Tech 7 #3

Today we are learning about 3D printing, which has been really interesting so far!

Some 3D printing things in my house would be mostly things made of plastic, for example, maybe a 3D printed phone case, or a pencil holder/container. 3D printing is very helpful for sustainability. This is because when you are 3D printing, you aren’t creating any waste. What I mean by this is that 3D printing goes layer by layer, so it is only creating what needs to be, and there is no excess plastic. 3D printing is also a much cheaper alternative. For example, big 3D printer warehouses in China were able to create 3 houses, and each house took under $5000 to make! 3D printing helps a lot. For example, there are lots of prosthetics that are made by printing for people. Also, doctors are trying out 3D printing for making organs that can be used for organ transplants.

Overall, 3D printing is a very important tool in our society, and it is extremely useful!

Tech 7 #2

Today our assignment was to watch four videos about timber harvesting, two from the early 1900’s, and two from modern life. Today I’m going to talk about these videos!

First two videos were very interesting and different from our modern way of harvesting. One thing I noticed was that in modern time, almost everything used to help harvest and create the wood planks were made by machines. However, this is not the case for the early 1900”s. Most of the harvesting was done by hand. They used hand-held tools like axes and saws. Once they were cut, there were a few machines to help turn them into wood planks, but there were still a lot of people helping as well. I also noticed that harvesting timber was much harder back then. Since they didn’t have proper machines to help them cut down the trees, they had to do lots more work in cutting it down by hand. This must’ve taken a while, and these people cutting down the trees would’ve probably been exhausted.

One thing I found interesting was that in the early 1900’s, they used something called a mill pond, where they drop the wood for the mill in a big pond. I never would have thought about doing this, but I can see why they do it, as it makes it much easier to move around the wood!

Overall, it was extremely fun to watch these videos, and I learned a lot.

Tech 7 #1 – Building

When I think of the word “building”, I think of making or putting parts together to create something. Building something doesn’t necessarily mean a physical creation. It could be something like building a presentation, and each “part” could be one slide/image. One thing I really enjoyed building was something I made in last year’s technology class. For this project, we had to make a flashlight. It had to have certain dimensions, but the actual design was completely up to us, and we could decorate it however we wanted. I had to do a lot of planning and measuring before I could even get my parts. It helped me learn a lot about building and designing, and I also had a ton of fun!

 

Here is my flashlight:

I really like building things. I like how hands on it is, and I think when building you have a lot of choice in what you do. Building something includes a lot of different skills, not just putting things together!

Computer tech – Final blog post

For computer tech, our last project was to make a game design on Scratch. I chose to make the pong game. One of the hardest parts was adding the score. I tried it multiple times, but still nothing was working. Eventually, I realized I had to put the score variable in a specific “forever” bracket in order for it to work. I am very proud of this game. One thing I am very proud about is that I was able to add many components to make this game even more advanced. For example, I added a score and timer. If I had more time, I would add more levels. In each level, the ball would bounce much faster. 

    I also played someone else’s game. Their game was a maze. I decided to play this one because it was not the game I decided to make. One thing I liked about the game was how the sprites were not the original ones you would use for a maze. The person made their sprite a donut, which I thought was pretty cool. One thing I learned from the game is that you can draw your own background. I knew we could use shapes to make it, but never knew that you could hand draw it. Overall, it was an amazing game!

    Like I said, this is the last project for computer tech, and the school year is almost done. Overall, I loved this class. It opened me to a whole new world of coding I never knew before. My favorite project was Swift Playgrounds: “Learn to Code”. I liked this because it taught me the fundamentals of coding, but did it in a fun and engaging way. I think one thing that worked well doing computer tech at home was that we had easy access to the basic materials we needed. I only needed my school iPad for this quarter. One thing that was a little hard was not being able to see the teacher in person and not being at the classroom. This is because it is easier to learn in the classroom than online, and there are more materials to help us there. However, I still think e-learning was fine.

    Overall, computer tech has been amazing! I have learned so many things that I will not forget, and it helped me grow tremendously as a coder!

Computer tech- spreadsheets

The topic we are doing in computer tech is spreadsheets and how to use them. For one of our projects, we were given data from real life situations. We had to pick one of them to focus on. I decided to focus on the snow totals spreadsheet. This included the snow totals in each US state. Once we picked a spreadsheet, we were supposed to use our spreadsheet knowledge and add things like charts, averages, and more.

