Wrong: Post 1

Can you take a wrong picture? According to what I wrote in the Padlet post, rules in photography are used to enhance the photographer’s purpose. If this purpose were to create a portrait of a man in full detail, and to use his complexion to reflect some deeper source of meaning, rules would of course apply—the lighting needs to be deliberate, the positioning exact. If this purpose were to depict a suburban neighborhood in order to document the environment and culture of a specific time period, rules would, again, be helpful—the rule of thirds should most likely be relevant, along with the use of diagonal lines. However, the purpose of the photo “Wrong” is, indeed, completely different. The photographer wants not to emphasize any setting nor to illustrate any subject, but to elicit a sense of juxtaposition and disharmony. When the purpose of an image is to cause confusion in the viewer, or to exemplify all aspects of photography in discombobulating ways—in simpler terms, when the purpose of an image is to defy rules, then rules, of course, do not apply in the typical way.

 

Some photos:

 

And just to throw in something I really liked but isn’t very formal:

08. January 2024 by Hanna
Categories: Photography, Wrong | Leave a comment

Energy Transformation Project—Reflect and Share

An overview of our complete design process: 

Left: diagram found online of Heron’s fountain; right: our initial sketch used to visualize the product in the form of our materials.

We settled on this idea after considering many others (paper plane, car, an already-designed version of the fountain). We thought it was the most straightforward/simplistic in its presentation of an energy transformation (gravitational potential —> kinetic), and we also recognized that it allowed space for originality, as it was previously only a diagram that we were able to transform into a structure built out of bottles and straws.

After settling on this idea, we decided that the product would be used for educational purposes for students in lower grade levels. This implied that it should be neat and understandable, and also safe to use. The structure needed to be relatively stable, and there shouldn’t be too many sharp corners that had the potential to hurt someone. We also included a note that this product should utilize recycled materials, as it would become a single-use tool in the classroom.

Detailed model with dimensions during the developing stage; the cardboard covering was planned as an extra accessory but was later abandoned.

After creating an initial sketch, we started adding details and practical aspects to our design. We made sure to follow the instruction on the diagram (the heights of the parts, h and <h) and put in actual measurements of the materials we were going to use. We specified in the model where the water level should be in order for the fountain to function.

In addition to the basic structure we also included an extra part of decoration/interaction because of considerations of the time (we were worried there would be too much time left). This was not adopted later on.

Clay covering; this version did not work because the clay became soggy and failed in stopping air from escaping.

This was the version that we completed after the second-to-last creating period. We realized at this point that we did not consider the covering for the top section, where the water would be initially put and the air pressure would built, pushing water out in a fountain-like way. Thus, we improvised at the end of class and used a round bottle cap and some air-dry clay to seal the top. We believed this design would both be convenient for the user and effective in preventing air from escaping. However, the clay proved to be unsuitable as it melted immediately after it came into contact with water. We concluded that the clay must have allowed air to leave the bottle, which would have impeded upon the function of the product.

Final prototype; we made adjustments with the straws, the glue on the bottles, and the seal on top. 

This was the final version of our product. First of all, we exchanged the clay sealing with a strong duct tape, and we made sure to seal any gaps between the tape and the sides of the top section so as to trap all the air inside. Afterwards, we did receive critique for this choice; a classmate mentioned in her feedback that the tape sealing might be too inconvenient.

Apart from the sealing, we also enforced the paper straws (which we selected for their hardness and stability) by wrapping the same duct tape around it to stop water from soaking out. We went around the bottle on the left again with hot glue, to prevent any leakage that was previously present. We tested that there were no points where water/air could’ve escaped by blowing air into the top, bowl-shaped section and feeling for airflow at the end of the straw, where the water should come out. After all was set, we did 3 trials to see if the product would work as planned, making adjustments each of the first two times. Despite this, however, the fountain didn’t work.

Original success criteria:

According to feedback (and objective observation)

  • The structure can stand on its own/is stable —> ✅
  • The fountain actually functions —> ❌
  • The product is created methodically and looks neat—> ✅

Strengths:

  1. The structure was actually more stabilized than we first expected, during the first day of construction. In the end, many adjustments and improvisation ensured that the product could stand during the experiment, with the pressure of water.
  2. There was consensus amongst classmates that the product looked appealing and colorful, which fulfills our audience group of elementary students.
  3. Even though the product is not able to produce the final step of the experiment, there is still the depiction from the water flow of gravitational potential energy to kinetic energy; both the movement of the water downwards in the first bottle and leftward into the second bottle are examples of this.

Weaknesses:

  1.  The fountain doesn’t function as we expected it to…
  2. Apart from this (assuming it did work), we suppose there are other points of inconvenience in the design that might make it undesirable to be used in a classroom.

