Project X Part 6

Hello and welcome to my sixth blog post on Project X. Let’s get on to what I did this week.

Since the time for TED-Talks (click here to see the YouTube channel!) was near, I started on the presentation. The format I chose to present it in is Prezi. I chose it because it looks very visually appealing (here’s an example [Not my work]). Mr. Mongardi was actually steering us away from Prezi, since he thought it looked to complicated.

In the actual presentation, we’re supposed to talk for one minute about how we came to the conclusion of doing our project and everything in between. The slideshow that comes with it is mainly small bullet points and a few pictures. Instead of writing a set script, I chose to insert a few key bullet points to remind me of what to say. I have yet to put any pictures in though. I feel it’s easier for me that way.

I still feel a little bad that I couldn’t finish my comic before the actual TED-Talks. I’ve decided that I’m going to continue my project even after our Media Literacy class is over. It also helps that I have Art next trimester. I could possibly get help from my art teacher, Mr. Montoya. Do you guys think this is a good idea? Or should I strive to finish before the trimester is over, so that I can talk about it in my TED-Talk?

Thank you for reading my blog post and I’ll see y’all next time for part seven!

Image Credit: Austin Kleon

Project X Part 5

Hi and welcome to my fifth blog post of Project X. I didn’t do much this week, aside from the usual working on the comics.

When I was doing my work, I noticed something. When I finish compiling all my pages, I’ll have a white page blank on the left side of the book. I’m wondering if I should do something on those pages, like maybe a simple joke or a riddle.

On Wednesday, I sort of forgot to bring my newspaper bag so I couldn’t work on the physical project. However, I did do something else productive. I plotted out how my story would go. The number of chapters, what would happen in those chapters, the characters that would be involved, etc. If you want to see it, click here (though there ARE spoilers).

TED Talks is fast approaching with only seven classes left. And I’m barely done. The only way I can finish the project AND prepare for my TED Talk is by taking the work home with me and working on it there. Do you, my readers, think I’ll finish my project in time? Comment down below, and I’ll see y’all next time for Project X Part 6.

Creator of the Garfield Comics: Jim Davis

Project X Part 4

Hello and welcome to my fourth blog post for Project X. It's a little bit weird doing this blog post a day after the last one. It's because I didn't turn in the last one on time. I apologize for that.

Anyway, I've figured out the story of my comic! It’s going to be about how Alaska left Russia and how Europe is weeping about it. Then a certain something happens which triggers our hero to save the day. (I’m leaving those parts out because I don’t want to give out spoilers). The comic will be displayed in 3-4 chapters. This gives me a sense of organisation, because now I know how long it will take to make the whole comic.

I was planning on starting a new project after this one because I didn’t think it would take much time, but now, I’m starting to realize I’ll need to use all of my time to actually finish it. This doesn’t really bother me though, since I’m enjoying the work I do. I’ll need to take some time off from my TED-Talk schedule though.

Well that was my fourth blog post for Project X. Thank you for reading and tune in next time for Part 5!

Another Black-Out poem. This one is by Kevin Harell.

Project X Part 3

Hello and welcome to my third blog post for Project X. Mr. Mongardi introduced a new rubric for our blog posts. It's way more complex and detailed than the other one. Let's hope I do just as well in that too.

Anyway, onto what I actually did. I continued working on my ridiculous story and sort of cheated. Let me explain. Since I couldn't find the exact word I wanted to cut out, I just drew the word in newspaper-style. It sort of looks like this. This makes it way easier for me to actually carve out a story. Now that I “cheated” I realize it's much more fun to make these sentences. I feel a lot more absorbed in my work (wink wink).

When I made the time table for my work, I said I would finish the story by September 28th. It's taking a lot more time than that. Looks like I'll have to adjust it then.

Well aside from all that, nothing else happened much. Maybe the next blog post will be a little more interesting. Tune in next time for the fourth part of the blog post series!

A similar style to my comics called black-out poems. This one is by Austin Kleon.

The Team X Project Blog Post #4

Well this is surprising. Welcome to my fourth and final blog post where we find out if my egg survived or not. Short answer; it didn't.

Our egg did not survive AT ALL. It was actually one of the first ones to go down. The reason is because while we were doing all the testing, we didn't put as many weights on our plastic egg. When the actual egg came in, it put too much weight on our lander which fell very quickly. When we found out, it was about 7 minutes before the drop. We did the best we could like taking out some of the shock absorbers to make it more light. We also made a little cardboard roof to protect the egg from bouncing up and falling. Alas, it was all in vain. We still had a lot of fun though. If I was to do this project again, I definitely wouldn't repeat the same mistake again.

Well, thank you for reading all my blog posts so far. If I do something like this again, expect me to blog about it!

Final drop: https://youtu.be/-kafPKxuJKA
Pictures folder here

The Team X Project Blog Post #3

Welcome to my third blog post on the Team X Project, where I reflect on challenging parts we went through and my prediction for what will happen on the final day of the egg drop..

The most challenging thing we found on this project has been trying to make improvements to our lander. This might seem like I'm saying our lander is perfect, but no, I'm actually saying how we could figure out how to fix the problems. But we finally came through after fixing up holes on our lander box.

I honestly think that our egg will have a pretty big chance of survival, regardless if it lands sideways or correctly. This is because our egg is packed into place by foam peanuts. There are also shock absorbers on the bottom and side of our lander, this was a last minute idea we made. I hope for the best for Esperanza, our egg (can you find the pun?).

Thank you for reading all my blog posts so far. Come back next time for blog post #4.

The Team X Project Blog Post #2

Welcome to blog post #2 of my Team X project. Today we finally completed and tested our first prototype and I must say, It went pretty well. Our prototype landed safely with outs any flips or bounces. We still have to see how it will function with an actual egg, but I'm not too worried about that, given how smooth the lander floated down to the ground.

