Blog Post #3 Daniel Topr Capstone

   Overall Capstone was a very interesting project. When I was in 4th grade I saw all the fifth graders doing their capstones and that got me very excited because I was going to do it next year. My expectations for Capstone were better than expected. First of all, I stressed so much about getting an interview, but it was straightforward in the end. Especially because Andrew Rader responded so quickly and accepted the interview. Another thing that took me by surprise was the project I was going to do. My brain was like a roller coaster in the process of choosing what way to present my topic. At first, I thought I was going to do an ignite because my dad could’ve helped me with it the most. Then I realized I was the only one so I switched to a movie days later I switched back to an ignite because I thought it was going to be the easiest and most fittable with my topic. I was wrong, I had to memorize my Ignite which was why I didn’t choose a TedTalk. 

   Then I moved back to a movie. That was very hard because I had to transfer my whole ignite script into a movie script. After I finished with that I got approval from my teacher to start the movie. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. But the timing was very challenging and finding research was also challenging. One exciting part of the research process was the interview. The interview was where a lot of my research came from. And not just any average Wikipedia facts, my research was straight from a worker at Space X with experience and inside information Wikapidea can’t inform you of. In the process of researching, I learned a lot about rocketry and its history how the engines work, and other cool facts I didn’t even know about as I started to research more and more, the more interested and fascinated I became so I took it to a whole new level and piled up with information.

   I choose rocketry because I wanted to try something new instead of basketball and it worked. My dad gave me the advice to do my topic about rocketry but I barely knew anything about rocketry. After taking time to decide what my project will be on I took consideration from my dad and decided to do it on rocketry. I immediately loved it and I took rocketry by surprise. Thinking that it will be hard starting from scratch and not knowing anything about it but my thoughts changed. 

   Some challenges was not knowing anything about it so I didn’t know where to start. Another hard part was deciding what my main inquiry question should be. I wanted it to relate with good sub-questions. I wanted this because I had a few main inquiry questions I wanted to do but I couldn’t decide between them. So I chose the main inquiry question that I could break down into the sub-questions that I wanted as my main inquiry question. I wanted my main inquiry question to be how they work or the math and physics and science behind them or the history of them. So I made my main inquiry question: What types of rockets are there and how are they designed based on their particular use? This question works perfectly because it matches good sub-questions like the ones I mentioned before.

   In conclusion, Capstone was a very fun and interesting project and I am very excited to present it on Wednesday, June 15th, 2022 to my friends and family. 

 

Capstone Blog Post #2

The interview aims to get more research from an expert to support your project. I think that I enjoy the aspect of interviewing someone to gain more information and it contributes hugely to your research. Here’s the story of how I interviewed Andrew Rader. I was looking for books about rocketry to gain more research but we didn’t have any in our class so I decided to check In another teacher’s classroom (she gave me permission) and she told me that she could get an interview with Andrew Rader. At first, I didn’t know who that was but then she told me that he works at space X. I got really excited and surprised because he must’ve been a cool dude, and a smart man to ask about rocketry because he worked at space X., To be honest, I really thought that getting an interview was going to be hard and became really nervous. But in the end, it was easy, the process of writing questions was the hard part because I had to write at least 10 of them. It did not go as expected, first of all, I wrote to him twice. Once to request an interview and the second time to confirm the interview the day of the interview hours before. I learned so much from the interview about all the inside news at space X and all of the crazy missions in the past as well as other cool facts that really amazed me. The interview did not go as expected because I thought that it would be a challenge because it was my first time interviewing someone. To make my worries increase the guy I interviewed was a professional Space X engineer, who went to MIT and sent 24 Falcon Heavys to space. In conclusion, my interview was a success and I learned a lot.

Immigration 2# Blog Post

My experience conducting a movie was very fun. I had to find photos of my interviewer that part was very fun. One challenge I had was finding photos. Making the movie was a new experience for me because I tried using adobe spark and I loved it more than video because it was very easy to work with it made everything look good. Another reason I enjoyed this project was that I was able to gather a lot of information from my dad. And I learned a lot of new things that I didn’t know about my dad before like the fact that he settled in forest hills New York. I started off by finding a noncopyright picture of my dad’s birthplaces’ flag. Then I used my phone to take photos of frame photos of my dad. Then I used the Adobe Stock photos for the rest of my slides. Which wasn’t really easy because some of the photos I wanted weren’t available. But in the end, I loved this project.

Immigration #1

In school, we were learning about immigration and emigration, about the push and pull factors of leaving and entering a new country so to help us understand more about this topic we were assigned to interview someone we knew so I choose my dad. The process is a lot more than it seems coming up with 20 questions isn’t easy because they all have to be different from the others in every way. I considered using an example document of questions and I checked if my questions were green light questions or red light questions. The interview was conducted in person, it didn’t go as I expected it to go because my dad couldn’t remember the answers to some of the questions straight away because he and his family immigrated a long time ago happened a long time ago. In conclusion,n this is what the experience was like.

Sleepy Hollow narrative writing Daniel Topr

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AF2MDc0qe25H3orib43dW_RtHHJ0EvECk3DcMLr7TZ0/edit

I had a lot of fun writing my narrative. I experienced some difficulties there and there but overall I had a very fun time writing my narrative. As a writer I need to improve in descriptive wording and making my writing nice and clear. I think I did  good job with diolouge and show not tell. Another thing I enjoyed is as I was writing I made something up in the end. I really enjoyed writing this narrative because as I wrote I remembered me actually being their. It was a creepy experience being there. One thing I am going to improve in is making my narratives long and strong.

 

 

 

The Crossover by Kwane Alexander book review

The book The Crossover by Kwane Alexander is a book about a boy named Josh. His twin brother is J.B. They both love basketball and their father is Charlie Bell, a former professional basketball player that played for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Golden State Warriors. They both play on the same basketball team called the Wildcats. My favorite part in the book is when Josh makes the game winning shot in game 7 of the finals and the crowd goes wild. I think the character Josh is similar to me because I LOVE basketball and I always try to be the best out of everyone and in everything in basketball. A sad part in the book is when their dad dies from multiple heart attacks leaving his championship ring to Josh. The life lesson of The Crossover is family is an important part in Josh’s family, the Bells, and his relationship to them, that forms the relationship of family. In the book, Josh refers to his father as the backboard – the backbone – of the family, and of his own life. I highly recommend this book to all boys and girls, you don’t have to be a sports fan to enjoy this book, for ages 8+. So if you like suspense books, sad books, and basketball books this is positively, definitely, 100%, absolutely, no doubt about it, the right book for you!!!!!