What we learned:

  • To start, we gained a lot of experience in the design center. During the project we were able to become familiar with a lot of tools in the center (especially an assortment of drills), and we conversed with many teachers there as well.
  • Surrounding the project itself, we learned the importance of thinking through multiple aspects of our design before we start constructing. For example, we reflected that if we were to do the project again, we should probably ask ourselves more questions in the developing process. For example: Do the proportions of our design match the proportions of the original diagram? What is the most effective way of piecing together the abundance of parts we have in our prototype? What type of straws can withstand water but also hot glue? Many details in the creating process proved to be problems we needed to overcome because we didn’t previously ask these questions.

Overall, we are proud of this project, especially in how well we collaborated and problem-solved (even though the biggest problem was still left unsolved…). I feel that we accomplished and learned much throughout the whole design process.

07. March 2023 by Hanna
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Energy Transformation Project—Create and Improve

During the creating process of our project, we ran into many problems both with the original design and the actual carrying-out of the design. They are summarized below, simultaneously illustrating our creating and improve process.

1. Size of bottles.

We originally planned to use an entire plastic bottle for part 3 in the design (see below). However, upon testing it during class, we found that the length of the bottle was much too long, and would lead to the sagging of the straw after part 4. As a result, we cut out part of the bottle and stuck the bottom part back onto the top part (see below).

2. Unstable structure.

There were many aspects of the prototype that made it a bit wobbly at first. The skewers, for one, were originally bent, so we needed to add another aspect to the design that stabilized it and straightened it out a bit. The heights of the bottles needed to be adjusted, so we put pieces of foam and cardboard underneath.

3. Leakage.

Leakage is something that we spent a lot of time fixing, but in the end still couldn’t completely get rid of. There were many points of connection in our product that allowed for the leaking of water/air, such as the hot-glued area at part 3, the straws, and the top of part 4. It would obviously be a problem if water were to leak at any point, but if air were to leak, the experiment wouldn’t work. There would be a lack in air pressure, and the water in part 4 would not flow.  To prevent leaking, we used hot glue to mend holes in the plastic bottles; we also wanted to make sure that the sealing on top of part 4 fit snuggly, so we used clay (which is moldable, which helps it fill gaps that might leak air) and a round bottle cap.

4. Straws

The straws are essential parts of the design. To makes sure they fit into the bottles, we picked drills that resembles/were slightly wider than the straws we used. we used hot glue on both sides of the surface the straws poke through the stabilize. After testing our prototype many times, the paper straws began to unravel slightly. In response, we used water-proof tape and glue to seal the crevices.

5. Water level

At first, we added water to part 4 until it reached the very bottom of the lower straw. When that didn’t work, we adjusted the water level to the top of the straw. However, neither solutions worked well.

Feedback from classmates

!  The prototype is visually pleasing/successful.

!  “Cool idea. Very different from other projects.”

?  “The tape sealing the top could be too inconvenient for the user.”

?  If there was no leakage, why didn’t it work?

Final product

Some photos…

 

 

 

 

 

06. March 2023 by Hanna
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Energy Transformation Project—Develop and Plan

Materials

  • “Smart-water” plastic bottles x 3
  • Bendable straws x 3
  • Cardboard (enough for the base at section 4 and the box being put over the right side)
  • Wooden skewers x 4
  • Hot glue & glue gun
  • Plastic wrap
  • Paper & tape
  • Twist drill
  • Water

Notes

  1. We will create the sections of the entire structure in order (1—>4). After making section 3, we will first construct the base that section 4 will rest upon.
  2. The hole on top of the “hotel” box must be aligned with the opening of section 4. This hole will be necessary for the water to be poured into 4.
  3. The size of the twist drill and the diameter of the straws don’t have to be exactly the same, but should be close.

Success Criteria

  • The structure can stand on its own/is stable
  • The fountain actually functions
  • The product is created methodically and looks neat

20. February 2023 by Hanna
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Energy Transformation Project—Define and Inquire

User: Students in elementary school who are getting to know about energy transformations. The product should thus be safe to use (no flames/chemicals/sharp edges) and relatively straightforward.

Purpose: The product must demonstrate the transformation of some type of potential energy into kinetic energy.

Other considerations: Environmental impact—Since the product will be a single-use model belonging in a school curriculum, we want to consider the environmental impact of it; thus, the product will be constructed out of recycled material like plastic bottles and recycled paper. Time—We have 4 classes to complete the project, which should be enough time to plan, create, and fix problems if there are any.

