise. And the thing is, there may be only 3 avengers movies, but there’s dozens of Marvel movies as well, so there’s a good chance you won’t run out of superhero movies for a while. If you want more superhero movies, Black Panther,

John Wick (2014)

John Wick is a great action movie, with a good protagonist and a clear goal. The movie keeps you on the edge of your seat, with fast paced action and great acting. John Wick is also very violent, so don’t watch it if you’re underage unless you want to get scarred for life.

Dunkirk (2017)

Dunkirk is very well written and probably historically accurate (I would assume). I’m usually not a huge fan of war movies but I really enjoyed this movie.

Some other good action recommendations are Logan (2017), The Equalizer (2014), Baby Driver (2017), Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017), The Martian (2015) And The Revenant (2015)

To Scream

This last section is about the perfect late-night binge, horror movies.

Get Out (2016)

If you know anything at all about horror movies, you’ve probably heard about this one. Get Out. Perfectly written with just a hint of commentary on social issues. The perfect ratio of character development and spooky moments with just a pinch of humour sprinkled throughout the movie. Great film.

Don’t Breathe (2015)

In my opinion, what makes Don’t Breathe such a great horror movie is that it doesn’t rely on jump scares, it builds horror with the atmosphere. The lack of talking in the movie and the tension in some scenes is a great way to scare the audience without using cheap jump scares.

Hush (2016)

Like Don’t Breathe, Hush creates an atmosphere that causes so much tension. Also like Don’t Breathe, there’s not much talking in Hush, which makes the actors really step up their game, which they did. The storyline is very creative and well executed. 10/10 would recommend.

The Ritual (2017)

The Ritual has a pretty basic storyline. A group of buddies go into the woods, something goes wrong. What sets this movie over the top is the execution of the movie. The characters are played so well that at points, you can feel sorrow, or fear, or remorse for the characters. Incredibly good.

It (2017)

Ah yes. What would a recent horror movie list be without It. Where to begin. It has the perfect blend of everything needed to make a great horror movie. A great villain, good backgrounds and settings, and a charming group of kids. This 2017 remake was everything I expected it to be and better.

Some other (underrated) movies I’d like to give shoutout to are Trick’r Treat (2007), the Stephen King classic The Mist (2009), And The Belko Experiment (2015).

TV

Alright, now time for the iconic binge-worthy media, television shows. Now, I’m not going to split this one up into categories, I’ll just give y’all my favourite and we’ll be done with it. Aight?

Brooklyn 99 (2013 – Present Day)

Brooklyn 99 is one of those shows you always hear people talking about, and with good reason. The characters are the type of characters where you’ll watch 1 episode and you’ll immediately fall in love with them. The storylines are great, and the premise of the show (cop show) is something so hard to master, but the producers were able to figure it out. Watch 1 episode and you’ll be hooked, I guarantee. Definitely one of, not my absolute favourite show.

The Office (U.S.) (2005 – 2013)

The Office is another show that’s become a household name. Now, I will admit, I’m a bit of a late joiner in terms of actually watching the show (I’m still on season 6 out of 9), but I love this show so much. The characters are all so unique and different, like snowflakes. The producers have found a way to make every character still interesting and take unique storylines involving all the characters. There’s a reason this show made it to 9 seasons.

Black Mirror (2017 – Present Day)

Now, let’s take a look into the drama-horror-thriller side of TV and look at Black Mirror. Let me just say, Black Mirror is the reason I’m scared of technology. The stories are just the kind of things that would happen in real life, from DNA Cloning, to parental supervision to the max, to murder museums, Black Mirror satisfies a lot of groups of people with its eerie plot twists and haunting characters.

Rick and Morty (2013 – Present Day)

Rick And Morty is the only cartoon making this list, but it’s absolutely great. I had high expectations when I started watching, and the show blew through all those expectations. The show takes adult cartoons to a new level and sets a new standard for Adult Swim cartoons.

Well, that’s it. Got any recommendations? Write ‘em down in the comments below!

This is (as always), Jason Guan, signing off.

Nukes n’ stuff

Eyyyyyy, what’s going on. Once again, it’s Jason, and I’m back with yet another SBC post.

Today, I’m taking a dip in the pool known as science. In this week’s challenges, we had to choose scientific topics and do a bit of research on them. If you know me at all, you probably know that imma pick something unnecessarily advanced, and something that has to do explosions. Let’s take a look at nuclear reactors!

