Spreadsheets: Wellness Log

Posted on November 6, 2020 by anicassio27

This week, we have been continuing our work with spreadsheets. Here is a spreadsheet that I created, and a chart that I made using it:

To create this spreadsheet, I first created the rows and columns, then I wrote in my categories, (days of the week and activities) and as the week went by, I filled in however many minutes I did of each activity that day. Lastly, I created the totals of minutes I did of physical activity each day, and averages of how many minutes I did of each activity in the week.

To create a total, you don’t have to do the math yourself, you just have to use a function. The create the function, you start off with an equals sign in the text box, and click in the boxes one at a time to add them together. They should appear in the text box after the equal sign. Make sure that you type a plus sign before clicking the next box you want to add. An example of what your function might look like after doing these steps is: =C1+C2+C3+C4 Then, the last step is to press enter/return, and your total will replace that function in the cell.

Another topic a spreadsheet might be helpful for would be if you were on a diet, you could use a spreadsheet to help you keep track of how many calories you ate each day.

Swift Playgrounds 3 (“Answers”)

Posted on October 20, 2020 by anicassio27

This time in Swift Playgrounds, I got to write out my own code. We had to make three questions with an answer box that worked. The three questions I asked were “What is one sport that you play?”, “How often do you play that sport?” and “What do you like about that sport?” The most challenging thing was that you had to get the code exactly right or else it wouldn’t work. Even if there was one space that was supposed to be there but wasn’t, the whole thing would be messed up. It took me a lot of tries to get it right, and I finally finished it! Here is the final product:

The words in blue circles represent the words that don’t show up in the actual project. The red lines are connecting the code to the part of the project the code makes happen. Overall, it was a little challenging, but fun!

Swift Playgrounds 2

Posted on October 15, 2020 by anicassio27

In Swift Playgrounds this week I chose to focus on the “For Loop” section of it. I got pretty far. Some of the challenges I ran into was that I started writing out the code for it, but then I lost track of where my character would be on the map, so I didn’t know what to do next. So, to help me I broke the code into sections, so that I could keep track of it better. It worked and I was able to complete a lot of puzzles.

This is the progress I have made on Swift Playgrounds.

Swift Playgrounds 1

Posted on October 5, 2020 by anicassio27

One of the Swift Playground levels that I decoded was the “Bug Squash Practice”. It took me a little while, but I eventually figured it out. Here are the steps of code I used:

Move forward
Turn left
Move forward
Move forward
Toggle switch
Move forward
Move forward
Move forward
Move forward
Collect gem

Some difficulties I had were that I thought I had to go a completely different way that I had to go, so I spent a lot of time on that. But then I re-read the directions and I saw that it said that all of the blocks were there, I just had to put them in them in the right order. So then I realized that since there weren’t enough blocks for me to be able to use the way I thought I had to go, I started thinking of different ways. And finally, I figured out the right way, and it worked!

Tynker Music Video

Posted on September 30, 2020 by anicassio27

I am choosing to write about Zoe’s music video. I liked it because her characters looked liked they were actually dancing, not just doing random things. What I liked about the animation is that she not only made the characters move, but she also made the background change, which was cool and it makes the video more interesting. What I liked about the soundtrack was that it kind of had a bouncy effect to it, and one of her characters was bouncing, so it made sense. Overall, it looked and sounded really good.

All About Me Project

Posted on September 23, 2020 by anicassio27

To start off my All About Me project, I first chose a background. The background I chose was a soccer field because I love playing soccer and I have a lot of special memories on the soccer field.

Then, I had to chose the characters that I wanted to use. The characters I chose were a soccer ball, a basketball, a piano, a clarinet, a picture of my dog, a sea shell, and pictures of two girls and a boy. I chose a soccer ball because as I said before, I love playing soccer. I chose a basketball because I also love playing basketball. I chose a piano because I play piano. I chose a clarinet because I play clarinet. I chose a picture of my dog because she means a lot to me. I chose a sea shell because I really love traveling and going to the beach, and I chose to put the pictures of two girls and a boy to represent me being one of the girls as a middle child, having an older brother, and a younger sister.

Then I programmed the characters to say things. For example, when I clicked the soccer ball, it would say, “I love playing soccer.” You can imagine what the rest of them said.

Then, I decided that I should add sounds to the characters too when you click them. So, I started looking for sounds that would match the characters. I found sounds for some of them, but not all. So for example when the soccer ball was clicked, it would say “I love playing soccer.”, and then a crowd cheering noise would play (as if someone had scored a goal). You can also imagine now what sounds the rest of the characters played. But again, not all of them do play a sound.

And finally, the project was finished! Some blocks I found myself using a lot were “when actor clicked”, “say ____” and “play sound _____”. Overall, I think the project was a success and I hope you enjoyed reading about it!

Computer Science Is Changing Everything

Posted on September 15, 2020 by anicassio27

Computer science really is changing everything. I would never have thought that computer technology is used in agriculture. I just thought that the farmers plant the seeds and let them grow. It turns out there is much more to that. Computer science has made it more possible to produce great crops. Without it, lots of crops wouldn’t have come out as well. I learned that people can use computer science to monitor how well the plants are doing. This allows the farmers to know whether the plants need more water, sun, etc, evidently leading to more batches of good crops, and providing more produce for people to eat.

Capstone – Making My Final Presentation

Posted on June 16, 2020 by anicassio27

After many steps in the Capstone process, it was finally time to make my presentation. The options for my presentation were TED talk, ignite, Adobe Spark Video, WeVideo, and a screencastify. I chose an Adobe Spark Video. I chose this one because I didn’t want to have to deal with the pressure of doing my presentation on top of all the pressure I was already under.

