Month: May 2016

Meeting Grace Lin!!!

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Today,  5/17/16, we met an author named Grace Lin, and before we actually met her, we watched a TED talk about her. When Grace came in I already knew a little about her. But when she started talking about herself, there was SO much more! About her family, her inspiration to write books and lots more. Later, she talked about the king animal, the TIGER. Here in america, the king animal is a LION.  She told us about why the tiger is the king animal, and then showed us how to draw a lucky tiger. Then she told us about lucky numbers, and UNLUCKY NUMBERS. So the numbers 6,8, and 9 are the lucky numbers and the number FOUR is unlucky. Here are what the numbers mean: Six means Peace and Ease, Eight means Money and Fortune, and Nine(my favorite number)means long life(YAY). But the dreadful number FOUR means death. So Grace told us to not put four stripes on my tiger. But i’m still glad my favorite number is a lucky one. Anyway, I really enjoyed her visit and now I really want to read her books!

 

Capstone #2: Choosing a Main Inquiry Questions and Sub Questions.

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Since my topic is now robotics, I still had to think of a Main Inquiry Question. I thought it would be much easier than magnetism. But when I really started thinking about it with Mrs.Edwards, it was harder than I thought. It was way easier than magnetism, though. It took only about 10 minuets of talking, or less, where magnetism took days. I finally came up with,“How are robots being used to explore underwater and in space?” After I finished my main inquiry question, it felt like a weight was lifted of my shoulders. Now I didn’t have to worry about my main inquiry question. But then it was my sub questions. I thought a sub question was a side question that had nothing to do with the inquiry question. But I was way off. Sub questions are smaller questions that help you answer the inquiry. We took a lesson on how to think of a sub question, and I kind of knew what I was going to write.   …     When I looked back at my sub questions, there was no way I was going to get it approved. So thought about it again.    …     I thought these questions would be good enough. I checked with Ms.Vogel and she said it was good. I was definitely happy to hear that. If you want to see them, here they are:

  1. What are the advantages of using robots vs humans for underwater and space exploration?
  2. What are the disadvantages of using robots vs humans for underwater and space exploration?
  3. How are robots used for underwater and space exploration?
  4. What are current places robots are exploring underwater and in space?
  5. Which would be more helpful to the world, Underwater exploration, or space exploration?
  6. What are future possibilities for the use of robots to explore new territory?

Get ready for the Games

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The next Olympics will start  this year in Rio de Janeiro. The cost of the games is expected to cost $11 billion! Thats a lot  of money! The Olympics will last from August 5th to the 21, with almost 11,000 of the worlds best athletes competing, from 206 countries. An expected audience will be 4.3 billion to watch on the TV. The Olympics Games date back to ancient Greece. Pierre de Coubertin founded the first modern Olympics. He hoped that the games would promote peace among nations. The next Olympics will be in 2020. I hope you watch both games!

 

 

 

Capstone #1: Picking a Topic

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It took me a while to think of a capstone project. My mom had me start thinking about it in the summer. We just got back from Puerto Rico, so my mom suggested me do El Yunque, since My family went to El Yunque to swim in a waterfall. But I thought about it and didn’t really want to do my capstone on it, So I thought about it some more. But I couldn’t think of ANYTHING.     …..       When we started the capstone project, I still didn’t know what to for my capstone! When I got home that night, I talked with my dad about it. I was thinking about doing Physics, but my dad said Physics is probably to big of a subject, and to narrow it down to something more simple. And I thought about Magnetism. And I liked that topic.

When I actualy started working on my project, magnetism was really hard. So then I changed my topic to Robotics. And THAT is my final topic. And I like it way more than magnetism.