Tynker

In our Tynker project, I made my “about me project” about the things I liked, swimming, art, reading etc. What I like most about this project is that we can code how we want these characters to move, I used a dragon to represent history, a colonial boy, a mermaid, a donut, and an artist to show that I love art. I did not think that putting in what I learned from “programming 201”was going to help much, so I only used a bit of what I learned, and I think it turned out well. I hope I can learn more about coding to make mor complicated codes!

Writing Swift Code

For my code, I had a problem that I could not solve. Though it was very cool to see what coding could do, first I changed it to, what is your favorite holiday, which I am currently struggling to understand. Then I added it to say “what’s your number?” Then also “what is your favorite color?” I do find this hard but fun to play around with.

Computer Science is Changing Everything

In the video, what I found most interesting was how people used coding to make art. I’ve seen many light shows but I never knew how they were created, I’ve also seen movies that were really realistic but cartoony, and I always wondered how they did that. When I saw that people used math, then used that math do create something beautiful, I was amazed at what people can do when they try to make something amazing. In Finding Nemo, the art had always attracted me because I am an artist, and light shows also make me amazed because of how the colors change, and how they made it look awesome. I really think that technology is important to all of us because of how it helps us, humans could never beat how fast a computer can calculate. It really helps, from transportation, art, and calculating.

Changing Science is Changing Everything

Back then we didn’t have such devices as we do now, computer tech has changed. and so has has everyone else, engineers have helped so many people save energy to reduce carbo in the air. And other engineers have been creating things to help farmers build machines to speed up growing plants and make it less hard. Then their are engineers who help normal civilians make their life’s easyer. And there are so many more.

Capstone Blog Post #3

In my Capstone project, I thought that silk painting was like any other painting. Turns out there’s a lot more involved. Silk was first used and made in 2696 BC by the Yellow Emperor’s wife, named Leizu. After a while, China was the only one in the world producing silk. And that attracted a lot of Europeans, despite the fact that the walking distance was long. Like really, REALLY long. In fact, it was normal for people from Europe to take an entire year to get silk clothing! The silk was also expensive, so not many people could afford it. 

In ancient China when the Chinese were not one country but tribes, the yellow emperor Xuanyuan Huangdi (pronounced as, shuan-ren Hooang-dee), was the first mythological emperor of China. People then, like all the subjects, wore animal skins. His wife, Leizu, found a silkworm cocoon in her water. And she thought of something no one else would. Normally people’s reaction to this would be,” Ew!! Get it out!” or calmly pick it up and put it in nature. But Leizu, instead, immediately thought that they could use it to make clothing. And after that many women were making silk. Many rich people came and bought it. Of course, it was expensive because silk was smooth and could be used for complex designs. This was great, and over the years silk painting became easier. 

Silk painting went from having over 70 complex steps, to easy and sometimes complicated steps. It can be fun after some practice and tutorials. And, here is the link to my capstone presentation.

Capstone Blog Post #1 – Choosing a Topic

When I started my Capstone research, I had not thought it through enough. Before choosing “watercolors” as my topic I had considered researching WW ll. But I wanted to do something else, so I changed it! I really like my new topic because it has many cool and surprising facts in it, and I can imagine that it’s hard to do all the steps to paint on silk. 

Silk painting takes a lot longer than painting on paper because on paper you can’t really see small mistakes as you are drawing. On paper, if you make a mistake you can always erase it, while on silk it’s a bit complicated. The silk might crumble a bit, and then it may rip if you try to erase a mistake. A lot more could go wrong with silk. Especially since painting on silk has so many steps to it. Some silk paintings even take YEARS to make if they are big and super detailed, when painting on silk remember that it is very fine materials and details are especially used. 

Now since we have machines to print. We don’t use our bare hands to make things anymore, so you can tell how much work was put into some silk pieces from China. Most dresses are hand made, you can search that up and maybe find how people harvest, dye, and sew silk.

Capstone Blog Post #2 – Interview

In 5th grade near the end of the year, all students have to do a Capstone project based on what we were interested in.  My Capstone is going well. My topic is watercolors and my main inquiry question is, “What are the main steps in using watercolor and watercolor pencils on fabric?”

One challenge with my research is finding a website with information on my topic. All the websites that the school knows don’t have this topic. I have to use five resources for my research but I could only find two websites with good information.

My interview really helped with my research. I interviewed my painting teacher who last year taught me how to paint traditional Chinese paintings. She gave some very interesting information that I thought could never be on my topic!  One amazing thing I learned it that are so many people who dedicate themselves to this art style. Another cool thing I learned was that the traditional way has more than 70 steps!  Some people just print the design. Others, (most) still paint the traditional way because they know it shows more skill, talent, and dedication. 

In the 3rd century BC, silk was used as paper. They of course didn’t know how to make paper so they used silk when it first discovered. Silk was discovered when a queen was eating lunch outside. At the time people wore animal skin. The queen was eating when a silkworm’s cocoon fell into her cup. She picked it from the water with her chopsticks and thought it could make some cloth. After that, her people started to harvest silkworms and turn them into cloth. People from Europe started coming, and then the Silk Road was formed. It would take about a year or so to get to China from Europe. Of course, it cost a lot of money, so only rich people were able to make the journey.

Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King Jr was born on January 15, in 1929. He was born in a middle-class family in Atlanta, Georgia. His father was a Baptist Minister. His mother played a big role in the kings church, the Ebenezer Baptist Church. He began preaching at his father’s church in 1948.  As a child, King would spent his time doing what he loved reading and sports. When king was five, his father changed their names to Martin Luther King. King was named after his father, so he had a Jr at the end of his name. King met Coretta Scot in 1952. She was pursuing to be a doctor at Boston University.

Rocket #3 thoughts

This was going to be our last rocket launch. We were determined to get over one hundred feet, so we tried our very best on this one, first we tried making our body as tight as is could possibly be. Which lead to an argument on what color the nose cone was going to be. Sydney and I wanted to choose a different color. While Jai and Neil wanted the same one as we always did, red blue, and white. So to decide, we wrote our choices and let Ms. Edwards pick out of the pencil cup. Lucky for Sydney and I, she picked different color. We decided that the nosecone should be grey. Now it was my turn to tape the nosecone. I made sure that the nosecone was extra tall. I made it out of paper, and then taped the nosecone. They said that I put too much tape. But at least there were no holes to slow it down. Finally, the fins took some time because we wanted them to be very secure. The last two rockets fins were stable except they had one one fin that was a bit loose.