Tech Blog Post #9

This week, my class and I finished up our light switches. Unfortunately, I was not here Thursday or Wednesday, but I got a lot done with my light switches. First, we had to create a diagram with our light switch. Then, we had to measure the wires. I cut up pipes with a large saw, and I also drilled a hole in the plastic pipes with the drill press. I also started to decorate my pipes. This flashlight has to be waterproof, so that is why we are using secure plastic pipes. I still have to decorate a little more, and I also have to solder the wires together. The past tech weeks have been extremely fun! I love using great tools that I normally would not use, and Me. Calvert is very nice with helping us. I wouldn’t add any suggestions because the class is awesome as it is! Thank you for reading all of my posts throughout tech!  I hope you enjoyed! I will put a picture of my flashlight when I am finished with it down below.

Tech Blog Post #8

This week, I finally finished my three switches. I will post a picture of them below. My first one, I pressed down on the large popsicle stick, and it touched the tinfoil. My second switch was a cut straw that you could press down, and it would touch the tinfoil. My third switch had a flap with tinfoil on it, and when I pressed it down, it touched the tinfoil. We also started our designs for our waterproof flashlight. What Mr. Calvert is going to put it in a bucket of water, he is going to turn it on and off three times, and he is going to see if it works. If it doesn’t we are getting a lot of our grade off. First, we started with the design. There are lots of parts to it. I am using a plug, a pipe, a 45 degree angle elbow, and I am going to be using a cap. My flashlight is a weird shape, but I don’t mind, because mine will be different from the others. I am so excited to see how my flashlight works out!]

Tech Blog Post #7

This week, I finished soldering and I also made switches. I soldered on Friday and on Monday, and it was scary. I was scared that I would burn myself, or accidentally eat the flux. Luckily, when I had finished soldering, I found that I loved my piece. Mr. Calvert told me to rinse it off and wash my hands. I also added some soap to the piece so that I knew there was no flux on it. Now that my soldering piece was done, I decided that I wanted to add a chain. The only way I could do that, however, was if I went to get a lunch pass for tech. I did that, but I had to work on my switches. I will explain what my switches are. My paintbrush has not come out of the laser printer yet, but I am so excited to see how it turns out. I will put a picture of my piece below. I have to make three light switches. Unfortunately, I have only made two so far, so I will have to go in for lunch to do that tomorrow. I am so excited to see how my switches come out. My first one was where I had to push a popsicle stick with tinfoil at the end so that it would touch tinfoil at the bottom of the cardboard figure. My next switch was sliding a straw with tinfoil to more tinfoil, so that when it touched, I would have light. Mr. Calvert explained to us that when we had tinfoil touching each other, it would create light. I have to make a third one to play a game where we have to rapidly turn the switches on and off. I am so excited to see how my third one comes out! Here is my solder piece.

Tech Blog Post #6

This week, we were really into soldering. Mr. Calvert explained to us that what we put on the wire before we solder it is called flux. Unfortunately, flux is extremely toxic, so we have to make sure that we don’t ingest it, otherwise it is fatal. I also didn’t get to solder this week, but I might do so tomorrow, in which case I will post more about it on this post! I also had to make a laser printed paint brush. My paintbrush is going to be around one inch in length and width, so in order to draw it on Vectornator, I have to make the scale 1/16. I will post a picture of my Vectornator design tomorrow or once it has printed out. I will also be putting my design from Vectornator below. I needed a lot of help from Mr. Calvert to get my paintbrush design, because I had barely ever used Vectornator before (except for when we were printing out our banners). After it prints out, I will decorate it with the sharpie markers that are in the back of the room. I am thinking maybe a regular brown paintbrush with some blue paint at the end of it. I am so excited to see how my paintbrush looks when it is printing out!

Tech Blog Post #5

This week, my tech class started soldering. I have not yet, but I am still close to doing it. At the very end of last week, we started to finalize making our loops.we had to make a smaller loop at the top, so that the ribbon could go through it. That was the tricky part for me. After we had made the loop, we still needed to connect the loop to the bigger part where our design was going to go. We took another piece of wire and make tiny circles with it around the smaller loop. Then, my design holder (which I call loop) was complete! Now I am still finishing shaping the wires for my design. I chose quite a complicated design, but I am still so excited to make it! I am make a cat with an L in it. On the L, there is a heart. Here is my design.

