Tag Archives: Capstone

Capstone Blog Post #3

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Working on my final project was the hardest part of the Capstone process. In this blog post I will be telling you what went well with this phase and what I had a hard time with. 

Some parts of this phase in the Capstone process were really hard. Including writing my script. When I was writing my script, I took information from my Capstone note-taking slides and worded them so they sounded better. When I tried rewording the script though, my mind went completely blank. It was very hard. Eventually, after what felt like a year (it was really only a few days), my script was finished. 

The next step I needed to complete was to copy and paste everything into an organizer. Then, I had to figure out what pictures would be good for my script. I needed to find pictures that would match what I was saying. When I was talking about brass screws, I had to find a picture with brass screws. When I was talking about Derek Jeter, I had to find a picture of Derek Jeter. I did that until all of my pictures were found. Then it was time to move onto the next step.

Putting together the actual video wasn’t that hard. It was just very time-consuming. It wasn’t that hard because I just needed to say my script while recording. It was time-consuming because I had a very long script and it took a long time to find good pictures that were labeled for reuse. A lot of my pictures are blurry though because not many pictures available for reuse are of high quality. My process for putting together the video was to read my organizer to see what picture for that slide I needed. Then, I looked on the web for the photo I needed. I used the button to filter the search. I filter the search so that only photos labeled for reuse pop up. Then I tried to find a good, clear, high-quality photo. If I could find one like that, then I use that one. If I can’t find a photo like that, then I find the best photo I could find. After I find the photo, I save the photo. I go back onto the video tab and add an uploaded photo. I select the photo I want. Once I get the photo I want into that slide, I would look at my script organizer for what I was going to say. If the narration for that slide is short, then I memorize that sentence and record it. If the narration for that slide is long, then I copy and paste the text onto the video slide and record myself reading off of the screen. And then the slide would be done. I did that for over 50 slides and finally, after a couple of days, I was finished. 

Making the final video was easy and hard in different ways. I tried my best to make the best video I possibly could. In the end, I am proud of my video because I put a lot of thought and effort into it. I really enjoyed Capstone and I wish we could do it again.

Capstone Blog Post #2

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As we come close to finishing our Capstone research, we must find an interviewee to interview on our topic. The person we choose to interview has to be an expert in the topic. Originally, my grandpa reached out to Michael Loparo. He is the head of all retail at Yankee Stadium. It was getting close to the time our interviews had to be completed and he still hasn’t responded. I was getting nervous. So, my grandpa emailed someone else who knows people who are experts in Yankee Stadium. That guy got me in touch with Marty Appel. He is a baseball historian, author and worked at Yankee Stadium. He was happy to do the interview. He has done a lot with baseball so he probably knows a lot of information.

Now that I have someone to interview, we had to email back and forth to come up with a time that worked for both of us. After some emailing, we decided on Thursday, May 21st at 1:00. We were going to do it by phone call. Since I had someone to interview and a time, I started to get excited. Mr. Appel was going to provide me with information that will really help with my topic. I also started to get nervous. What was I going to say? Was he nice? I had all these questions about what was going to happen. The closer it came to the interview, the more excited I was and the more nervous I was. My stomach went from having ants to butterflies to birds to having giraffes. The last thing to enter my stomach was a blue whale. Eventually came interview time….

I picked up the phone and started dialing his number. Beep, Blorp, Bop. Finally, I got to the last number and the phone started ringing. “Hello, is this Ryan?” He said. I said “Yes.” I asked him if I could record the interview so I don’t miss any information. He said sure. That was the start of our conversation. He wanted me to tell him a little bit about myself. Then he asked why I chose this as my topic. Then the interview got started for real. I started asking him the questions. It was amazing how much he knew off the top of his head. He even answered some questions based on personal experience. He gave me a lot of useful facts and information. He was also very nice. Once we got that interview started I wasn’t nervous anymore. It felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. These were the questions I asked in the interview:

  1. What foods were served at the old Yankee Stadium compared to the new stadium?
  2. What was the pricing of the foods in the old stadium compared to the new?
  3. What souvenirs and apparel were sold at the old stadium compared to the new?
  4. How does the size of the retail stores in the two stadiums compare?
  5. How does the pricing in the retail stores compare between the two stadiums?
  6. How many restaurants were in the old stadium?
  7. How many restaurants are in the new stadium?
  8. Which stadium took longer to build?
  9. Which stadium did people eat in more?
  10. Which stadium has more rules for fans?
  11. Which stadium allowed more behind the scenes tours of the stadium?
  12. In your opinion, which stadium was harder to work in?

When I finished the interview, I listened to the recording to see if I had missed any information. Only, there wasn’t any information. The problem was, my phone shut off in the middle of the call. 

Overall, I think that I learned a lot. I learned the cost of yearbooks. 15 dollars in the old stadium and 20 dollars in the new stadium. He told me that since the management is the same, the stadiums had the same amount of tours. I also learned that if I face my fears, good things can happen.

Capstone Blog Post #1

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Capstone is a very big project that matters a lot. So, I figured I needed to choose a topic that I will enjoy researching so I could do my best. So then, I started to brainstorm good topics. After a while, I had about four topics. I looked and looked through my list and my eyes landed on Yankee Stadium. I’m like Yes!!! This is perfect. So, I decided to use Yankee Stadium through the ages. The reason I chose Yankee Stadium is because I love the Yankees and I am interested in learning more about the history behind the stadiums. I thought if I enjoy my topic a lot, I can really work hard on the topic and have fun researching it. The challenging part about deciding on a topic was that we could only do one topic and I had a few that I really wanted to do. I figured that I would do my best doing Yankee Stadium. 

Then we had to start working on our main inquiry question. You may be wondering, what is a main inquiry question? A main inquiry question is what we will base our research on. When we got to that point I froze. I thought and thought and thought about my main inquiry question. Finally, I decided on Yankee Stadium through the years. Then, when we got to the sub-questions I realized I didn’t know what I was going to do. I loved my topic and I didn’t want to change it but I felt like it would be really hard to come up with answers. So I thought and thought and thought again and I decided on a topic that would be interesting but not too hard to research about. Comparing the two Yankee Stadiums. The main inquiry question I finally settled on is “What are the reasons behind building a new Yankee Stadium and what changes were made from the original” 

The next step in the process was to come up with five sub-questions. A sub-question is a question which we will research the answers to. The sub questions are questions within the main inquiry question. My sub-questions are:  “Why did they build a new Yankee Stadium?” “How does the size and capacity of the stadiums compare?” “Food served at the old stadium vs food served at the current one?” “ Are the stadiums built with the same material, why? If not, why?” “Does the new stadium have some things transferred from the old stadium?” I was really, really excited to research these answers. 

The next step was to start researching. We had to find websites that were reliable and had true facts. We had to choose at least five resources. They could be a book, website, database. Wikipedia I chose. I chose a baseball book that I have at my house, MLB.com, Turner construction company (the company that built Yankee Stadium) and I don’t know my last one yet. I went onto the websites and read the book and started writing in facts to answer the sub-questions. 

During the research phase, we also had to decide on a person to interview for your topic. I don’t know mine yet but I have some ideas on who I might interview. I am really excited about the rest of this project and I can’t wait to see where it will take us!!! I have learned about myself as a learner that if I don’t get frustrated my work will become even better.