Today we listened to the periodic table song. I thought it was okay. After that we talked about electric current and the way wires work. We did this cool simulation where you make a circuit and try to get it to work. I thought it was pretty fun. In the simulation we learned about short-circuiting and fuse boxes. I liked trying to make the most powerful lightbulb with the super-batteries.

This week in Technology, we have been learning about atoms. I learned that the first recorded guy to think that atoms were a thing was this Ancient Greek philosopher. His name was Democritus. I also learned that the amount of protons an atom has decides what type of substance it is. I think the most interesting thing about atoms is that their electrons have a really small chance to  literally be on the other side of the planet at any given point.

Last week in Technology I finished my light switch gear. It works pretty smoothly but sometimes it moves a little slowly. However it’s nothing that a little more force can’t fix. But because it doesn’t work on my light switch I will have to put it somewhere else. The only thing is that the plate is too thick, but I think that it’s fine because it’s still a cool thing to have.

This week in Technology we watched a movie about automata. We had to watch it instead of learning about something fun or doing something fun because Mr. Calvert had more meetings. I didn’t like the movie because parts of it I found a little disgusting. For example, during one part of the movie, they had blood and organs that were probably fake but still as disgusting as their real life counterparts. Even though we learned a lot about the history of automata, I would not watch it again.

Today, I finally finished my cam project, and I think it works pretty well for a first project. What I wish I had done better is align the cams to be more 180º since right now when one goes down it takes a bit for the other to go up. I also wish I had made the box better since the bottom doesn’t fit very well. Next, I’m going to be working on my crank project. I’ve already built the box and two parts of the crank and I aim to have finished the crank by the end of the week.

This week we have been trying to finish up our cams project. Right now, I am on the step right after the followers and that is to build the axle, which is kind of behind compared to other people. But the good thing is that I’ve been taking my time, so I hope that in the end that my project at least works for all the time I’ve put into it. I think what I want to do is be able to make folds faster while maintaining precision. That would definitely help me speed this up since  it takes me quite a bit of time to make a good fold.

This week we learned about a simple machine called the lever. The lever has 3 parts: The fulcrum, the load, and the effort. The fulcrum is where the lever is pushing off of. The load is the thing you are trying to move, and the effort is the part you are pushing or pulling. There are 3 different types of levers. Class 1 levers are when the fulcrum is in the middle. Class 2 levers are when the load is in the middle, and class 3 levers are when the effort is in the middle. I think that levers are pretty cool because they’re really simple compared to some other simple machines but they can also be really effective.

For me, my goal was to have a realistic conversation with a computer. I wanted it to seem like something a friend might text you, even though they were more getting to know you questions. One thing that I thought would be challenging was adapting to Swift when I have only a week or two’s experience with it. I found it to be surprisingly easy because Swift is really easy to read and understand once you do it a couple of times. I found it a little boring after I wrote a few on the first day because we hadn’t looked at other ways to ask questions, but then it became really fun.

I think it was admirable how one person made an app to help with electricity. Coding makes this possible because coding allows people to make information more accessible and customizable while keeping it individual. I thought that it was interesting to hear that people can probably understand swift even if they have never coded before. I think that this is really nice because at one point they had to punch holes in paper for computers to understand, and now they can use words that most humans can understand as well.

In my spreadsheet, I explored the life expectancy of males and females in Asia. I then used the formulas to fill in the collective life expectancy.

I wrote my formula by adding the male and female numbers, then dividing it by two for each country, for the average life expectancy.

I learned that in many countries, females have a longer life expectancy than males, and I’m curious to find out why, which is something I might look into later on.