We had to put a very thick double sided tape to our brainstorm sheet (on our design), and then we had to put the pieces that we made onto the tape. I have made the nose, the ears, and I am in the middle of making the L. Then, I will make the heart. Mr. Calvert taught me how to do that. I have to take the round nosed pliers, and pull on the wire for it to circle around the plier. Then, I will have one side of the heart. I am so excited to finish putting the wires on! Once I have finished the design, I will put a photo of it (not my finalized product).

Tech Blog Post #4

This week, we started to brainstorm the jewelry that we are going to make. Here are the steps to brainstorming our jewelry. First, we had to fill out a form to tell our teacher which type of jewelry we were going to make. I decided to do something that was shorter than a necklace, but longer than a choker. Next, Mr. Calvert told us to interview the person that we were making the jewelry for. I interviewed my sister, and I asked her what brought a smile to her face. She said helping others emotionally, smiling, and other deep thoughts that I thought were quite interesting. That was on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, we had a half day because of Ash Wednesday. We got to do fun activities of our choice, but we had to miss our classes. This meant missing tech. On Thursday, (today) we started using wire. Mr. Calvert explained to us that the higher the number of the type of wire, the thinner it is. We used many different tools to shape the wire. First, we used something that would make a nice circle shape. Then, we took the wire and twisted it to have a loop. I used many of these tools before when I was doing jewelry making. I am so excited to see my finished project of my necklace! Picture of my brainstorming sheet below!

Tech Blog Post #3

This week was so fun!  We started making our first laser cutting project! There were huge machines that intricately made the pieces that we were cutting. Although I made a banner last week, I made a bookmark this week! I am so excited because other people got theirs cut already, and they came out to be so good! I am making a bookmark that says, “never judge a book by its movie.” I also put some designs on the side so that it would look better. I put a hole in the top to put a ribbon through that book mark when it is finished laser cutting. Our tech teacher also has a bunch of cool sharpie markers that I can use to decorate my bookmark. It needs to be understood, however, that before I could just slap it all together in Vectornator, I had to draw it on a piece of paper. Here was my process: First, I had to brainstorm some ideas on a plain piece of paper, and then I had to draw what I was going to make on a piece of graph paper. After that, I took a picture of my design and started to draw over it on Vectornator. Tech has been so fun so far, and I am so excited to see what my bookmark looks like after the whole process is done! I will post a picture below when it is finished!

 

Tech Blog Post #2

I am now almost finished with my second week of being in technology class! The first half of the week, we learned about atoms and lighting. I loved learning about how lightning wants to go through the tallest thing made out of water instead of going through air. The highlight of this week was starting to make our first project! What we had to do was import an image of a banner to an app called Vectornator. Next, we would write whatever message we wanted to on the banner! We could even change the font size and font type! I think that Vectornator is complicated, but I think that if I keep on using it well, I will get the hang of it. Our teacher taught us that whatever was red would be what was cut out, and whatever was in black would be engraved in the wood creation. I thought that was very interesting. Mr. Calvert told us that our creations would be ready by tomorrow. I can’t wait for tomorrow! I am super excited to see what my banner looks like!

Tech Blog Post #1

Hello! This is my first blog post for Technology. I am now in quarter 3, and I am super excited to start working on projects in technology class! The first couple of days, we were touring the room, and Mr. Calvert showed us all of the tools that we would be using. All of the tools seem extremely fun to use, and I can’t wait to create with them! We did a Nearpod lesson on atoms! We got to play a game where we would figure out which atom was what in the periodic table. At first, I did not understand it, but with some help, it was fun to do! I was also happy to do the breakout room. The day before, we had to learn about the safety rules in the technology room. We had to figure out clues by using the safety rules that our technology teacher had taught us before. My team was so happy when we had finished unlocking the box! We were so excited to have figured out the three locks.I am so excited to start Technology because of the exciting lessons and tools that we will use!

Working on My Capstone Essay and Final Presentation

I have worked on my Capstone Essay in past weeks and it has been really fun! If you have not seen my previous Capstone posts then I would suggest you read them using these links, Blog Post #1 and Blog Post #2. I needed to incorporate all of the answers to my Sub-Questions into one big essay. That meant that I was not supposed to write down, “The answer to my first Sub-Question is…” I had to use the research that I had from my Sub-Questions to answer my Main Inquiry Question. So, I had to write, “The top five ways of treating Anxiety are CBT, Exercise, Meditation, Relaxation Exercises and Writing. Technology has aided the treatment of Anxiety because it has apps that help people and Telehealth also helped during Coronavirus.” I had to do this because the whole point of having Sub-Questions was to answer my Main Inquiry question.

