Category: Technology 7

School is ending in about a week so this is going to be my last post for a little. With school coming to a close, it’s sad to think that we spent almost 2 quarters participating in E-learning. I didn’t get to build anything in technology this year like everyone else. Its okay though, because I learned very valuable things about materials like plastic and metal. I hope that I could put this knowledge to greater use in the future. Although summer is starting, its going to be a bit depressing over the summer. Without camp, my summer is shaken up. Luckily for me, like I mentioned in my last post, I will be spending the month of August in The Hamptons. And, recently my camp has announced ways that they are able to bring us up to camp this summer. My bunk is planning a short trip to LBI together, with the family camp BBQ, and a possible 4 night stay at camp with our families, it seems my summer won’t be lacking as much camp as I thought. I am very excited for camp activities and the types of things we start to do when summer rolls around. Barbecues with family friends, sleepovers with friends on any day, swimming, and unlimited free time. Although coronavirus may rain on my parade of those activities, I’m psyched for a unique summer.

My summer has been destroyed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Many sleep away camps had been closed because of the harsh guidelines given by the Pennsylvania governor. My camp was still holding out hope though. Out of all Pennsylvania camps, my camp had been one of the few to not announce closing… yet. Well, I guess you can see where this is going. One morning, the news hit. A long, heartbreaking video and email from the director. Watching the video, where one of the owners started to cry broke me and I think everyone else watching. You really don’t know camp until you go there. It is the best place on earth hands down. I get through the 10 long months of school, just so I can spend the next 2 at my happy place. Anyways, my family has been driving each other mad being stuck at our home. We decided we needed a change in scenery. So we would rent a house in the Hamptons. Sadly, we were a little late to the party. About 90% of rentals had been already rented and we had been left with the worst candies in the bag. Luckily for us, any house in the Hamptons is amazing so the worst, is still nice and has some great assets. We ended up with a house in Westhampton with an insane backyard. Yes, the house may be a bit lackluster, but it still fits our criteria. Everyone has their own room and bathroom, TVs, biggish rooms, an office space. Although I would rather be at camp in a heartbeat, I am very grateful to spend my summer in the Hamptons, and I am going to make the best of the situation I’m in, which is not bad at all.

Since we are continuing to talk about recycling, now we need to talk about WHERE to recycle your plastics. If I was ever in a situation where I found out that I needed to bring my plastic someplace that isn’t so close I think I would do it! I mean, every inch counts when it comes to saving our planet from being ruined from plastic. Since I learned that not much plastic is recycled and plastic is destroying our planet I think it is very important to put a good amount of effort into recycling your plastics. If that means driving 15 minutes to a recycling center and dropping it off, then I guess I should get in the car. It seems as if a lot of people in the world are not trying their best to recycle and take care of the planet so some people need to pick up what they are dropping or else we would get no where. I think if every person puts in a pretty good effort or good enough effort we would be fine. Everyone needs to take responsibility for their actions if they want to save the Earth, so if driving to drop of your plastics is that then I think it doesn’t do any harm to take out the 30 minutes from your day.

Looking back at yesterdays assignment, I’m looking at the few categories my plastic fits into. I am pretty sure all of my items are thermoplastics that can be melted down and reformed. The plastic that I had were mostly basic plastics (like milk bottles and poland spring jugs). I only have few plastics and plastic categories which makes it a bit difficult to analyze. My plastic only fit type 1 and 2 plastic, so PETE and HDPE. Pretty much my plastic varied in between milk jugs and mineral water bottles. I think that PETE plastic is used for water bottles because it is light, hollowed, and can be formed easily to the desired shape. I think that HDPE plastic is used because it is heavy and light at the same type. It is heavy enough to carry a liquid but light when picking it up empty. This material MUST fit the criteria of heavy and light or it will break open, leak, and/ or explode. Only 25% of these products are recycled with PETE plastic. And by recycling it you can reduce the amount of plastic sitting and ruining the ocean. With HDPE plastic, it only gets recycled 12% of the time which is half the amount of times that PETE plastic gets recycled. If you recycle HDPE plastic you are helping to reduce our countries carbon footprint. Both plastics, when recycled, help make our planet a safer and better place.

“There are well over 50,000 forest land owners in Oregon, each with different objectives for their forests. For many, harvesting trees is part of the management plan.” I think other land owners will use there land for, if not using it to manufacture lumber, to stock up on resources that could benefit manufacturers of wood. They could gather materials in their land to help the process speed along. Another thing that they can be using their abundance of land for is resources, but food. They could be hunting then sterilizing their newfound food to recharge. Forest lands can be used to hold materials and collect resources. If I was a forest land owner I’d do exactly that. It is smarter to plan ahead and to use land for a purpose. And you can use the land to benefit others, family, or yourself. 

Personally I think that boys talk more than girls on the Zoom and girls email more often because of a few things. I believe that girls are more reserved and care about how other people will see them (through their comments, conversations, outfits, etc). I think girls are less self confident. I know for me for example that I care a lot about what other people see me as. This may not be the best thing. This is why you see many girls putting themselves together, trying harder, and overthinking. Boys don’t care as much about how people see them which is why they will say anything that comes to mind in the snap of your fingers. The other thing that I think explains why boys talk more than girls on the Zoom and girls email more often is because of personality. I know that I am both introverted in extroverted. When i am with my family and friends I am loud and don’t shut up, people I don’t know me as well is the complete opposite. Some people may see me as quiet if they don’t know me too well. I think that some people are more shy and it happens to be more girls than boys.

When I think of building I think of wooden tables and chairs that your dad builds for your kitchen, and no I am not saying that my table in my kitchen is hand built, because my dad is not handy and is very lazy. Building something means creating or putting something together for good use. I have not built anything before. Honestly building to me sounds time consuming. I think this is only because I am very lazy and not very coordinated, much like my dad. I think I have never built something because I would not even know where to start. The materials? The instructions? I also assume that I would be bad at building something because I’ve never done it before! I feel like building something would take a lot of hands and a lot of brainpower because just reading the manual never really fully works, lets not kid ourselves here. I think that building could potentially appeal to me, if I learned how to do it. The first time is always the worst and the most confusing. Once I get the hang of it, I think building could not be such a drag. The activities I enjoy are sort of relaxing, playing on my phone, FaceTiming friends, watching TV, shopping. I am not the most active person in the world so building is not familiar to me, like a different activity would be. Putting all of this aside, I am excited to try something new!