We considered four designs in total during this stage in the project. The first two are both toys based on vehicles, and they are mainly representative of elastic potential energy being transformed into kinetic energy. The last two products are inspired by the design for Heron’s fountain, in which a series of sections ensure a non-stop water flow.  These two designs are representative of gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy.

 

 

 

 

Left: airplane; we wanted to throw the plane like we normally would but then let the air in the balloon sustain it. It didn’t make too much sense. Right: car; under the same logic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At first we considered the design on the left, which is the most common version of Heron’s water fountain. It works because the rise in water levels pushes air up into upper sections, which in turn pushes water downwards. The water then travels up the longest straw and spills out. However, the design for this product was already set in stone, and there wasn’t much space for improvement. Instead, we decided on transforming the diagram on the right (which is also a type of design for Heron’s fountain) into a structure made with bottles and straws. This would work similarly compared to the initial design, with water pushing air up and air pushing water out. The kind of energy transformation present here is gravitational potential energy —> kinetic energy, since the excess water flows down due to gravity and causes the movement throughout the structure.

Summary

Our chosen design fits within the criteria I listed at the start. It is suitable for younger students because it is safe and easy to use, with the only instruction being that water is poured into the correct locations. It demonstrates the transformation of gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy. It is also environmentally friendly because we can use recycled plastic bottles and straws to construct the product. In the process of reaching this final design, we considered three more precedents; however, we concluded that this design has the potential to be the most original and most innovative for it was previously a diagram, and we made it into a structure that can be replicated with bottles and straws.

18. February 2023 by Hanna
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Her Day—A Capstone Film

Following our Capstone essay, we had the task of creating a short, impactful video that spreads awareness and piques interest surrounding the issue we chose. I wanted to branch from my topic of sexism into a more specific area of modern gender roles. In the end, the short film I created traces a woman’s daily schedule, illustrating the mosaic of expectations pressured onto females in our society today.

14. June 2022 by Hanna
Categories: Humanities | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Beneath The Waves: An Analysis Of Benevolent Sexism

Sexual assault. Rape. Harassment. Violence. These are all familiar words, yet there is an intangible distance between us and them. These are the words that embody sexism as we know it—but what if they shouldn’t? Today, gender inequality exists in tiny gestures, trivial statements, and unseen traditions; it is hidden in the assumption that women are vulnerable, entrenched in the belief that females are sentimental whilst males are logical, and written in lines of law as well as unspoken norms. The real detriment in our world right now is one you probably have come in close contact with, but have never seen materialized—benevolent sexism. It’s an unconscious bias, a gift-wrapped set of rules that encages women. It underlies the household, the education system, the workplace, the government—it lays beneath the waves.

This is an analysis of benevolent sexism that tracks its corruption in various aspects of society.

02. June 2022 by Hanna
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Émilie: A Revolutionary Journal

The French revolution: a fight for equality and fraternity, a struggle for freedom and individuality, a quest for a country governed by the people. Bloodshed is for the better, loss is for gain, pain is for justice.

But this is not what Émilie sees. Married two years ago to the Chevrolets when she was only fifteen years of age, Émilie is the housewife of a peasant family. After a season of bad harvest and years of brutal taxation, she balances on a sharp edge, and when the match of revolution is struck and her husband joins the radicals—the balance breaks.

This is a story of a girl living in revolutionary France in the 18th century. It is a perspective that is rarely pondered when one looks at the violence and glory of the revolution. It is a story told separate from the brutality and revolts; it is a tale of the mind.

The French revolution started with simple goals. People were infuriated by the inhumane tax system under the King, and were suffering from famine and destitution. They were tired of being exploited by a government that never told them what their money and property was used for. They wanted a fight, because they had nothing to lose.

To me, it seems that this simplicity of the revolution often made it directionless. We only need to look at the most significant hallmarks of the fifteen years.

When the Declaration of the Rights of the Man was established, it was established by a small group of revolutionaries, and cowritten with the president of another country, Thomas Jefferson. When the Reign of Terror occurred, it occurred under the lead of a radical who saw unlimited slaughter as a justifiable cost of peace—Robespierre. When the Napoleonic Code was written, it was written by the jurors of a military genius who wanted dictatorship, not democracy.

Time after time, the wrong people led the revolution and took it in the wrong direction.

So, was it worth it? Well, the economy prospered under the Napoleonic Code. The country grew in size and fame because of the military successes of Napoleon. Transparency was ensured under a new government. France was declared a republic.

Still, the violence and loss that accompanied this chaotic revolution lingers in the back of minds. Thousands upon thousands of people killed on the guillotine because of a few spoken words. Millions of illegitimate children and women, stripped of rights. The country led by an extreme, cruel military general.

