In my last blog post, I talked about how we got the LED light to turn on using two batteries, a wire, the light, and a breadboard. I want to talk more about the LED light itself. On the light, it kind of looked like it tiny light with two wires sticking out the bottom. There was one wire that was shorter and one wire that was longer. The shorter one was the negative wire and the longer side was the positive wire. On the breadboard, you put the longer side of the light on the right side of the board and the negative side on the left side of the board. I think that it was really cool to see the light turn on just from connecting a few wires and batteries onto a breadboard.

Today in class, we lit up an LED light! First, we learned how cut a wire in half with pliers. Then, we learned how to strip a wire and once you get the hang of it, it is pretty easy. Then we learned about the breadboard (which I learned was not a board for putting bread on). It had a ton of little holes and it was really cool. After that, we got the battery system which also had two wires coming out of it. One was positive and one was negative. Then we put it all together, the materials were the breadboard, the LED light, the battery’s, and the wires. First, I put the LED light on the breadboard. Then we attached the batteries to the breadboard. Then we connected it all with the wires that we striped and it made the LED light turn on! It was really cool.

Since I finished my light switch, I helped a lot of other people. I helped Danny, Emma, and Mia use the drill press and I gave some advice to Annika, Keitaro, and Roop. Also, I helped Tony A LOT with his project since he was behind and I felt bad. I helped him glue, hammer, assemble, etc. I in general like to help people and I liked helping everyone during this project because I loved this project and since I liked it so much, I wanted to help others so it didn’t have to be over.

Since I finished my crank early, I got to start waxing some of the pieces for my light switch early. I waxed about 4 of my pieces and that was very helpful to get ahead for Monday. On Monday, I finished waxing and I got all of my other pieces and started building. I used a mallet to help me get pieces to make sure they stay together. I also got to use a drill press! It was really fun to use. It only took about a week to do my light switch. I was really proud when I finished and I am so excited to put it up on my wall!

Last week, I finished my crank! I think that the crank was a lot easier to do because I had already done the cam. Also, there were many cranks that I could have chosen from but I chose crank A. In my opinion, I thought that one would be the easiest to build. Since I got behind because I had to finish my cam, I wanted to do the one that I thought would take the least amount of time. And I was right about that one! Another thing that was great about this project is that the steps were very clear and that was very helpful.

Today in class, we learned about and started making our cranks. Since I already did the cam, the process (since it was so similar) was very easy. In class today, I finished slice cutting and using the scissors to cut everything that I need for this project. For this crank there is only one piece that will come out of the top and will move. I think that since I already did the cam, the general idea of this project will make a lot more sense and go a lot faster. For our gluing, we use tacky glue, a paper towel, and a toothpick. You put a little bit of glue on the paper towel and then dip you toothpick into it. You really only need a thin layer of glue for it to stick and work (I learned that because I put too much glue one time and I had to remove some). Overall, I love doing lots of different projects and I am very excited to do the light switch project soon!

In class last week and continuing into this week, I have been working on my automata. The materials that I have been using are scissors, a slice cutter, and a ruler (we haven’t really been using the ruler yet). On the paper, there are regular lines, which we cut with scissors, dotted lines which we fold, and shapes with lines through them, which we cut with the slice cutter. So far, I have cut out the shapes with the lines through them with the slice cutter, cut out the shapes with scissors. I have not gotten to the folding part yet but that is what I will do next. There are 2 papers. I haven’t started the second one yet. I think that the first paper is the outside of the automata and the second paper is the one for the actual parts that will make it move. I am excited to continue.

One of my greatest passions is cooking. In cooking, there is a convection oven and a toaster oven (there is a traditional standard oven too but I am going to do the other two). I am going to be telling you the differences between them. In a convection oven, it cooks your food faster, more efficiently, and more evenly where as in a toaster oven, the food does not cook as evenly because the heat is so close to the food. Overall, I think that a convection oven is better for cooking your food. But that is just my opinion, some people might think that a toaster oven is better for their cooking.

The 2 activities that I did were positives and negatives in math and “Their, They’re, and There” in English. Some of the blocks that I learned how to use were the say, ask and the if, then else block.

I am not sure if you will be able to see my pictures. I followed the steps that you told us. So sorry if you can’t. Let me know if you want me to email them to you.

I chose to write about Nikhil’s music video. I liked his project because there were a ton of cool animations and it looked super real and it looks like it was something that he spent time on and didn’t just put very few things together. Something that I liked about the animation is that it was all very unique and everything just worked really well together. One thing that I liked about the soundtracks is that they sounded like they matched the instruments that the animated characters were holding in the video.