Passion Project Post #3: How It’s Going

So far I have been making good progress. I have gotten a lot of research done in the last few days. I am really happy about my note taking system. I think color coding was a really good idea. I also feel that the quality of my work is the best I can do. This is because I wrote full, long paragraphs on each sub-question. The most helpful source I have been using is the USAPA website. This is because not only did it have all the information I needed but it also gave me new sources to use. I thought this was tremendously helpful because I didn’t have that many sources because pickleball is not a none topic. So the fact that the website was helping me out was great. I have also learned a lot so here is three fun facts:

 1. According to USAPA: April is National Pickleball Month! So this was great timing.

2. The origin of the name pickleball is a debate that is still going on today.

3. There is a national pickleball tournament that is covered by the pickleball channel. Check them out on YouTube if you want to watch a game.

 

 

Passion Project Post #2: Note Taking And Research

This is a picture of my note taking system.

 

When I was searching for sources to use I had a lot of trouble. This is because pickleball isn’t a known sport. Our librarian showed my class many sites that have a lot of topics on them, but none of them had anything on my topic. This meant I had to take matters into my own hands. I searched the internet for sites about pickleball and I was actually surprised on how many I found. I am making sure that the sources I use are credible by checking the information I find with information from other websites. I think the best website I found was the United States of America Pickleball Association’s website because it has everything that I need to know. Things such as what equipment you need and the history of the game. I want to work on my nonfiction comprehension skills and I want to get  better at restating information in my own words. In the past, when I was reading something that is nonfiction and taking notes about it I would come across many times when I was only able to slightly switch up one or two words in the sentence. In other words I would only be able to switch easy words with their synonyms. Sometimes I just switch up the order of the sentence. I want to be able to make more drastic changes to the exact words I find on a website and be able to comprehend the sentences better to do so. One note taking strategy I will be using is color coding. I have set up a system that makes every site I use a different color. This is helpful because when I finish this project I will know what sources I used for each question. I picked this strategy because my english teacher Mr. DeBerry recommended it to me. I can’t wait to finish researching!

Passion Project Post #1: My Topic

For my project I am doing pickleball; where it was and where it’s going. In other words the history of the sport and how it’s getting more popular today. To know more about my project  press here  for my passion project proposal. When this project first got announced, I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t until Saturday, the week the proposal was due that I thought of it. The only reason I came up with the idea was because my family had ordered a net, and equipment to set up a court in my driveway. It just happened to show up at the perfect time. The equipment inspired me to do my project on pickleball. Since I have been interested in the sport since winter vacation.  I already had many questions I wanted to know the answer to. So that step in the process was easy for me.

 

Tech Post #10: What I Learned This Qaurter!

This quarter I have learned so much about atoms, circuits, power tools, and so much more. We have done a bunch of projects this year we have made

Flashlights, switches,  & necklace charms.

Before technology I vaguely knew how to make a simple circuit. After making switches and flashlights I now know how to make them and why they work.

These photos are of two angles of the technology room, (and people ”posing” for the camera.) They  were taken during lunch recess, where my friends and I go for lunch to do fun crafts that we don’t get to do in class. 

In tech this year we used tools that I didn’t even know existed. We used drill presses, soldering  irons, and jigsaws. I’m not going to lie, l I was scared of all of them my first time using them, but after  using them once I was no longer scared, but I was cautious. I have had so much fun in tech this quarter and I’m sad that it ends soon. 😭😭😭

Tech Post # 9: Flashlight Decorating & The Finished Product!!

My flashlight in action!

This is a picture  and video of my switch completed! After putting the switch together I had the option to decorate.  We could use pretty much anything: markers, pompoms, or gems. At first I didn’t want to decorate it because I was worried that I would mess up, in the end I decided to decorate it very simply. I just put my name going down the side in big letters & I put some pipe cleaners on it. I am happy with how it turned out.  I am honestly really proud of myself, last quarter I saw my friend’s flashlight and never thought I could make anything like that. I am not going to say I had an easy time making this, it was definitely a challenge to make.  I had a lot  of obstacles along they way including an incorrect measurement, and a messed up circuit, but it was worth it.

Tech Post # 8: Soldering The Circuit

Switch video

That is a video of my circuit in action. In order to get the pieces to stick together we had to solder them together using a wire and a soldering iron which is INCREDIBLY hot! Soldering this was much harder than soldering charms (see post #3.) This time there was a specific process we used:

  1. Solder negative wire 1 to battery,
  2. Solder that wire to your switch
  3. Solder your other negative wire (#2) to the switch
  4. Solder negative wire #2 to the LED light
  5.  Solder your positive wire to the LED light
  6.  Solder your positive wire to your battery

You have a circuit!

I had a lot of trouble doing this, my first time I thought I melted the switch so I would have to de-solder the wires, but when Mr.Calvert came to give me a new switch he informed me that that was not problem. The real problem was that I had soldered the negative wire to the positive side of the LED and vise-versa! So to fix this problem I de-soldered the wires and soldered them to the correct sides.

Tech Post# 7: Flashlight Wiring

 

In order to get the flashlight working we needed wires. The first thing we did was draw the wires in our mechanical sketch. We had to keep in mind that the wires needed to be able to have a light, a switch, and the battery needed to be in a place where it could be switched. I chose to connect them so my light is at the top, my switch is in the middle, and my battery is at the bottom ( like how the picture is) After that we used special measuring wires to calculate how long our wires needed to be. After we figured it out we cut them with red and black wires, (one red; positive & two black; negative.)  When cutting our wires we made sure to add an inch to each wire so we could strip them. Stripping them takes off the conductivity blocker and makes it easier to solder them. After we stripped them we bent them. The reason we bended them was so we could hook them onto the piece we needed to solder it to.

Tech Post #6: Flashlight Shapes


We were building our flashlights we had certain shapes to work with. We had…

– 90˚ angle pipes, 45˚ angle pipes, double 90˚ angle pipes (two connected), round edged end pieces (bottom of the picture), end pieces with straight sides (top of the photo)

And lastly we could use a connecting piece, but we did not get it as easily. We had to measure the one drawn in our mechanical sketches and we had to measure it out on a large pipe and cut it with a saw. In this part I ran into a problem. I was able to fit it in the box that it had to fit in, but it didn’t fit on my page, at first it’s was no big deal, but as the steps got more complicated, it became more of a problem. Eventually I was able to solve the problem, but I spent mush more time on the steps than I had planned to.

Tech Post #5: Mechanical Drawing

  Mechanical drawing isn’t like regular drawing. It’s much harder and much more precise. When you are mechanical sketching something you need to make sure your being accurate. For example in this photo I used a 4” by 2” object, in order to figure that out I had to measure it. As you can probably tell by the photo that drawing is not drawn to size, but it is drawn to scale. Each one of those cubes is equal to 0.25 of an inch. Where it says 4” there are sixteen squares (4 x 4 = 16) and where it says 2” there are eight squares. (2×4=8) The reason we draw things to scale is so anyone can look at it and figure out exactly what you want.

Tech Post # 4: Switches

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This is a picture of my switch, and the link is to a video of my switch in action.

This week in tech we were making switches out of materials around the room. Mine is made of cardboard, tin foil, clothesline clips, aluminum foil, popsicle sticks, and rubber bands. How my switch worked is you would connect the clothes pins to  the cardboard in the center  and press down to the base. The reason this works is there is aluminum foil on the bottom of the square and the top of the base. We clipped 1 alligator clip to the base and 1 clip on the square these clips were also connected to a breadboard with an LED light. Because aluminum foil is conductive when the two pieces connected the circuit  was complete, turning the light on.