Capstone Share

Capstone is FINALLY over and I couldn’t be more relieved. We presented today and now, I’m extremely happy.

Capstone ended with a big Capstone share. In previous posts, I have told you about all the stuff that I did to start Capstone and carry it forward, such as decided what topic I’d do, which was Sparta, an Ancient Greek civilization, and getting a site visit. In a more recent post, I told all of you guys that I would be doing a TED talk to present my information, which is where I can talk for an unlimited amount of time. I also prepared my speech in which I would talk about my main inquiry question and all the sub-questions in which I gathered my research through.

My speech was one of the longest because I’d crammed tons on information in it. At the start it was 12 pages long but somehow, I cut it down to five. In fact, my final edits came the day before my share.

Even though I cut my script down, it was somehow still 11 minutes! And this was extremely long. That’s why I was practicing so much. When I was waiting for my mom to pick me up, I practiced. After dinner, I practiced. And I feel like all this practicing made me a little more stressed out, because I kept feeling how big Capstone was getting. I couldn’t even count how many nights I spent lying awake in bed, wishing for Capstone to end.

Finally, our dress rehearsal came. I was going in front of first graders. I was a bit upset with this because I would have to cut out a lot of my script here. I think it’s true when I say that no first grader would know or understand what Sparta was.

But then, the day of our share came. I was one of the last to go. The whole time others went, I was fidgeting. But soon, the teacher called my name. I slowly walked up to the big screen and started my presentation.

I really think that all my rehearsing helped me. I spoke in a loud clear voice. And since there were mostly grown-ups, I could tell they were interested in Sparta since it was an advanced topic. And for once, I was glad that I chose Sparta and not something easier.

One of the things I liked in this presentation was my voice. I was able to speak loudly. This was good because the room I was presenting in had AC and the AC was very loud. For some presentations, you couldn’t here a word people said  because of that. So at least the parents  could hear me the whole time. And my script was one of the things that made me the most proud. I cut out some things as I went on because I realized that I had already said that. This made my script shorter so I didn’t think people really got bored. Also, I knew my script well so I wasn’t looking down too much at my script. This let me improvise a bit and that got me a few laughs. Additionally, I felt like I spoke in a confident voice with intonation, so  I wasn’t just mumbling. The parents understood me which was good. Plus the confidence in my voice drove away the butterflies in my stomach up too a point so when I left the stage, I was smiling.

On the flip side, I didn’t like some things I did too. For example, since I didn’t look too much at my script, I forgot to turn the slide once, so it was embarrassing when I had to go back. Also, at one point in the beginning I stumbled on my line and it made me nervous because there were so many people looking up at me expecting me to go on. So that made me a bit scared especially since I did that in the beginning. But later, my confident voice drew the nerves away. And finally, I also didn’t like the fact that I went last. Since I went last, I had so much time to panic and brainstorm the things that could go wrong. I wish I’d gone first and got over it. But all in all, I feel like my sucesess outweighed my downfalls and I really did enjoy my moment up there in the spotlight.

To sum it up, Capstone was a fascinating project in which I learned the steps you must take to become a researcher.  I learned a lot, not only on my topic but on other ones as well. And even though it was filled with stress and tons of work, if I was given a chance to do Capstone again, I would go for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQBpxTlEfeA&index=13&list=PLSS8PA6fV_dxHcmgWQiTVpC3LRpCM5fQh

This is the link for my presentation. I hope you enjoy watching it!