We found out that we were starting Capstone. First, we had to choose a topic to study for our Capstone project. I thought that I wanted to do Hershey because I knew a lot about it and I was going there for two days over break. I discussed with Mrs. Edwards if I should do Hershey and she said ,”Capstone is supposed to be something that you don’t know a lot about.” I realized that if I do Hershey, I already know a lot about it so, I won’t have the full Capstone experience. I decided to pick a topic that I don’t know a lot about. At first, I did not know what to do. Then, I thought about it and I thought that it would be fun to do Dylan’s Candy Bar, Crayola or American Girl.  I thought hard on what I wanted to research a lot about. I also thought I wanted to do something that interests me that I would have fun doing.  I thought Dylan’s Candy Bar would be fun because all the candy and how it’s one of the most popular candy bars in the world. So, I did Dylan’s Candy Bar as my main topic. We also needed a back-up idea and I was deciding between Crayola and American Girl. I thought American Girl wouldn’t have a lot of websites on it or information. I knew that Crayola has a lot about history, how they make the crayons and A LOT more. Now since I figured it out Dylan’s Candy Bar will be my Capstone idea and Crayola will be my back-up idea. As i’m writing this I realized I might want to do Crayola because if you think about it Dylan’s Candy Bar is just a store that sells other peoples candy. Now I am doing Crayola as my main Capstone idea and Dylan’s Candy Bar as my back-up idea and I feel like I made the right choice. Even though I did my switch so last minute and I already have information on Dylan’s Candy Bar; I am glad that I switched over.I can’t wait to learn more about Crayola for my Capstone!

Today I read the November 16, 2015 Tween Tribune article, “Police Pull Over A Self-Driving Car.”  In the article it explains how a police officer pulled over a car because, “The officer noticed the car going a road clogging 24mph in a 34mph zone.” Yet, when the officer tried to pull over the car to give the person a ticket, there was no one in the car to give the ticket to! In the text it states,”He stopped the car and contacted it’s operators to let them know it was slowing traffic, but no ticket was given.”

It’s good that he contacted Google but despite that the officer gave a warning, it could happen again. In fact, if Google keeps putting more self-driving cars on the roads, then this will cause a major problem.

I think that they should not put self-driving cars on the roads because they are way to dangerous. For example, if there is a kid crossing at the last few seconds or a school bus has a stop sign up, how will the car know what to do in those situations?  If a car makes a turn and goes out of control, there is no one is there to control it. That could put a lot of peoples life at risk. Even with a person in the driver’s seat; what is the point of being in the front seat when you could just drive?  Technology isn’t alert as people are and that could put a lot of people in danger. That’s why I think that people should not put self-driving cars on the road.

Now we needed help because we were just stuck we asked my dad to help us out for and idea. He said try to flush the toilet because it can go straight down unlike the sink which has to go sideways. So Giselle and I thought just have the books go into the bathroom and lead them to the toilet flusher. Then we thought of things that were heavy that when the last book falls it would hit that which we would tie string to that and the toilet. We thought of a weight and we tried that and it worked it was just what we needed. Then we realized that the other place was after the tube what would the foose ball hit to knock down the books then we still extra blocks so we used those. Then we thought our Rube Goldberg was finally complete and we could start recording. We started and we estimated that we would take 87 tries to have it work. We were WAY off it only took 26 tries! When it worked we were So happy because all of that hard work it all paid off. Then we had to upload all the videos to drive of some of our fails and conversations on what we could improve on e.t.c. We also still had a sketch to remake so we did that and we were finished!(beside the Imovie that we are working in school)WE were so proud of ourselves and sad it was over

Colors Poem

I decided to use the colors poem for the poem that you can add a picture to. I figured that it would be a colorful and fun picture to do. So that’s why I did it for the picture poem. I was inspired  to write this poem about colors because there is so much about colors that can be expressed and be made into a poem. Everything around us is made up of color. Also I used natures colors, like the grass, sun, and  sky. That is what inspired me to do that poem and which category to use it for. Below is my Colors Poem

Winter Poem

I decided to use the winter poem to video it. I did this because I thought I could make you feel like you are really in the scene of winter when I was reading it. I was inspired to write this poem because I wrote a Hiku about winter and thought it was good and extend it to be even better. Then when I extend it I really added the details of what winter really feels like. For example, transitioning over from the crispy fall air with leaves everywhere to winter with snow everywhere. Click on the link for my Winter Poem 

Hollywood Poem

I choose to use my Hollywood poem for the festival poem because there are so many different things in Hollywood. Like the Hollywood sign, the lights, the Walk of Fame e.t.c. I was inspired to write this poem because I’ve been there  and there could be so many elements in the poem. I also chose it for the festival because I rhymed it and it makes sense and thought I could make a good illustration for it.

