Here is my presentation!

Hope you enjoy it!

 

 

Yesterday we presented our final projects to our parents. Here is what I felt:

All of my classmates were sitting on the tables waiting, then suddenly BOOM! The whole room flooded with parents. I felt uncomfortable. I felt very nervous. Once all the parents took their seats Drew S. took her position next to the smart board ready to present. As each presentation went by I became very nervous and uncomfortable, I started to move around a bit, it just felt so nerve racking.

Suddenly Elliott was up. He is the person right in front of me, which meant I was next. As he presented I prepared my flashcards, my business cards, etc. Suddenly, I’m up. take a deep breath and walk to the front. Once I arrive I put my stuff down and pick up my cards. I take another deep breath, three, two, one. Then I began. Once I started I spoke loud, clear, everything was perfect! I was confident! EVERYTHING WAS AMAZING! I basically memorized it. I was so happy.

Once I finished my last two words, “Thank You.” I got a billion claps, Ms. Boyer whispered to me, “Chris, GREAT JOB! Great Job!” I was proud. I walked back to the back of the room and took my seat because l need to be respectful to Rush, since he is presenting next.

In conclusion I think my Capstone presentation was PERFECT!! It was amazing! This capstone project was so cool and fun. I am glad it is over, but also sad because I was working a month or two on this amazing capstone presentation. I did a great job.

You can see my capstone presentation here, enjoy!

After weeks of research and answering my main Inquiry question, we had to put it all together in one script and a slideshow, since I am doing a TED Talk. This script and slideshow was in fact our final projects for the big Capstone project.

I worked and worked on my script, since my research was so good and I had a lot, I wanted to put all of it in my script, which I did. However, my script became 1400 words! WAY TO MUCH. So Ms. Boyer had me remove parts and then I had 800 words, I wrote a little more and ended up with 1200 words. After time passed I was told to move my script from paper to some keywords on index cards, it took me a while but I did so. I ended up with 9 index cards with keywords. My original time when I recorded saying my script was 12 MINUTES!!! My next time went down to 10 Minutes. After I put my script on index cards it went down to 8 minutes and stayed around that time. After that I kept practicing and practicing.

My slideshow for my Capstone was a hit. After I wrote my script, first draft, I started making my slideshow. I got images that were in black and white for the early years of aviation slides, that was really cool. It was really cool because back then a camera could only take black and white images so I thought it was cool to get images taken at that time. I pulled all my images together with some text on the slide. Let’s skip the boring part about the process…  After I completed the slideshow I then had to work on my script…

Finally after I completed my script and slideshow I had to work on practicing… I practiced for a week, and then I knew that I knew my script well and now I had to clean up my slides, I added some animations. I needed to check everything, I needed to check if everything is ready for my presentation. I needed everything to be almost perfect for my presentation in a 2 weeks, then I practiced for another week. I got the idea from my fellow teachers and classmates that I should make business cards. They actually look SO COOL! If you want to see my business cards make sure to come to my Capstone Presentation!

Now I need to keep practicing and polish my slides, script, blogs, etc. I think I am in a really good position for my project. In conclusion, working on my final projects is really fun, and that is what I was working on for my final project. I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for reading! 😉

Finally, after all these weeks of researching I finally finished my research. I finished my research because I answered my main Inquiry Question. My main Inquiry question is, “How Has Aviation Improved?”

Here is what I’ve Done to Answer My Main Question:

I’ve looked and several websites, videos and books to get all my information. I’ve had a interview with Rudi and a Site Visit hosted by Rudi as well. All this information added up and finally answered my main Inquiry Question. Here is some facts of how aviation has improved:

Aviation luxury use to be VERY luxurious and as time went on they made things less luxurious due to safety reasons and for making more money. Aviation has become safer because of better technologies being invented and because of more accidents so they could learn more and improve from them. Even if tragedies happen, like 9/11, but we learn a lot from them so they won’t happen again. A United Airlines flight and a TWA flight mid-air collided over the Grand Canyon causing the invention of the Air Traffic Control system that still exists today, and 9/11 created a better security system called the TSA, this made better security systems so this incident wont happen again AND the cockpit doors got locked so that If the terrorists get on the plane they cant enter the cockpit because it will be locked.

We learned a lot from accidents and new technologies, but we need to know what to do for the future. In the future many aviation experts have goals to make aviation better for the environment.

In conclusion, I am proud to have answered my main Inquiry Question.

