Racism has polluted the common world for decades if not centuries. This inherit discrimination has deeply affected not just those who have been dehumanized by it, but by those who suffer the consequences of having a sibling, or a friend who suffers these very same social issues. This is the exact dilemma that world renowned comedian, Trevor Noah finds himself in, in his iconic autobiography: Born a Crime. Noah details his life as being born a mixed child during a time in which interracial relationships were illegal. Despite all these trials, our protagonist is met with one saving grace in his life: his resilient mother. The following paragraphs will detail the themes, as well as ideas presented in Noah’s autobiography, as well as present the importance of a strong mother in a racist society in the form of my notebook pages.

My first page details my initial thoughts on Born a Crime, as well as central ideas that I picked out while reading. My first idea would be the fact that being a mixed child can put you in unusual/unfortunate situations. My main piece of evidence supporting this idea would be a quote that details Noah being kidnapped, after a tribal enemy of his mother had set eyes on a mixed child. This supports my idea as the kidnappers viewed a mixed child as something they could use against Noah’s mom. Details like this are sprinkled all throughout the book with both white people and black people discriminating against Trevor.

My second central idea was the fact that a strong mother was essential in a racist/unfair society. This would be the idea that I developed the most throughout the course of me reading this book. My primary piece of evidence here would be an excerpt from the talking about the roles that both Trevor and his mother played to stabilize their relationship. I would later elaborate on this idea, finding many more paragraphs that further illustrate Trevor’s development due to his mother’s influence.

The second page I have chosen out is one about rereading, it’s importances, and of course how it ties into our central idea. The importance of rereading is to provide more context, as well as find more connections. This can improve your reading experience by making text less confusing, and maybe even easier to read. The passage I selected was one that I found a connection with.  “My father is a complete mystery. There are so many questions about his life that I still cannot even begin to answer.” I chose this passage as it is one of the few sections of the book that Trevor talks about his father. The predominant figure in his life, once again is his mother, making this both a nice mention of his other parent, as well as another reason as to why his mother, and many more had to be so strong. Rereading can help support ideas, as well as draw more attention to unappreciated areas of a novel, and hence is an essential part of literary analysis.

The third page I have chosen is one that connects back to both of my central ideas. This is the page that I used to prepare for my debate: one in which I would have to defend the claim that “resilience is essential in a prejudiced society.” My evidence for this was a paragraph that detailed Trevor’s mom telling him that even though things were both unfair, and hard, you had to hold on. This was also my theme statement, and I managed to tie this very theme back into both of my ideas.

This connects to my mixed child idea in the sense that Noah wouldn’t be facing such challenges if he was normal, and accepted, whereas it ties into my mother idea, as it his his strong mother that tells him this. This page helped me develop my claims into the future, as well as provided a base that I could rely on.

The final notebook page I have selected is one that ties all of my main ideas together. This is my synthesis page: a sort of summary of this entire project.

I started this page by restating both my central ideas. I then made connections to these ideas with the various pieces of evidence I had picked up while rereading/preparing for my debate, etc. These pieces of evidence were are sprinkled throughout the novel, in which they all helped develop my central ideas. An example of this would be when I used the connection of Trevor’s mom telling him to hold on. This was taken from my debate prep (The third page that I covered in this post) in which it relates to both themes. I then elaborated on Trevor being kidnapped as well as his disciplinary relationship with his mom, both from my original central ideas page. I also added Trevor talking about his father, something that I found from the rereading page.

Finally, I connected all these ideas back to the theme of the book: Resilience is essential in a prejudiced society. This made it so all my thinking was organized properly, as well as distributed among the two central ideas I had been developing throughout my reading of Trevor Noah: Born a Crime.

If you are interested about this book, and would like to read more, I would recommend checking out the Goodreads page for both Born a Crime as well as Trevor Noah.

I would also recommend taking a peek at Thank you for reading my blog post, and I hope this analysis has taught you something. Good luck!

Back in November, I had a couple ideas. I started experimenting and learning how to use the mammoth of a program that is Fusion 360. At first, I started making emojis, getting more used to the tools, especially fit point spline which really helped me later. My original project idea was to have three designs: a muffin, a rebel alliance symbol, and a crown. I came close to completing the Fusion design, making my own fingers and all, but accidentally inserted something that killed my frames, and crashed Fusion. I reloaded the project, and everything was gone. I evaluated my choices. I could’ve redone the different designs, though that would’ve taken too much time. I decided to use the Maker case fingers Larry sent me and make all my designs for the muffin with small variations, since it was the most complex and unique of the three. Another problem I fixed was the fact that I kept on forgetting to log into the right account. I freaked out when it started telling me that my Fusion trial was expiring. I fixed this issue the first day I returned, logging into the right account. Eventually, I submitted for prototype. After a couple tries, it was approved. After it was cut, Miss Kim and I discovered that the size of the Maker case template was too small to fit the lamp. That was when I remembered that Larry faced the same issue, and I had completely forgotten we shared the same fingers. After that fiasco, I sat in the cafeteria, and just started working. I finished my final, fixing every mistake by the time the 6-o clock bus rolled around. I submitted for cutting, and it got approved first try. A couple days later, I constructed my box, and decorated it with the help of Deepu. I’m extremely satisfied with my

