Capstone Blog #3

Capstone is the biggest project of the year, it was a fun and challenging project. I had to choose a topic to research. My topic was how cars have changed to become safer and faster. I also had to research and interview an expert on your to get as much information as possible. Finally, I had to present what I learned about cars.

 

Researching was the most important and hardest part of the project because you need the information to make a good project/presentation. I had to have five resources I used to get information about my topic. I had to get a lot of information which was stored in a slideshow. Researching was challenging because I would get the same information a lot. I would have to look for new information in new resources. I learned that researching is challenging, but the information you get will help you a lot.

 

After I finished researching, I had to make a presentation about all my information. There were three ways I could present my information. A TED Talk, an Ignite, or a Movie. In a TED Talk, you show your information orally, you can have a slideshow, but you don’t need to. In an Ignite, you express your findings in a slideshow and talk in front of everybody, the slides advance every fifteen seconds I didn’t do an Ignite because I didn’t want to time my slides to exactly fifteen seconds for each slide. In a movie, you show your findings in a WeVideo or an Adobe, you don’t need to talk in front of people. Pictures are required and you need to record a voice-over on the pictures. I chose to present my information in a movie because I like making movies and I am good with technology. I didn’t want to do a TED Talk or an Ignite because you need to memorize your script and you can mess up in front of everyone, in a movie, you can do things over and over again until it is perfect. 

Some challenges I had with my presentation were that sometimes I couldn’t find the right picture to go with my information, I had to search for more pictures or change the information I was presenting.

 

I learned a lot about cars and research over the course of this project. I learned that researching can be challenging but you should keep trying. Also, sometimes things won’t work the way you want them to so you have to improvise. I also learned a lot about how cars have changed over time to become safer and faster. Cars have become faster because they have stronger engines. Cars have become safer because of new technology. Capstone was super fun and amazing project, I learned a lot, and I look forward to presenting and finishing my project.

Rube Goldberg Blog Post #2

Overall, the process of designing the Rube Goldberg machine was fun and also challenging. The most challenging part was designing the machine, I had to alter it two times and it took fifty-three tries. Also, the car kept missing the block so the machine couldn’t function. When it finally succeeded, the inclined planes that the car was to run down had to be carefully placed and aligned with the block.

The easiest parts of the Rube Goldberg were drawing the sketch and making the video, making the video was easy because I knew what to do and place in it because of my script. Drawing the sketch was easy because I just had to draw the plan and what I predicted/thought would happen, I wouldn’t have to actually test the design/plan until I got to the designing and testing stage.

I learned that sometimes your invention won’t work and that you have to keep trying and changing things to make it successful.

Making the video was easy because I had a whole document devoted to it, the script was very detailed (narration, hear, see, etc.) Also, I had all the video clips and pictures that I was going to use downloaded into wevideo and I just had to put them inside the timeline.

(Rube Goldberg machine sketch)

 

The sketch I made doesn’t look anything like the final build, I had to change things because I realized that the sketch would never work.

(Rube Goldberg machine video)

 

The resources I used to make my Rube Goldberg machine were, “Sprice on America’s Got Talent” and, “Joseph’s Machines” The simple machines I used in my Rube Goldberg machine were, two inclined planes and a wheel and axle.