The thing I enjoyed most about making my final presentation was that I could really work on my presentation for a while at a time but not get bored because making my presentation was very fun and interesting. This is how I know that I picked a good topic for me, I am interested in it. I also enjoyed seeing my presentation come together step by step until the final product.

One challenge that I faced was finding a good picture for what I was talking about. Sometimes I would be looking for a certain picture but I wouldn’t be able to find it, so I would just put a picture of someone sleeping, since that is my topic. The reason why I couldn’t find many pictures that I wanted to use is because I needed to make sure that I had permission from the person that took the picture to use it. To do this, I didn’t need to contact the person, I just needed to set the category on my google search to “Labeled For Reuse” which means that I am allowed to reuse the picture. But, the pictures that are labeled for reuse are usually not as good as the ones that aren’t.

Another challenge that I faced was making the slides shorter. I originally had to make each slide last for no more than six seconds which was kind of impossible to do since I wouldn’t even be able to say one of my long sentences in six seconds. So, my teacher allowed me to make some of my slides a little longer and now none of my slides go over ten seconds. But still, I need to talk pretty fast in order to keep my slides under ten seconds.

I have mixed feelings on whether or not I’m excited to share my final product because on one hand, what if people do not like it, but on the other hand, what if people really enjoy it. Overall though, I think that it will be fun to know that lots of people are going to watch something that I put a lot of effort into! Here is the link to my final Capstone presentation:

Capstone: Interview

Posted on June 5, 2020 by anicassio27

After we figured out all of our questions and started researching, we had to find someone to interview. This process was very hard for me because I kept finding people to interview, but they never responded to me! The first person I contacted was a Professor of Neurology, Mark Nan Wu. He would have been a perfect person for me to interview, but he never responded to my email! Then I called two sleep doctors separately to see if they would respond. They didn’t! Then finally I found another sleep specialist and I emailed her and she replied in half an hour. This just shows that you have to keep trying and never give up!

The person’s name who agreed to let me interview her is Dr. Shelby Harris. She is a sleep specialist. I chose to interview her because my Capstone topic is sleep, and she is a sleep specialist so she knows a lot about sleep. She has a website. If you want to check it out, here’s a link to it:

https://www.drshelbyharris.com/

The process for setting up the interview was very long. I of course had to first find someone to interview, but then I had to do many other things. My interviewee and I had a lot of back and forth emails about what date/time my interview would be, and how we would do it. We couldn’t do it in person for obvious reasons, so at first, we thought he could do a phone conversation where I ask her the questions and she responds through the phone. But then we couldn’t find a date and time that worked for us both, so we ended up doing the interview like this: I sent her the questions through an email, and she responded through another email. Here are the questions that I asked her:

Why did you want to become a sleep specialist?
What did you have to do in order to become a sleep specialist?
What are the most common types of sleep disorders?
What are some signs that someone might have a sleep disorder?
How many hours of sleep should a kid get? Teen? Adults?
What do you like the most about your job?
What do you like the least about your job?
Which stage of sleep is the most important? Why?
What are the rarest types of sleep disorders?
Are sleep disorders able to be cured completely? If so, which ones?
What happens if someone is very sleep-deprived?
What age groups have more sleep disorders or are more sleep-deprived, kids, teens, or adults?
What happens in each stage of sleep?

The most interesting thing that I learned as a result of the interview is that some sleep disorders can be cured, but not all. For example, some sleepwalking and sleeptalking issues can be solved by just making sure you get enough sleep and are practicing proper hygiene, and insomnia and sleep apnea can only sometimes be cured.

Throughout the interview process, there were many challenges such as it was very hard to find someone to interview and figuring out how we were actually going to do the interview. But, I think that coming up with questions was fairly easy. Overall, the interview process was very successful for me!

Capstone: Choosing My Topic and Main Inquiry Question

Posted on June 5, 2020 by anicassio27

My class has recently started a project called Capstone. A Capstone is something where first you think of a topic that interests you, then you make a main inquiry question related to that topic. A main inquiry question is a question related to your topic that is the overall question that you will be trying to answer when you start your research. But, to answer that question you need to come up with sub-questions. Sub questions are questions that you have to answer that will answer your main inquiry question. Then you need to start researching each question. After that is done, you interview an expert on the topic. Once you have done all that, you finally take all the information you have gathered, and you put it in a presentation! In this post, I will be talking about finding my topic and inquiry question.

My topic for Capstone is sleep. I chose this topic because my mom is always saying that sleep is important. So, I wanted to know more about sleep, and every time my mom said how important sleep is, I got more interested, so I chose it for my Capstone topic! At first, I was thinking, Is this topic going to be interesting, I don’t want it to be boring! But then I realized that I thought it was interesting so I stuck to that topic. My main inquiry question is “What are the four stages of sleep and what happens if those stages are disturbed?” Something that was helpful when choosing my main inquiry question is that my teachers helped me, so I knew if it was good or not. If they weren’t helping me, I would always be skeptical throughout Capstone if my main inquiry question was good enough! A challenging part of choosing my main inquiry question is that there are so many different kinds of questions having to do with sleep, that at first, I didn’t know which kind of questions I wanted to use!

Overall, I have learned about myself as a learner that I learn pretty well when I research, and when there is a virtual lesson. I don’t think that learning from home is too much harder than learning in school. It is a little bit harder, but I think I am managing it just fine.