Category: Uncategorized

Spanish Restaurant Field Trip

Today, my grade went to a Spanish restaurant. We have been learning and preparing for this field trip. For instance, we learned all the names of the dishes and what to say to the waiters.

When we first got to the restaurant we got seated. Surprisingly the dishes came right away! When the waiter brought us the food I told her, Muchas gracias. The first dish they served was, lomo saltado. It is a dish with patas fritas ( french fries) aros ( rice ) and steak. The next dish they served was pollo saltado which consisted of, patas fritas, pollo ( chicken ) and aros. They brought out two more plates one full of aros and the other had Pescado ( fish ) and aros. My favorite dish was the lomo saltado.

Immigration Stop Motion 2018

Finally, my group and I finished filming our Stop Motion Film. We started audio today and its not going so well. Basically, our clips are way to short and our audio is to long. Even if we speed up our talking it is still to long. If we were allowed to we would talk as fast as we can but if we do it to fast it will sound very unnatural and bad. Our plan is to duplicate some parts of each scene so that the scene will become longer. If that doesn’t work we might have to shorten the script a little. I’m nervous about the audio for the last couple scenes because we kind of rushed through filming the last two scenes and they don’t look the best either. I’m afraid that we won’t be able to duplicate parts of the scene enough without it looking unnatural. I’m also worried that we won’t get our project done on time. I scared we might run into the same problem we had with Rube Goldberg. Being the last people to finish and being late on yet again, another project. So that’s basically whats been going on with our stop motion movie.

Winter Break

Winter break is coming up soon. I’m super excited because I’m going to Vermont to Ski I’m going with some family friend and obviously we are staying at a ski house. I am only staying there for a couple days so the rest of the break I’m home chillaxing watching youtube and Netflix and finishing season 2 of stranger things. Something I’m really upset is the Teacher vs student volleyball game is the day before the break in the afternoon so a lot of my friends can’t go because they’ll be on vacation. So yeah that’s basically how my winter break is going.

Immigration Stop Motion #2

Today was our 2nd day of Immigration Stop Motion. My group and I decided to re-do our movie because my shoe was in it and it was really choppy. We didn’t get much done because one, we didn’t have as much time and two, we used most of our time seeing how long it would take us to read one scene so we would know how long we should make the stop motion part. We also added side walls with white paper so that you couldn’t see the wall and the carpet on the sides. It made our movie look a lot cleaner and smoother. Another way we made it look cleaner and smoother was by moving the characters very little each time we took a photo so that it made it look more realistic. So yea, that is basically how stop-motion went today.

Immigration Stop Motion 2018

Today we started our Immigration Stop Motion.  Stop Motion can be hard. It’s hard for my group and I because we have so many set props, there is not much room for the characters to walk around. It’s also super hard because we have no idea how long it will take to read a scene so we have to guess if we have the right amount of time when we film. Also, my group and I use paper characters so they flop around when we film and looks a little bit unnatural. When we film we don’t know what the characters should be doing when they are talking. We thought they would just make subtle moves, as well as moving their neck to face another character in the scene. Or moving their arm while talking. Mrs. Boyer, our teacher mentioned that today can be our learning day. For instance, if we did something today that didn’t work out, tomorrow we can avoid it or re-do it. Something I really enjoyed with Stop Motion is the props. My group and I found mini little props at Michael’s that were perfect for our set. We also found perfect backgrounds and floors at Michael’s. We also build a couple things like beds, tables etc. We also used a couple American Girl doll things that also workes out well. So overall, this is what I think of Stop Motion so far.

 

What I learned (Rube Goldberg)

I realized that Rube Goldberg has a lot to do with patience because for instance if somebody knocked something over accidentally I had to be patient with them and set it up again. I have to remind myself that these things are going to happen. Of course, I didn’t do this every time and still get very frustrated when things don’t work or fall over and break.  Communication is also a huge part of Rube Goldberg because you are most likely to get into some sort of argument. We try to talk it out. We try to let one person speak at a time so that we are not all screaming at each other and over each other trying to get each other to hear us. Of course, these things always happen and will, but knowing these things can help when stress and arguments start to occur.

