Monthly Archives: March 2022

Rube Goldberg Blog Post #2

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Projects like the Rube Goldberg machine take a lot of determination and never giving up. It takes many tries to get it right. The process throughout the whole way is a struggle, but in the end, it was all worth it. 

 

My Rube Goldberg machine was so fun to make! The starting process was hard because you had to try and think of how to make it work. The hardest part about the planning was figuring out what to do in the end. When I was building it, it was hard to keep setting it up every time. I realized the hardest part was the small parts like the phone or the marble falling. When I finally finished it was so satisfying and I was so happy. 1 year ago I was watching my brother do his Rube Goldberg machine, and it looked so easy, I did not realize how hard it actually was to make it work. 

 

Starting to test, I realized different things along the way. For example, the blocks had to be at the perfect place for the marble to hit it. Another thing is that the phone had to be at the perfect place for it to actually fall or else it would stay put. It took me 15 tries for my whole Rube Goldberg machine to work. When it finally worked, I was so happy. It was tiring at some parts to keep redoing it and sometimes it would make me want to give up, but it was actually really fun to make and to test. 

People in my family that helped me were my dad (who helped plan and build, my mom (who helped plan and was the photographer and video), my grandparents, and my brothers and friends and family as an audience!

 

The WeVideo was the next step. First I had to plan it out on a script planner. That was pretty easy! Next, I started to import my videos into WeVideo but they wouldn’t load. I finally figured out that you had to watch them load. When they finally loaded, I started to put them into the WeVideo baseline. It was actually really fun to make. It was sort of hard because one time I tried to put in a transition and it ruined everything, but when was done I was really proud of myself!

 

Overall, this project was super fun and I loved all of it so much! The process was hard at first, but the end product was worth the struggle! My video of my Rube Goldberg machine, Cherry on Top, is going to be below, so watch it when you get the chance, please! But, after all of this, I think I’ll just go back to putting on cherries the normal way!

My video:

Sharks debate

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When I heard that we had to do debates I was pretty excited! I thought that debates would be really fun because you get to argue on a topic on two different sides! I got on the debate where we debate whether sharks should be protected or not. I really liked this debate topic because it was really interesting and I like sharks. I also knew some information about sharks before so I was prepared for what we were going to be learning about. The people in my group were Hayden, Daniel T., and Gabi. We got our folders with articles about sharks. We looked at the names of articles and tried to figure out what information they had. Then, one by one, we would read articles, annotate them, and take notes about the pros and cons. We eventually finished all our articles and we had all our information. A few days later we split up into sides for the debate. One side would say that sharks were dangerous, and the other side would say that sharks should be protected. Before we got our sides, I wanted to be on the side that says sharks should be protected because I think that was the right side and it had more information. When I got on the side that says sharks should be protected, I was happy that I got on the side I wanted. Hayden and I would be on side A, and Gabi and Daniel T. would be on side B. I already had a lot of information from all my articles so now I just needed to gather it all together. Then Hayden and I  had to make 2 reasons for why sharks should be protected. We reviewed our notes and came up with 2 strong reasons to use in the debate. One, sharks are really important to the ocean ecosystem, and two, humans kill way more sharks than sharks kill humans. Ms. Robert then gave us a document to write the intro, our two reasons, and our conclusion, (with no counterarguments) but first we had to figure out who would say what in the debate. We settled on me saying the intro and the second reason and Hayden said the first reason and the conclusion. That night for homework I started writing my introduction and my second reason. When I finished I was very happy with my work. After a week or so, Ms. Robert gave us another document with counterarguments. I started writing on the new document and I think it was more fun with counterarguments because you get to say why the other person is wrong. I wrote longer when I used counterarguments. I finally finished my side and the other side also did. Then we started to practice the debates altogether. I think it started a little hard but we got the hang of it! When it came time for the debate, I was ready! We did the debate in the auditorium and sat on 2 sides. We did a practice run, and then we did the real one on video. It was very fun. I think I did very well and I really liked the debate work!