project, but even more with the skills I learned along the way

My skills in Lightburn and Fusion have increased significantly. After getting used to the fit point spline with my emojis, I pretty much used it for the entirety of the muffin, with the exception of the eyes, and arms. I also learned how to use the trim tool extremely efficiently, which was really useful when I accidentally messed up my fingers. I also used the line tool a lot while making my original

fingers, though it didn’t really help towards the final project. The first few minutes of Lightburn were extremely challenging, since I tried to learn it like how I learned Fusion. This made it so that I often overthink. I then started thinking straightforwardly, and the process moved along a lot quicker. I learned several skills, though the ability to copy and paste was certainly one of the most important. I had trouble with it early on, where it would paste a million copies of the same sketch, though I fixed that by watching Miss Kim’s DX video.  

Some tips and tricks I would recommend for future students is to be aware of time. I had to cut several ideas because my time was limited. Having a good box assembled is better than having a perfect box disassembled. I would’ve made several adjustments to my project if I knew from the start, since some of my work went to waste. Something I would’ve done differently is just making sure my Maker case settings were right. They made me pretty much redo the entire project to submit for my final and was a major obstacle in getting my project submitted on time. I probably also could’ve at least tried to make more designs, to challenge myself, though I doubt I would’ve submitted in time. I feel like the teacher shouldn’t have introduced Maker case since the people who worked hard on their fingers were instantly surpassed by those who just installed them. Something that would’ve benefited me would’ve been more time to experiment, since I’m quite a slow learner when it comes to online platforms. Overall, I really enjoyed this unit, and it was so fun learning so many new skills that I can hopefully apply next year. Though it seemed like a pain at the time, I’m so glad I learned how to use both Fusion 360 and Lightburn.  

During our first unit in Design, we were challenged with making a new utensil/tool to eat a specific food. My partner and I came up with various ideas to eat different foods. We eventually decided on 3. Our first idea was inspired by an experience I had during lunch. I was spinning up pasta and eating it when a large strand broke and fell on the floor. I spent the next 5 minutes cleaning up. The utensil was a pasta driller that had a button to “auto spin” the pasta. The second idea was made by my partner and refined by me. It was a cake cutter in the shape of a V. There were knives in the shape of a triangle that perfectly cut a piece of cake. An attachable ledge then slid into the bottom of the cake, helping you remove it. The final idea was the popcorn popper which was made by me and refined by my partner. I got the idea from Ms. Kim saying that she struggled with eating popcorn. We sort of gave up on this one since we didn’t know how it would work. The concept was a spoon that picked up popcorn kernels and popped them while on the spoon. Another unique idea that didn’t make our top three was a bone separator. This utensil allowed you to remove the bones of a fish before you ate it using crushing methods. Just like the popcorn popper, we didn’t see how this idea could be executed. 

We got a lot of feedback when we displayed our 3 ideas. Despite this, a lot of criticism was towards our drawings, and our “messy” handwriting. The two main pieces that I found quite useful were the fact that our pasta spinner might be messy, and if you could change the speed of the pasta spinner. I ended up using both suggestions in different ways. The messy complaint was countered by a grip instead of a handle in our final design. This made it so that your hands wouldn’t be “splashed” in pasta sauce. You could hold on to the tool through finger imprints. Changing the speed wasn’t directly approached. Instead, we decided to add other attachable utensils to the handle, with different speeds and functions. Specifically, chopsticks which moved slower, but could move from side to side with the help of another button. 

In the end, we decided on the pasta driller as we thought it had the most functions. The three designs we came up with for the pasta driller were quite similar. The first was our original design. It helped people with disabilities eat, and was a pretty good idea overall, our second was a self-spun version. It was a lot safer to use for kids, and a cheaper option. Our final one was a bit of a remix. Instead of an attachable fork, you would attach chopsticks. There were two buttons on this design. One for the auto spin, and another to move the chopsticks from side to side. I liked all three but since I spent the most time developing the auto spin function, I decided to go with option 1. It had a memorable, classic function that helped people with disabilities. The only downside was the safety hazard, with it being used, possibly as a weapon.   

Elevator Pitch: https://flipgrid.com/4053a6cc?av=1