WeVideo (Rube Goldberg)

Of course, during Rube Goldberg, we have to document what we are doing. My class has to make, either an iMovie or a WeVideo. Our group chose to use WeVideo. Usually, only one person in the group can make the movie because it’s really hard to do it as a group. I am the one who chose to make the video. Making the video is hard because I have to save a lot of videos to drive from my phone and then I have to go on my laptop and import it into WeVideo. It takes a really, really long time. Plus after that, I have to edit the videos, add text and transitions. Also when I make the video I have to put in the problems we had, how we are feeling, what we are changing, titles, subtitles, and bloopers. I also have to make the music louder at times and quieter at times. I also try to make the clips the least choppy possible when I edit chunks out. Overall, this is what I have been doing for a week now. It may seem easier than you think but it is quite a challenge. I learned not to give up and to be patient.

It is about a week later and I finished the video. It was a little overdue because it took a really, really long time for us to get our actual project to work overall. I realized that making the video was a lot harder than I thought because it took forever to download the videos and than bring them to WeVideo. It was really hard and frustrating while editing the clips themselves because some parts I wanted to edit out were really small and then I ended up taking to much out and then I had to re-do it, and so on. Heres the video finished.

https://www.wevideo.com/view/1072275756

Hope you enjoyed!!!

Our takes (Rube Goldberg)

Once my group, Rebekah, Lexi and I were finally finished setting up the project we were ready to start filming our takes. We first, had to make a  mini schedule to keep things organized. Our first take was not that successful because the mini metal ball got stuck in the clear tube. This step is important because this is the first step and the first step is what starts the whole project. We think this happened because the clear tube was not levitated enough. This happened the first couple times. FAST FORWARD TO 10TH TRY,  the tenth try almost worked because the step where Thomas the Train goes down train tracks and hits the Jenga blocks almost worked!  What happened was when the rubber ball hit the train,  the train only went halfway down the train tracks.  We think what caused this to happen was when the tiny metal ball hit the rubber ball,  it didn’t give it enough force to hit hard enough for the train to hit the Jenga Blocks. FAST FORWARD TO TAKE 19, basically, what happened in Take 19 is the rubber ball hits the train, and then the train goes down the train tracks successfully and hits the Jenga Blocks. The bad thing that happened was when the Jenga Blocks got hit, they stopped falling halfway through.   FAST FORWARD TO TAKE 23. Take 23 was probably the most exciting, but yet most disappointing. The reason it was exciting was that the steps all worked and it went all the way through the process without any problems. The reason it was disappointing was that when the step with the orange falling down a ramp was supposed to hit the stamp, it missed it. Take 23 was the last and most successful take that we could do today. Overall, I learned that sometimes, best IS last. I think this because even though we didn’t get it to, work and we didn’t finish, it was a good ending of our day and the best take that we had so far.

Rube Goldberg recap #3

Before we started anything we needed a group to work with. My group is Lexi and Rebekah. Right away, after we got our groups, we needed to start gathering ideas and goals. At first, we were stuck with what to do for our goal. We decided on putting an ink stamp on a piece of paper. We also needed days to meet up and work on the project together. We decided on Saturday and Friday. Now that we had a goal to work off of we needed steps in between to get to that goal. We realized to do those steps we needed some better supplies. So we took a trip to Target and the dollar tree and we got new supplies like dominos, marbles, bouncy balls. We also looked around our houses for toilet paper rolls, ramps and different things that would have potential in our course. So we had our supplies and a goal; it was time to get working. We start out with a tunnel. A marble goes through the tunnel which hits a bouncy ball (that was waiting at the end of the tunnel) and that ball goes down a car racer and 1/2 way down the car racer it hits a train which goes down a train track and then hits dominos. While that is happening the ball keeps going down the car racer and then when it reaches the end the ball goes through a tunnel and hits more dominos. That is what we have so far, and so far it is going really well. During or before this process we have to make a drawing. the drawing has to show all the steps thoroughly and clear.  This may seem easy but it isn’t. We have had multiple challenges. That is basically a recap of what we have been doing these past two weeks.

Rube Goldberg drawing #2

For our Rube Goldberg, of course, we need some sort of plan. My class was asked to make drawings. This was quite a challenge for my group because we found that it was easier to actually be touching the objects and test out if they are going to work in our course before we permanently keep it.  We felt with the drawing that after we hand it in then we will have to stick to that plan and go with it. We felt a lot more comfortable testing the steps before we permanently added it to our course. It also takes less time because we won’t have to deal with changing things constantly. What we decided on doing is making the course first and then drawing it out. Obviously, we won’t be able to build the whole course before we have to hand in our drawings, but we thought ahead of that and got some new supplies and ideas that will most likely work. When we are drawing out those ideas we will be logical in our decision makings.

This is our drawing right now. As you can see, it is not yet done because my group and I haven’t had time to talk about what we are adding yet.

So that was my group and I’s drawing process.