Hawaii

I chose to use my Hawaii poem for the fun choice poem because there is so much beauty in Hawaii and smells and sounds in Hawaii. For example, the beaches,palm trees e.t.c. I was inspired to write this poem because I have been there two times and could be so many different things to write about it. I also chose it for my fun poem because I wrote a lot about Hawaii and I haven’t done a poem about it yet and thought it would be fun to write and easy because I know so much about it.

Now that we started working on our sides Giselle thought that we should make a ramp going up to the claw machine and have something hit it to go in. Then she worked from the tube to the end. We thought to both use books to go to our sides. So she had books curve her side and have a big tube thing roll into a light basketball that would hit the coin that would turn the claw machine on. It looked reasonable so we thought it was good. Meanwhile, on my side i kept the books going straight and stopped it right before it went into the bathroom then i attached the string to the last book and taped a little tube like thing to the roof and attached it to the faucet so when the book fell down it would pull the faucet up and turn it on. Then we tried our endings a few times Giselle said she thought her side was good and when I tried my side nothing happened but at least it didn’t fall down like all the other times. We decided to look on the web for turning on a faucet and there was this really inspiring video which is to have a bucket on a book and the books will knock that down and the bucket which is heavy will turn the faucet on. So we tried that and it still didn’t work by now we were frustrated. Then we just set our minds of the faucet idea and went to the claw. We tried it but the book just didn’t give the little basketball enough force to go up to the ramp. We were really annoyed because we had no ending. I hope we will think of a ending idea soon.

Now since we had our whole Rube Goldberg we started testing it out. After 13 tries, we just decided to try out the ending to see if it worked because we had just made a few changes. We did that and… the whole ending part of our machine fell down! Again! Giselle and I decided to have a big discussion to plan out what we were going to do. Giselle and I decided to do change our ending. Our new plan, “Plan B”  involved turning a claw candy machine on in case the water faucet idea didn’t work .We had books go both ways so we could work on a side. Giselle worked on the claw candy machine and I worked on the faucet idea. We just hope it can work out!

Now that we had our halfway built of our Rube Goldberg we thought that we could put books but we thought that when the foose ball goes through the tube it will lose speed and not hit the books down and we were right so we put a golf ball at the end of the tube and hope it will knock down. Then we had to get it moving into the bathroom so the last book we made sure that it was heavy and tied a string on the book then that went to the bathroom and we taped a piece of paper than tape so the string could move. Than we left a little space and hung up hangers on the string and that led down to the faucet and would hit the baseball. Than when we tried the ending to see if it would work it didn’t seem like it was a good idea so we changed the hangers to wiffle balls so it’s more controlled and heavier. So than we did our collaboration video we thought that we should not use domino’s because it wasn’t having effect on the tennis ball and wouldn’t push down. Than we decided to do instead of the baseball do a tennis ball so it was less weight and would be easier to push down. Now that we had our Rube Goldberg built and have changes all we have to do is see if it works!  

Now that we had our idea or the beginning and supplies we started building we thought it would be easier to build and than sketch so if something didn’t work out we could change it and not keep redrawing it. So we put the domino’s on the ping pong table and put the tennis ball in front of it and thought we should have the ball go though something so it could narrow down and hit something else. Now that we got that built we thought that by now the tennis ball would loose speed so we taped drum sticks down to the ground and put a foose ball down on the beginning of the drums so when the tennis ball hit it the foose ball will go into a tube on the mat. So when we got that we were half way though with our Rube Goldberg and stopped there.

Giselle and I decided to work together on the Rube Goldberg together. We wanted to work at my house. We thought it would be good if we decided what we would start with and what we would end with. For example we decided to start with domino’s knocking down on a ping pong table and end with turning on a water faucet on. Now that we had our idea we wanted to see what supplies we could continue with. When we got our supplies we thought we were in a good place to stop and continue it next time.