 Here is what I did:

The first thing I did was add a chart. I did this by highlighting all the state’s numbers. Once everything was highlighted, I added it by clicking on the plus sign in the top right corner and choosing the chart option. Once I did this, I was able to choose what type of chart I preferred. I chose a 3D pie chart. I also added some formulas. I can do this by first highlighting the state’s amounts. After that, on the suggestions panel, there were the average, sum, minimum, and maximum. I chose the sum, minimum, and maximum. I also changed the cell color, font, and font size by clicking the “A” in the top right corner. I also froze the header row. I did this by clicking the row, and scrolling through the options until I found “freeze row”.

Overall, I think spreadsheets were a very interesting and fun topic!

Planning my Photo Essay

For English, we were assigned a photo essay. A photo essay is a series of photos that when viewed together show what quarantine has been like. I decided to focus on how life changed. This includes different ways of doing something, new hobbies, and how it affects us. I have decided to build my photo essay on Spark Video. I like Spark video because it is easy to make different types of layouts for pictures and text. Before I started it, I had to brainstorm. I looked through my camera roll and saw lots of pictures to use. However, I decided to make something called a shot list and a storyboard. This helped me organize my ideas, and helped me decide what photos to use. I also decided to choose music called “Bringing change”. I wanted to use this not only because of the name and how it relates to life changing. I wanted to use it because it has a positive sound to it, which means we can also look at the positives of staying home which would be spending time with family and taking on new hobbies. I am going to use photos of events that happened through quarantine, and also what we have head to change. This includes my birthday, different learning spaces, online shopping, and new hobbies. I also want to include lots of photos with my family. This is because I want to show that quarantine can also be a great time to spend with family and make a stronger bond. Overall, I love this project and I can’t wait to start adding all the photos!

 

Here is my storyboard and shot list:

Learn to code 1 #2- challenges

For computer tech, we have been working on scratch, more specifically “Learn to Code 1”. One of the most challenging parts was the Logical Operators. I found that this was rad because there were many parts to figuring out the code. You had to look over it many times before deciding what to code. The hardest part was “Using this AND that”. This was hard for me because I wasn’t sure at times which o to use, and sometimes I thought there wasn’t an answer. Also, in order to make sure you got the code correct, they would move the map around so you’re not just using the regular code, and making sure you are using the right code. Even though this was frustrating, it did help me become a better coder!

Learn to code: command section

For computer tech we have started to use swift playgrounds. One of the tasks I had to complete was to find bugs in the code and fix it. 

 These are the steps I had to complete, as well as the path byte was going to take:

 

There were many bugs I had to fix. I had to make sure that it went the right directions, and made sure to collect any gems or toggle any switches. To fix the bugs, I had not first watched it, and looked over the code. I had to rearrange a bunch of steps to make sure it worked. Even though it was hard at some places, I mad we sure to no give up and keep on going!

Analytical Paragraph

For our fantasy unit, we have to write an analytical paragraph for each book we read. Today I’m going to tell you what has been challenging and what’s been easy!

    The analytical paragraph is like one paragraph of an essay. This makes it much easier, because I have written a lot of essays like this. They all have the same format, which makes it easier for me to know how to structure my paragraph. The format is: Topic sentence, background information, text evidence, page reference, explanation, further analysis, and a concluding sentence. Another thing that makes it easier is that I have been jotting. By jotting you are able to have all possible ideas for the paragraph right in front of you. Throughout the book I like to highlight the most important notes that are good starters for what I should write about. 

    One thing that is challenging is the analysis section. After explaining each evidence for a couple of sentences, we have to dive further into why it supports my main idea. I find this hard because sometimes I feel that I have already explained the reasoning behind my evidence. To fix this problem, I like to go back to my book and jots and read them over. After that I think, “What is the big idea from this theme?”. This helps tremendously because it makes me notice things I haven’t noticed before that would help make my paragraph even stronger.

    Here is the first analytical paragraph I have written!:

Computer tech “Music video” project

For our assignment, we had to make a music video on scratch. After we did that, we were supposed to watch another person’s video, and write about it. Today I am going to show you what I liked about the video I watched.

    In general the video was great! I liked the background, it fit very well with the sprites. I also like the sprites and how there wasn’t too much going on in the video, but it was still interesting. One thing I like about animation is that all of the sprites were not doing the same animation at the same time. The person had one sprite in front doing something different than the other two sprites in the back. I also really liked the soundtrack. I liked how there wasn’t the same soundtrack the entire time. The person changed sounds every couple of seconds, which made the whole thing much more interesting.

    Overall, it was a great music video!

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