Tag Archives: project

Capstone #1

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Capstone is a huge project Scarsdale schools do for 5th grade, close to the end of the year. During the Capstone project, we have to pick a topic we are interested in but never really learned about it. My topic is hacking. After that, we have to come up with a main inquiry question and 5-6 sub-questions. The sub-questions are questions that lead up to your main question. They break your main question down. You also need to find someone to interview. After that, you research the sub-questions. After you get all that information you can choose to do a WeVideo (movie) or an Ignite (presentation, slides present every 15 seconds), or a Ted Talk (presentation).

 

When you come up with your topic, you have to find something that you’re interested in but you don’t know much about. I came up with a couple of topics: tennis, video games, hacking, babies, and the brain. I narrowed it down to three topics: video games, hacking, and babies. I ended up choosing hacking. I chose it because I was interested in it, I knew nothing about it, and I knew who I was going to interview.

 

After picking your topic, you had to come up with the main inquiry question. My inquiry question is, how does hacking impact the global economy, and what’s being done to minimize hacking? One challenge was coming up with the main inquiry questions because it was hard to find one that wasn’t too broad but not too narrow.

 

After you came up with the main inquiry question you had to come up with sub-questions. Sub-questions are questions that lead up to your main inquiry question. Two of my sub-questions are, how has hacking impacted global stock markets? And, how should you prevent hacking? A challenge was finding five sub-questions to use because you needed to break up the main inquiry question into sub-questions.

 

Overall, the Capstone project has been fun.

Rube Goldberg Blog Post #2

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A Rube Goldberg machine is a complicated machine that does a simple task. I’m finally on the last part of the project. I will have to draw a final sketch, change my build, test it out, get a good recording of the final run, and make the final video. 

To come up with ideas for the project, I had to watch lots of videos to get inspiration. After I did that, I had a good understanding of what I should put in my project. After my first sketch of the project, I had trouble trying to do what I planned in my sketch. The problem with my sketch was that some things weren’t that realistic. Some things like the lever idea I had were nearly impossible to build because I didn’t have the required materials. So I had to cut some things out and figure out something to replace them with. The most challenging part of the project was recording because getting a successful run was extremely hard and exasperating. Every time I had a nearly successful run, a new problem would occur. Then, suddenly, when I’m not recording and testing it, I get an almost successful run. One time, after I set the whole project up to take another video, my younger brother (Max) started the project before I was recording. Of course, that ONE time that I wasn’t recording, I got a successful run. It was the most aggravating moment of my life. After 37 long tries, I finally got a good recording. A thing that was easier than I thought was the WeVideo. I didn’t even start the script but I got everything done in only two hours. I expected it to be harder and take way longer but it wasn’t that hard.

 My first sketch is completely different than my last one. I only had one idea in my first sketch that I had in my last sketch. I had to change most of the stuff because either one, I didn’t have the materials, or two, it wouldn’t be possible to build. Eventually, in the end, I finally got the build done.

The video wasn’t that hard to make. I got it done in two hours. In the video, I included credits, useful websites, my final run, a slow-mo, a fail, and an overview of the final project. My dad helped me with the slow-mo and the overview because by then, I was burned out. After all those hours of testing, building, and videotaping, I was so very tired. But my dad urged me to help him take slow-mo’s of every single part separately and an overview of everything. In the end, it actually really helped. 

Overall, the Rube Goldberg project was really stressful and not fun to do because of all the hours of trying to take a video of a good run. 

Rube Goldberg Post #1

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A Rube Goldberg machine is a complicated machine that does a simple task. My simple task is to make a ball on the pool table go into a hole. The Rube Goldberg machine has to have at least 8 steps. A step is a transfer of energy. For example, a marle hitting a car is a transfer of energy.

First, you have to sketch the machine out. To sketch the machine, I had to do some research to get an idea of what to draw. The main resource I used was YouTube. It was very helpful because I could see what the Rube Goldberg machine would look like. Sketching and designing were difficult because I had trouble incorporating what I saw. In the sketch, you had to explain each step in detail. You also had to draw your Rube Goldberg project. I incorporated a lever, a screw, and an inclined plane.

When I started testing, it didn’t work at all. Everything was not working the way I planned it to so I asked my parents for help and they helped a lot. Plus, I was running out of time and I wasn’t even close to finishing. Overall, the Rube Goldberg project is very stressful.