I think the main that we have going for us here is air resistance. That is the force that makes the lander float to the ground instead of dropping straight down.  We designed our lander to be a little light, so the parachute could actually hold the weight of the lander while floating down.

Another factor we covered is the force that occurs when the lander impacts with the ground. To counter that, we attached foam peanuts inside the box where the egg sits. To be even more safe, we fit the egg upside down exactly into a position where it is surrounded by peanuts. That way it doesn't shake as much and accidentally crack.

I feel that we need to find a way to position the lander so it lands somewhere near the spot-marked-X. Something that we really found easy was using our time efficiently. We worked almost the entire period without taking a break. We even got to test our landers in that same class period.

Something we have learned from our tests is that the way you position the lander actually makes a difference. What we find interesting though is that when we positioned it right above the spot-marked-X, it was the farthest away from the target within all our tests.

This is it for this blog post. Come back next time for blog post #3!

Link to egg drop video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NDPsOD3LgRM

Project X Part 2

Welcome to my second blog post about Project X. Not to be confused with my other Team X Project. This week, I had my first failure. It turns out that after I came back from my vacation, my laptop got infected with a virus so it had to go to repair. I was feeling pretty bummed but I thought of a new idea based on animation, making a comic. This had a catch though. I was going to do mini-stories based on text I got from newspapers. Then illustrate accordingly. I’m pretty sure I’m going to stick to this idea unless I encounter a fatal flaw.

Anyway, onto what I did that day. Mr. Mongardi made us a time-table lay out for us to know when we’re supposed to be done with stuff. For example, I’m supposed to be done with cutting out newspaper text at September 28th. That made me have a sense of organization. After that, we all worked on our individual projects. I cut out some newspaper text and formed about 2-3 sentences. I realized that it’s hard to find text that is actually related without forming words letter-for-letter. That’s why I thought of the idea of doing short stories instead of one long one.

The next class, we did our blog posts as scheduled. This is where I am right now. After writing this blog post, I’m going to work on cutting out more newspaper. This isn't that fun right now but when I get to actually drawing illustrations, I'll be a lot more engaged, interested and absorbed in it. This is it for now. Tune in next time for Blog Post #3.

Charles M. Schulz

The Team X Project Blog Post #1

When I heard that we were going to be starting our Team X projects, I was thrilled. I had already seen the work of other 8th graders from past years (including my brother) so I kind of already had an idea of what we were going to do. I was also determined to beat my brother’s score.

The Team X project works like this. You join a group and decide what materials you're going to use to drop an egg from two heights. From the first floor to the ground floor and from the roof of a building to the ground. There's a catch though. Each material costs a set amount of money and your limit is 80 million dollars.

The reason we did this project was to understand how real life engineers/scientists have to accomplish certain tasks with certain constraints, like money and materials. Along with the obvious learning of how gravity works.

Since I was absent the first day we actually worked on the project with our group, I'm going to write about the second class where we were working. My group was with Julie and Ahmed (Al Wahaibi). When I came to class our group had already decided on a name, The Revival. Our egg’s name was going to be named Esperanza (meaning hope in Spanish). My group thought of the idea of putting the egg in a box with foam peanuts. Straws and string were supposed to be used to attach it to the parachute, which was a plastic cover.

After sketching out the plan and buying the materials, we got to work. We successfully completed building the parachute attached to the straws and the box with foam peanuts, but still needed to do some adjustments, like filling the holes with tape.

Next class I hope to tie any loose ends (literally) and test our project. The thing that I most worry about is that if it will float or not. A small part of me is actually hoping it will be dysfunctional, that way we would actually make some tweaks to our project

Project X Part 1

When I first heard that Media Literacy was my first wheel class, I was excited. My brother had had the same class two years ago, and he made a commercial about a boki bottle.

A commercial about a bottle?... Sounds awesome! I thought.

When we finally gathered up in the MSLC (the Middle School Learning Commons), Mr. Mongardi, our teacher for the class, explained what we were going to do in the course of the first trimester. He said that we were each going to pick a project to do and spend 13 weeks working on it. The project could be anything. After that we brainstormed a lot of ideas. Some were just plain outrageous, for example, an egg costume. Obviously, there was going to be a catch to it. It was that each idea was supposed to be-

1. Creative.
2. Helpful.

I was pretty nervous after that. I hadn’t even come up with a single idea. Of course, I wasn’t the only one. Recognizing our failure at coming up with ideas, Mr. Mongardi showed us a bunch of inspirational videos and slideshows. He even made a survey in which he asked us what we’re interested in, what we do when we’re bored, etc. After all that, I finally came up with two ideas; make a comic book or make a video game. I even considered creating a comic book and a video game mashed together. Coming up with those ideas pretty much washed away all my worries.

The class after that one, we were instructed to customize our blog, the one I’m posting in right now. He also showed us how to put in gadgets (my favorite one is Sally the Sheep.) Finally, we got to some actual work, which is writing a blog post. And that’s where I am now. I’m very excited about creating my project and I hope you will follow my work. That's all there is for now, come back next time for Project X Part 2!

Image Credit: Lindsay Kolowich

When I Grow Up

 When I grow up, the world will probably have many buildings and machines powered by renewable sources of energy. The prototype of a solar car will be perfected and be used by everyone. A very creative designer would create solar dresses. This new invention would generate electricity through solar energy and store it in the dress. When full of electricity, the dress would light up. You could even plug an iPhone into the dress and walk outside.

The One and Only Ivan

Today we listened to an audio book called The One and Only Ivan. What stands stands out to me so far is that Ivan seems content with his life. He doesn't show any resentment for being in captivity. I think that he is hiding the fact that he is very sad.