This is a follow up on my interview. Make sure to read that blog post before you read this one, LINK: Capstone #3: The Interview

After my interview was done we walked back downstairs to the level were we checked in. Then we saw some pictures with text and suddenly I felt like I was in a art museum and who I interviewed was my tour guide. What we did next was like I was on a tour, we walked around looking at some pictures, Rudi told me facts about it and told me little stories and fun facts and I must say It was quite interesting. I tried to write down every little detail he was saying and luckily my mom was there to help me. I learned new things about Westchester County Airport and about planes themselves. After we looked at pictures and Rudi told me about them for several minutes we walked into a room, not just a public room but a private one. It said, “Only Authorized people are aloud beyond this point.” We walked in and then we walked through another door and the room was HUGE!

It was a plane hangar. It stored about 4 – 5 planes in it. It was very big, however the planes were private jet, but was still really cool! We walked around the planes and touched different parts of it and Rudi told me facts and stories about these planes, while my mom was trying to write every single little detail down. We walked around the hangar and it was really cool. I have never been in a hangar before. I thought the hangar was cool because it had the supplies that you need to fix a plane, on the side. It had all this equipment and it feels crazy when you actually see it in person instead of watching it on a video. After we walked around inside the hangar, we walked outside the hangar. We walked onto the airport tarmac, that is where planes taxi to the runway and has active planes all day and all night. We walked around and walked up to a big area with loads of small planes. The planes there were about the size or a car, pretty small.

As we approached the small planes Rudi said something, he said “Do you want to go in the plane and see what it’s like??” And of course I said, “YES!!” We walked to a plane that was different then the others, it didn’t have the sun protection screen on it, so all we could do was open the doors and walk in. Well, that is exactly what we did. We opened the doors as we walked into the plane. They had all these advanced computerized screens. It was amazing! We looks around inside the cockpit as Rudi told us facts, how to fly it, how easy it was to fly, and a funny, true story about the plane. After we learned a LOT more, we closed the plane doors then Rudi said, “Want to see a old plane built in 1950 and compare it to that plane we were just in??” And again, I obviously said, “YES!” As we walked quickly down the taxiway to the plane, I finally could be able to see the plane. It looked like the odd one out. As we approached the aircraft I could see how old it was. It had it’s wings over the cockpit and inside the cockpit, there were no computer screens, just old switches and dials, and a car wheel instead of a joystick. It was also very cramped in there! It was really cool to see how technology advanced over the past 67 years. I was amazed by the difference between the 2 aircrafts.

After we saw this cool plane, our time was sadly up. We ran out of time so we had to say goodbye. We had a really fun time for the interview and the site visit. Overall, this site visit helped me a TON in Capstone, I really couldn’t find a better person to teach me all this crazy cool stuff.

On Friday, May 12th I told Ms. Boyer I did not have my interview scheduled yet. On the way home from school my mom told me I had my INTERVIEW and SITE VISIT SCHEDULED ON SUNDAY!!! I was SO happy! I had my interview and site visit in 2 days!

The days past by quickly as I am really excited for this event. It was time for the interview and site visit. I remember it was Mother’s Day, I gave my mom my present then we got in the car, to drive to the airport, where I will have my site visit and interview. While we drove for a while, we finally arrived at Westchester County Airport. However, we got lost. We came 20 minutes early BUT then we got lost so we had to find out where we were. After a while we finally figured out our way and drove there. We arrived 5 minutes late because we got lost earlier. As we exited our car we walked into a building that said, “Million Air”, as we checked in they told us the person we are interviewing is waiting upstairs. I got SO nervous! As we walked upstairs I trembled on every step. We turned left and opened the door and said, “Hello.” Then I saw someone come walk to us and I Knew this is who we were interviewing. I said, “Hi, I’m Christopher…” I was really nervous so I couldn’t exactly speak. He said “Hello, my name is Rudi.” Then we talked a bit more… about boring things like saying hello and talking about each other. But then we walked into the meeting room, and we got settled.

I told my mom gave my some whispers about getting set up and everything. After a minute later everything was set up, so I decided to talk a little bit about my school project, aka Capstone. Then after I told him a bit about it, it was time to start asking the questions. I asked, “Is it okay if I record?” And he responded, “Yes.” Then I got my phone to hit the record button and we started, but then I noticed something. He was holding several sheets of paper, then he put it on the table. I said, “Okay let’s begin with question one. Question 1: What is your full name?” He said, Rubi Hiebert, so wrote it down, then I noticed something… he had written questions 1 – 6 already! So I said, “I see you wrote questions 1-6 down so let’s start from question 7. I asked him questions and he gave really good answers. As we got to question 10 I realized something else. He wrote ALL the questions down and put ALL the answers to them and they were GREAT! I put a smile on my face and asked the rest of my questions.