Tama66 / Pixabay

So, nuclear reactors take usage of something called nuclear fission to power them. Nuclear fission is when an unstable type of atom or element, such as plutonium or uranium (the usual stuff), has its nucleus ripped in half. I kid you not. In case you didn’t know, the nucleus is the centre of the atom. Here’s a diagram:

Uranium, for example, is incredibly unstable due to an unbalance of protons and neutrons (the stuff in the nucleus). When the nucleus splits, energy is released and can cause many chain reactions, which is why many of the atoms are complied together. That’s how nuclear energy is released. However, nuclear fusion is when two halves of a nucleus are combined. This is capable of producing a ton of energy, but is incredibly hard to harness, which is why it’s better to stick to fission. If my text is hard to understand, here’s a few videos about it.

The reason I picked these topics was simple. I wanted to figure out how nuclear reactions and fissions worked. Nuclear energy is often talked about, but not a lot of people actually know how it works. Also, I’ve also been a huge fan of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.

Now, I’m also required to make a little quiz about nuclear fission and fusion, so I’ll make a little “two truths and a lie” below. However, I’m going to tweak that a little bit. It is now: 6 truths and 3 lies. The rules are simple. I have listed 9 facts below. Pick out the ones you think that are lies. Check the answer key below afterwards for the answers. Once again, as I said on my emoji quiz, please don’t cheat.

1: Nuclear fusion is used in reactors.

2: Atoms are made up of protons, electrons, and neutrons.

3: Uranium and Plutonium are commonly used as they are unstable.

4: Stability depends on the number of neutrons and electrons.

5: The nucleus is the centre of the atom.

6: The nucleus is made up of proton and electrons.

7: Nuclear fission is when the nucleus is ripped apart.

8: Nuclear fusion is incredibly hard to harness.

9: Mr. Burns runs the nuclear power plant and has an assistant named Smithers.

Alright. Ready for the answers?

 

are you sure?

 

better not be cheating!

 

Ok. The answers were (drumroll) numbers:

1, 4, and 6!

Get them right? Good job I’d you did, or didn’t. I hope you learned something, and if you didn’t, you’re either some sort of genius or I’ve failed.

This is Jason, signing off.

Mighty Machines

What’s up y’all, it’s Jason, and today I’m going to inform you, the audience, about one of my recent projects, Metaphor Machines. In this project we learned about metaphors, machines, and revolutions. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

Metaphors

So, we started with a little exercise to get us acquainted with metaphors. We took common school objects and tried to create metaphors about them. My group took a stapler and transformed it into a metaphor for love. In case you didn’t know, a metaphor is a simile that doesn’t use the words “like” or “as”.

So, “the pillow is as soft as a cloud’, would be a simile, but not a metaphor. “The pillow is a cloud” is a metaphor.

Get it?

Steampunk

Another element we had to include in our Metaphor Machine was steampunk. I’ve covered steampunk in another post, so I’ll just give you a brief explanation.

Memepunk

Steampunk is pretty much if modern technology had advanced in the Victorian era. Lots of gears, clocks, and exposed machinery. Also, I’ve found they have a slight obsession with the colour brown. Hmm.

prettysleepy1 / Pixabay

We had to theme our machine around steampunk, and that meant researching all the steampunk aesthetic features and incorporating those into our machine as well, thus adding another level of difficulty.

Leviathan

Leviathan was a book we read that helped us understand steampunk a bit more, and to also spark our knowledge of one of our future topics, World War I. Leviathan was about World War One, but much more technologically advanced. The two opposing forces were the Clankers, who used huge machines and mechs, and the Darwinists, created by Charles Darwin who used fabricated, living creatures to battle.

There were two main characters in the book. Alek, son of Archduke Ferdinand, and Deryn, a Darwinist hoping to join the navy.

It was a really great book and I highly recommend checking it our for yourself. Here’s a link to the book.

The Industrial Revolution

And finally, one of the last topics we studied, the industrial revolution.

This kind of came after we started researching and building our machines, but helped us understand both steampunk and another important historical aspect: Cause and Consequence. We learned about what was created in the revolution, and what powered those creations. I won’t elaborate too much. Im sure you’re dying to see the actual machine.

Science

The scientific part of this project involved a lot of electricity and hot objects, so one of my main goals apart from actually learning things was not to get burnt or electrocuted. Fortunately, I did not get electrocuted or burnt. I may have inhaled some amount of spray paint, but hopefully not too much.

