May 2017 – Just Actin' Like Rania

Capstone: Interview

May 23, 2017May 24, 2017 by rpalaniappan24

My interview was with a chocolate maker named Livingston. He is the production manager and he answered all of my questions. The interview was in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York at a chocolate place called Raaka Chocolate. He was really nice and he gave me a bonus, he gave me a private tour of their work place. Normally they just have group tours but since I had an interview with him he gave me a tour after I was done asking all of my questions.

For my interview he answered all of my question, plus more. He gave me some extra fun facts. I went through all of my questions and he answered all of them thoroughly. Livingston gave deep explanations that were really helpful. My way of remembering the interview was by writing the answers down. I didn’t audio record it. I thought it would be easier to just write the answers down, because that is all that we talked about. And since my mom was there, she picked up anything that he said that I didn’t write down.

After the talk, he showed me their whole chocolate factory. It was awesome! I got to see their machines, and I got to taste the chocolate that they were making right then. I got to taste the chocolate as a liquid, straight from the grinder! What I saw was from their bean room (where they crack the bean to the nibs) to the end of the process, where they put the liquid form of the chocolate into the molds to turn into a solid.

Overall, Livingston was really nice and he gave me a lot of information. I really enjoyed going there and I took a bunch of pictures of their work space. And I suggest getting their chocolate because it is DELICIOUS!

Capstone: Site Visit

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May 15, 2017May 23, 2017 by rpalaniappan24

For my site visit I went to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In Williamsburg there is Mast Brothers, a chocolate company. There I went on a tour of their retail factory. On the tour we saw how they make their chocolate, from the bean to the bar.

The Process: They begin with two machines. One that takes off the shell of the bean. The other grinds the nib (the inside of the bean) into tiny pieces. Then they put all of the ingredients into one grinder to mixes/grinds all of the ingredients together. Then they take it out and let it sit for one to four months in a container. Then, they move onto another machine that makes the chocolate the right temperature. When it is the right temperature it comes out of the machine into a chocolate mold. Then it goes into the fridge and when it is done you have your chocolate!

I asked the person who did the tour a couple questions after. She said that they get their cacao beans from Madagascar, Tanzania, and Peru during the tour. I asked why from those places. She said that the farms that they get their cacao beans from have organic cacao beans and the farms don’t do child labor. After that I asked why they don’t farm their own cacao beans and she said that they don’t need to own their own farms and they don’t have staff who farm cacao beans. And that the brothers know people and they buy the beans from the people that they know.

Stop Motion Immigration: Success!

Home / Stop Motion Animation / Stop Motion Immigration: Success!

May 2, 2017 by rpalaniappan24

We have been partying since we finished. Lana, Una, and I bursted out with joy. It was an amazing feeling. All of our hard work has paid off.

When we finished our stop motion it was an amazing feeling. It is like we had just accomplished our favorite thing in the world. Every snap paid off and we just wanted to watch it over and over again. But we all knew that that wasn’t the last step in the whole process. Next was exporting and that took a long time. Then putting it into iMovie was actually pretty easy. Then we did our voice over. It took like five times to get perfect, but we did it. We were all very proud! We couldn’t believe our eyes. We were looking at our final project. Our perfect conclusion of the immigration project. Our video that we could be super proud of.

Once we saw the whole thing we knew that it was it. Our final perfect project. It was like we were looking at a gold nugget. It was our biggest group accomplishment and we were super proud of it.

Capstone: Choosing a Main Question and Sub Questions

Home / Capstone / Capstone: Choosing a Main Question and Sub Questions

May 1, 2017May 11, 2017 by rpalaniappan24

After choosing to topic I had to choose my main inquiry question and six sub questions.

First I had to choose my main inquiry question. That was a big process. I had two questions in mind then I choose my favorite one. That was all at home. Then at school we got two sheets of paper. Both papers were for the main inquiry question. So I did one so I started my sub questions. But while I was working on my sub questions, that was when I knew what my main inquiry question was supposed to be. It is “how are cocoa beans produced, how does the production affect the taste of chocolate, and what are the health benefits of chocolate?” That is my main inquiry question and I am so proud of it.

After that I had to do my sub questions. The sub questions were the hardest because there are so many of them. Like I said I did my sub questions while I did my main inquiry question. For the sub questions, I knew I wanted to do, where do cocoa beans grow. Then I wanted to do one more about cocoa beans. I needed to think over it a few times and then I chose, how are cocoa beans harvested. Then I wanted to do two health benefit questions. These questions weren’t hard for me to think about. I chose, does the cocoa bean itself have any health benefits, then I chose for my second one about health benefits, what are the health benefits of milk and dark chocolate individually. Then finally, since I also mentioned taste in my main inquiry question, I did my last two about taste. Those were the hardest ones. They were hard because I needed to think about what I didn’t know. I finally chose, what impact does chocolate percentage have on the flavor, then for my final one I chose after a long process of hard thinking and many, many iterations I decided to go with, what affects on the flavor of chocolate does the production of chocolate have.

I am really proud of myself, and all of my questions. I feel confident in them and I am sure that this will be a great project, with great questions.

Stop Motion Immigration: Struggles and Problem Solving

Home / Science / Stop Motion Immigration: Struggles and Problem Solving

May 1, 2017June 9, 2017 by rpalaniappan24

The project isn’t all that easy. One way it isn’t is that there were a bunch of problems and we had to solve them so we could go on. There were a lot of struggles and a lot of arguing and a lot of problem solving and working together. We really had to work as a team during this project.

As I said there were a lot of struggles and problem solving times. Some examples for struggles are not agreeing, fighting over jobs, how fast our filming goes, and who gets what part. One person would get upset and then the other two try to persuade this one that we all should stay with what were good at. Some examples of problem solving strategies are grabbing a drink of water, talking it out, and arguing for what you want.

Those problems and strategies actually happened and worked. Our group disagrees but when we work it out we are a great team.