After I finished question number 20 we stopped recording and I told him something… I told him that I could not have found a better person to interview. He smiled back. Then he told me that he found that my questions were great! He LOVED them and told me that I wrote questions like a adult and he was impressed. I told him I was thinking about making a TEDtalk for my final presentation and he told me that he know college students learning how to do a TEDtalk! I couldn’t believe that.

After we talked a bit more we wrapped up our stuff and prepared for the site visit. Overall, his answers were GREAT answers, and long ones. I was really happy to find a great, nice person to interview.

The next step in capstone after choosing our topic was to come up with questions. At first right away I knew my main inquiry question. I knew it from the first day we started this huge project. However Ms. Boyer told use that we need to elaborate our questions.

My main inquiry question, I had from the first day of capstone is, “How has aviation improved from the past few decades?” That is what I thought of on the first day. But, then Ms. Boyer made me elaborate. So then I thought to myself, Hmm, well I am thinking that the sub questions should be passenger satisfactory, safety and new technology. So other then that I went up to Ms. Boyer and asked her, I need some help expanding my main question. She said maybe It should be “How did aviation safety, improve over the past few decades?” BOOM, that gave me a huge lightbulb, I thought my questions should then include all the topics, so I brainstormed and tinkered with my questions and this was the final product, “How did aviation safety, customer service, and new technology improved over the past few decades?

After I created my main inquiry question, It was time to create my 5 – 7 sub questions. Ms. Boyer handed out sheets where we had to write out sub questions on, and It only had room for 5 questions, so I thought my goal for now Is to write 5 good, meaty sub questions. It took me like 10 minutes per question, because I wanted to make it perfect. I kept thinking and saying “no” in my head over and over again, until… I liked the question. The first sub questions I created is, “What inventions/technology made a huge impact on aviation?” Then I made my second questions after spending what felt like hours on it, “How has safety cards, oxygen masks and life jackets impacted aviation safety?” After I made each question I wanted my friends to grade it, because If I graded it, I would obviously say that each question is the best question ever. So I wouldn’t really help myself. My third questions is, “What inspired more customers to travel in the sky?” That question I just told you was my final product of that question, my original was, “What pulled more customers to travel in the sky?” Ms. Boyer thought it was odd to say “pulled” so I changed it to “inspired”. Now my next 2 questions were rated 1- 2 level, very broad and poor. So I had them changed a lot and here was the final product, (Question 4) “Which plane crashes helped experts learn more about aviation?” The original was, “What good did plane crashed do to aviation?” Ms. Boyer and my friends didn’t like the original question, so I had to spend a long time rewording it. My final question is, “What are future goals for aircraft manufacturers?” The original question was, “What is in store for aircraft manufacturers?” But, my friends didn’t like the original question, so I had it reworded.

Overall, creating these questions was very challenging and required many, many iterations.

Alright, first off I thought Aviation. When we were told to brainstorm about choosing topics for Capstone my mind went crazy. I thought, aviation, aviation and aviation. Ms. Boyer told us that we had to have a questions for our Capstone, It has to be one big question. I thought and thought then I got a light bulb. I raised my hand and Ms. Boyer called on me, and I said, “My question is, How has aviation improved from the past few decades.” Then after this we were sent to our seats, we brainstormed and brainstormed. I kept thinking and thinking…

Before all this happened Mr. Casal came to talk to us about Capstone and what type of “presentation” you can do, I remember the Ignite presentation and the TedTalk one. The difference between the 2 is the Ignite one had 12 slides ONLY and each slide is on for 15 seconds then It goes to the next slide. The total duration of that presentation is 3 minutes. The Tedtalk can be as long as you want, so I thought the TedTalk would be better for me.

After I got home I kept thinking and thinking further into my topic or question, “How has Aviation Improved From the past few decades?” Then I broke my topic into 2 parts, Safety and Technology. I did that because Safety and technology did improve aviation for the last few decades.

Overall, It is just beginning of this huge and exciting Capstone experience. I just choose my topic so I think now that this is just the beginning, I can’t wait for more to start!