It is hard to judge the revolution’s worth, because it is always hard to tell if the world would have been better or worse if we simply erased a segment of its story. However, when we take a piece of black and white history, and paint it with the strokes of actual perspectives, we realize that perhaps too much has been given to achieve too little.

28. March 2022 by Hanna
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The French Revolution In Plain English

This is 6 minutes of plain English that take you through the French Revolution, from the oppression faced by the poor in 1789 to the rise of Napoleon in 1799; from a fight for a constitution to the Declaration of the Rights of the Man, then to the Napoleonic Code; from the corruption of an absolutist society to—well, you’ll discover soon enough in the video. The simple explanations give you a  good opportunity to compare and contrast the beginning and end of the revolution, as well as the advancements or regressions seen throughout. You might notice that the French Revolution saw the birth of many ideas and philosophies surrounding the society, politics, and humanity, though you might also observe the  differences between those ideas and their execution (as in “enaction”, though in this revolution, “execution” as in “execution” would also be adequate).

As you watch the video, keep in mind the question—was the French Revolution worth it?

15. March 2022 by Hanna
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The Borden Murders: Trial Of The Century, Testament Of Humanity

The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the Century is a work of literary nonfiction, and it tells the story of one of the most infamous cases of the 1800s. After Andrew and Abby Borden were killed with a hatchet in 1892, their daughter, Lizzie, was immediately deemed the prime suspect. What followed was a trial held by both the public and the court, a chaotically interwoven series of media releases and court hearings. The book gives readers insight into the often harmful symbiosis of public perception and legal justice.

As I went through The Borden Murders for our literary nonfiction bookclub, I took note of the reoccurring instances where bias and presumptions were used to incriminate Lizzie Borden, and then, further on, a Portuguese worker at the house of a copycat crime.

Here are the notebook entries where I detail my thinking.

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The first page is a general compilation of so-called “evidence” people gathered to prove Lizzie Borden’s guilt; the public’s form of finding evidence was nothing more than delineating gender norms and boundaries. These pieces of evidence span across the entire book, starting from the simple perception of Lizzie’s “apathy”, evolving into the accusation made in court of the crime being done by an “imperfect feminine hand”, and ending with the public’s contradictory opinions of what Lizzie should’ve have done upon witnessing her murdered parents—these opinions were gossiped after the verdict came out and the case ended.

The next page shows more concatenate thinking:  the evidence presented on the first page is categorized and used to extend each other. Furthermore, two different branches were added. Firstly is the aforementioned affair with the Portuguese worker, Jose Correiro. This branch discusses the society’s expectations for racial minorities. Second of all is the messy media interpretation of everything that was happening with the case. This is an important topic in the book, and is hugely relevant in our lives. It discusses the public’s disinclination towards intellect and its proclivity towards entertainment.

Here on the third page, I use a complex mind map of sorts to show how one trait of all people gradually led to the validation of unfounded claims. This is also an effect of what we call confirmation bias, the bias in people to link any new knowledge with a preexisting belief. In this case, every new piece of gossip about Lizzie Borden was sent into a spiral as people used it to confirm the persona they had already built for her. Similarly, when people wanted to prove Jose Correiro’s guilt, the bits of evidence they used (stolen money, possible attempt at rape) were all chosen because of how in-sync they were with the persona given to Portuguese people—one of destitution and roguishness.

The final page is a research page that focuses completely on the copycat crime and the incrimination of Jose Correiro; it gathers information from outside the book as to delve into the event more thoroughly. To give you a brief overview of the case, about a year after the Bordens were murdered, Bertha Manchester was found killed in a farmhouse. The way she was murdered was eerily similar to the Borden murders: a hatchet or an axe had delivered an unnecessary number of blows to her skull. Despite the similarities, the public did not seem to connect this crime with the Borden murders, and the media was also unwilling to accept the theory. Investigators tenaciously claimed that the two cases had no connections whatsoever. Consequentially, just as many other cases were solved during that time, the crime was quite randomly assigned to Correiro, an underpaid worker at the farm who had just arrived in the United States.

This event doesn’t just prove again how biased the justice system was—and often still is; the way people discussed it as nothing but a subject, the way they manipulated evidence of Correiro’s case in order to make Lizzie Borden less guilty—these events show an obvious objectification of racial minorities and the dismission of responsibilities forcefully attached to them.

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To conclude, The Borden Murders not only tells us a tale of the trial of the century, it also gives us an understanding of how influential preconceptions are on judgement, how easily we can be skewed by confirmation bias, and just how interconnected equality and justice really are.

25. January 2022 by Hanna
Categories: Humanities | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

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