Although it was fun, it was also hard organizing my essay. My Main Inquiry question was, “What are the Top Five Ways of Treating Anxiety and How Has Technology Aided it’s Treatment?” I had to split up the top five ways into two sections. In my first body paragraph, I had to write down the top three ways of treating Anxiety, and in my second body paragraph, I had to write the last ways of treating Anxiety. Then, I wanted to make the technology part a bit longer so I made my third paragraph to be about the apps that help with Anxiety. Finally, I made my fourth body paragraph to be about Telehealth during the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Overall, I loved doing this Capstone Essay because it was fun to write down what I had researched and it was also nice to know that when people read it, they could learn new things about treating Anxiety.

To read my Capstone Essay, please click this link: Top Five Ways to Treat Anxiety.

After my Capstone Essay, I had to work on the script and my slides. I am preparing a TedTalk so I do not need to have pictures that are going to be played on a Video. I will click the board and wait until it turns to start saying the script for that slide. When you do a TedTalk, you can use however much time you need on a slide as long as it does not bore the audience and also as long as your whole presentation is three to five minutes long in total.

While doing my script, I had to take the evidence that I had in the essay and put it into my script. However, my script could not sound like my essay. I had to make my script more conversational. I was worried that I would not get the script done in time and I was also worried that my TedTalk might not be able to fit into three to five minutes. Still, I got my script done in time and soon I was onto the next step, making the slideshow.

Making the slideshow was fun and exciting! I loved finding all of the pictures for my slides! After I had put the pictures into the slides, I had to time my slideshow with the script. At first, my time was four minutes and fifty seconds. Then, it moved onto seven minutes when I read it to my father. Then it went down to five minutes and seven seconds and after that, it moved down to four minutes and forty-six seconds.

After working on my slideshow and my script, I was pretty excited to present for feedback in front of the whole class. However, I was a little worried. What was I worried about? Well, I was worried about having the critiques. Maybe I would have a lot of critiques and just a little positive feedback! Maybe many people would not like it! The first day I presented in front of the class, I was so worried I couldn’t feel my legs! After about a minute though, I got comfortable and started to be a little calmer than before.

It turned out that I probably would be better off not worrying about the critiques. Instead of making me feel as though I should’ve done better work, the critiques made me feel as though my presentation could get better, and it did!

After my first time presenting, I worked on memorizing my script so I would be ready. Memorizing my script took a lot of time when I did homework. One day, for homework, I even practiced eight times! Although memorizing and rehearsing could be hard sometimes when I forgot what to say, it definitely paid off. When I next presented to the class, I found that I had memorized more than I thought I had, and I challenged myself not to take the script with me. Of course, there were times where I said something that was supposed to go before and not after. For example, when I was talking about how Relaxation Exercises could help with Anxiety, I said that the shoulders and jaws could be tense, after I said what you did in a Relaxation Exercise. Fortunately, I did not pause after I made a mistake and I just kept on going.

The third time I presented was a little more complicated than the other times. I had to go over my introduction because it was not flowing very well. At first, I said, “Raise your hand if you knew about Telehealth for Anxiety Pre-Coronavirus. That’s right, not many of you knew. Telehealth is when you see a Doctor virtually. It turns out, 75% of the American population didn’t know about Telehealth for Anxiety Pre-Coronavirus. Well, now you probably know about virtual Anxiety Therapy, but what about the best ways of treating Anxiety, and how has technology aided its treatment? You’re about to find out!” After I revised it with a classmate, my aid, and my teacher, I decided I would say this, “Do you know what the best ways of treating Anxiety are? And, do you know what happened to Anxiety treatment during COVID?  I will be talking about the best ways of treating Anxiety, how technology has aided its treatment, and the ways treatments have evolved as a result of the pandemic.” My revised introduction added more flow than I thought it would and I was glad that I changed it.

So, looking back, I found I have done a lot of work for Capstone. If you think about it, there are many steps! Finding my topic, making my Main Inquiry Questions and Sub-Questions, making a Blog Post #1, organizing my interviews, doing my interviews, making Blog Post#2, writing my Capstone Essay, writing my Capstone Script, making my Capstone Slides, memorizing my Capstone Script, and writing Blog Post #3.

If you would like to see my Capstone Slides, please click on this link: Capstone Slides.

Here is my Presentation! Hope you enjoy!