In science, we worked on a lot of circuit exercises, many involving the Phet Circuit simulator.

We used this to study voltage, current, and most importantly, how not to either get electrocuted or blow something up. We used our knowledge of circuits to create one functioning part of our machine that involved circuits. For us, it was the turning off of the red and yellow LED lights at the end of our machine.

There wasn’t too much Math involved in our project. We mostly worked on scale drawings and diagrams, in order to draw scale and full size blueprints of our machine. We also figured our the formulas for current, resistance,  and voltage, which are technically science but involve math. That’s pretty much it.

The Actual Machine

It’s what you’ve all been waiting for, the actual Metaphor Machine.

For the actual project, we were, as always, split into groups. Mine consisted of myself, Emerson, Sam, and Kiera. We then picked out which revolutions we wanted to study. We were assigned the Xinhai Revolution.

I won’t bore you with the details of the revolution in this post. That’s what the video is for. Long story short, the emperor signed a deal nationalizing all the railroads. People got angry, Wars were waged, etc. The machine took a heck of a long time to build, and ended up taking multiple changes to our original design to make work, but somehow, it worked. So, without further ado, here it is. Our metaphor machine video.

That’s it. I hope you enjoyed hearing about our metaphor machine and I hope I didn’t bore you too much. However, this project is not over. We also had various scientific and mathematic aspects to this project, so check out my Scimathics post for this project as well.

This is Jason Guan, Signing Off.

Pong….. but in real life

Hey there fine people of the internet, it’s Jason. In this quick lil’ post, I’m going to discuss one of my recent Maker projects, the live event.

Brett_Hondow / Pixabay

In this project, we made little videos about events that we were attending. In my case, I have no social life so I just made my own live event. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, the N.V.S.R.N.P.M.L.P.P.T…… I think.

Since I have a ping pong table in my house that I never use, I decided to make good use of it. I hosted a ping pong tournament, but with only 2 other people. Turns out the time limit was 2 minutes. I had actually had a ton of good stuff planned. I had a big headset and a sports broadcast of sorts between my 2 competitors, but didn’t have enough space.

So, I did the best I could with the footage I had and cranked out this video. I tried to utilise all my iMovie skills, Ken Burns, speed changes, music (non-copyrighted) downloading and whatnot. So, I hope you enjoy!

Wow, what a shocking outcome, eh? That ending really surprised me. Dang. Well, I guess that’s it. This video taught me a lot of new skills and it was really fun (and also very frustrating) to film.

This is Jason Guan, signing off.

All aboot you?

Coke or Pepsi?

Apple or Android?

Xbox or PlayStation?

These are the very questions that have plagued our generation for all of time. Today, I’m going to settle these questions once and for all. I’m Jason (or am I?), and today, I’m going to be attempting to get the public opinion on these tough questions.

stevepb / Pixabay

As you may know, I’m currently tangled up in a little something called the Student Blogging Challenge. Every week, I complete a set of tasks. For this week, the theme was getting to know your audience and their differences/similarities. As I read the challenges, I thought to myself, what better way to get to know your audience than to divide them up based on their personal opinions.

I’ve gone and created a few google forms to help answer this question, the first of which being about you, my loyal fans.

Here’s the link to the first survey.

Alright, now that you’ve answered that one, here’s the one you’ve all been waiting for, This or That.

Here’s the link to the second survey.

Ok. Hopefully you’ve filled out all the forms so that I can better understand my audience. That’s it! If you haven’t filled out the forms yet then please do. Thanks for everyone that did. Alright. Bye.

This is Jason, signing off.

Who’s That Emoji?

 

Hello there people of the internet. I am the human known as Jason and today I’m back with another installation of the Student Blogging Challenge.

Today I’m going to be talking about emojis. That’s right. Everyone’s favourite picture-based keyboard.

Now, if you’ve read my posts, you’ll know that I do not use emojis very much. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever actually used an emoji in my blog ever. Well, today that’s all going to change, for I, Jason Guan, am going to post my first ever emoji into a blog post. Are you ready? Here we go!

Believe it or not, the laughing/crying emoji is actually the most commonly used emoji in the world. I know several people (including myself) who are prone to using this emoji. This emoji is also one of my favourites.

To get into the emoji spirit, I’ve created a little guessing game, kind of like charades, about famous movies. Please don’t cheat as that just ruins the game. I hope you enjoy!

Alright. Don’t forget to post your scores on either my video or this post. That’s all!

This is Jason Guan (or is it?), signing off.