We all know the story of Christopher Columbus finding North America accidentally on his quest to Asia, and British citizens colonizing areas in the Atlantic Coast. But how did the United States of America rise from this? And how did this revolution affect the life of an ordinary girl with an unwavering admiration for her brother (or did she?) This is a tale from the American Revolution.
Xavier
"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious" - Albert Einstein
The American Revolution: A successful change for the better by the valiant people, or just a horse throwing off its master? Welcome to another blog post, and this time, we embark on a journey through time to a period when powdered wigs were all the rage, and tea parties were more than just a casual social affair. In the 18th century, colonists living in the land of America didn’t quite find what they were originally looking for: religious freedom, economic opportunities, and political liberty. Instead, they faced problems including but not limited to: taxation without representation in Parliament, and the British shutting down their harbors and individual governments. They started rebelling, and to them, it seemed like they were fighting for liberty and individual rights, but to the British, they were just a pack of ungrateful, stubborn teenagers. The British were in massive debt, after fighting many wars against the French and Native Americans over land and funding a giant army. They had no choice but to turn towards their own children (since the colonists called England their Mother Land) and taxed them. This led to tensions and inevitably a revolution. The American Revolution.
In Humanities Unit 5: Stranger than Fiction, our class got to choose different literary non-fiction books to read and analyze by tracking down central ideas throughout the book. I chose to read Google It: A History of Google, by Anna Crowley Redding.
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University, each with a love for technology and a dream to revolutionize the world. At first, Google (back then it was called BackRub) was just supposed to be a homework task. But Larry and Sergey went all out on their project, quitting school and persevering through problems with money, space, and time. Google It explains the brilliant minds of Larry and Sergey through many stories of how they got ideas and succeeded in revolutionizing the World Wide Web.
In Google It, the first central idea I inferred that the author was trying to express was from the constant perseverance and belief in their project, Google, by Larry and Sergey. I came up with the central idea of “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will,” a quote by Suzy Kassem, a distinguished writer and philosopher. I feel like this quote perfectly delineates how Larry and Sergey never doubted their project, even when they experienced hindrances from different companies and obstacles.
In this notebook page, I explored different causes and effects for 2 topics: 1 simple topic on the causes and effects of the invention of Google, then 1 deeper topic on how Google succeeded, with more quotes and connections from the book. I also tried to connect these effects with another central idea of how the desire for knowledge boosts the advancement of technology while also boosting other people’s passions. Larry and Sergey always wanted to help others, and their results, as concluded many times by the people influenced by them, did not go unrewarded.
You would think that non-fiction books are usually just pages of facts being thrown at you. But in Google It, the author uses many descriptive passages to show off more of the uniqueness of Larry and Sergey’s ideas. In a page describing the Google Headquarters, Googleplex, and what it’s like to be a worker at Google, Anna Redding utilizes many intriguing words such as “fantasy” and “sparked” to contrast with words like “plucky” and “a deep sad breath.”
Finally, there were parts in the book that were slightly unclear at first. We would reread or do some research on the obscurities, dig out some extra details, and connect those with the central ideas. During my first read of page 188, there were some “big people” jargon that I didn’t understand, like the Davos World Economic Forum and cloud robotics. I was also interested in Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google, and I did some outside research on what it was and how it was doing currently.
Thank you for reading my blog! If you want to learn more about Google or are interested in technology or big companies, Google It by Anna Crowley Redding is definitely a great book for you.
Am I a Humanist? by Xavier An [STUDENT]
Overall, the ideas of humanism were crucial to the renaissance. Humanists shaped and spread the ideas of secularism, individual dignity, and humanities all through Europe, influencing and advertising change from the Middle Ages. The ideas are still frequently taught today, and without them, we may have never seen Europe.
In “The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant” by – W. D. Wetherell, A young boy falls in love with a beautiful girl called Sheila Mant. He tries to impress her every day, and when finally getting the chance to go with her on a date, he tries to hide his love for fishing from Sheila after learning how bad she felt about fishing. However, because of this act of indecision whether to pursue Sheila or continue fishing, he loses a bass that was large enough to haunt him forever. He also finds out that Sheila was never really interested in him, so he decided to never make the same mistake again of getting distracted by a girl from his love of fishing.
There are many types of conflict in the story. The first one is our protagonist, the boy, and his internal conflict when trying to impress Sheila and get her attention, as shown when he “got up the nerve to ask her out. The tortured will-I’s, won’t-I’s, the agonized indecision over what to say, the false starts toward her house and embarrassed retreats—the details of these have been seared from my memory.” The second conflict is a small Person vs. Person Conflict when Sheila disappoints him with her words: “I think fishing’s dumb,” she said, making a face. “I mean, it’s boring and all. Definitely dumb.” Finally, there is another internal conflict in the middle of the story, when the boy realizes how big the bass that was caught on his line was, struggling to keep in on the line (Person vs. Nature), as well as reflecting on his bad choices in the end. “There would be other Sheila Mants in my life, other fish, and though I came close once or twice, it was these secret, hidden tuggings in the night that claimed me, and I never made the same mistake again.” This line captures his emotions after his terrible mistake of letting the bass of his life go, and his internal conflict by being torn apart with the consequences of losing Sheila or losing the bass.
In my found poem, I tried to capture all the different kinds of conflict in the short story, as well as bring in some adjectives in the story to make add more detail and emotion. My found poem is also backgrounded with a combination of soft colors, to represent the entire flow of emotions the story has, and the love of the boy originally for Sheila. Throughout my poem, I also used different fonts and text sizes to better show the emotions the boy feels. For the first few lines of the poem, I used an emoji that represents the desperation and pain the boy probably went through when Sheila told him about her dislike for fishing. The next lines were about the bass’s constant struggling, so I used a picture of a bass moving to represent it (a bit abstract). Finally, I used a Gigachad picture to represent the resolution of the story, when the boy understands the importance of fishing to his life.
Summary of The Bass, The River, and Sheila Mant: https://www.supersummary.com/the-bass-the-river-and-sheila-mant/summary/
W. D. Wetherell’s website: https://www.wdwetherell.com/
Develop and Plan:
I chose to make a LED lamp for my room because the original light was too bright. I wanted a dim light that would be open while I was asleep, or read a little in the dark, so I chose a small and simple design for the one side that light would come through. I chose the 5V warm light bulb, to make the bulb’s surroundings a warm yellow. In Fusion360 and Lightburn, I had to change my design’s size to fit the bulb, but even then the bulb still could not fit inside, and so I removed the lid completely, to let the top of the bulb stick out. Along the way, I made several changes to bridge my design, make the fingers stick out a little, and make a base with a few holes.
Create and Improve:
In fusion, we learned many tools to help us make our design better. There was a trim tool which deleted lines up to the nearest cross-section with another line, a break tool to break lines from a long line, and a circular and rectangular patterns tool that copied the points selected towards a side. Along with all these tools, most of the shapes were made by 2-point rectangles, circles, and fit-point splines. To create a drawing, I copied a picture of a gear from online onto fusion as a canvas and traced the lines with a fit-point spline. I then copied ¼ of my small design and circular patterned it 4 times. Then, I created a bridge to connect the pieces that wouldn’t be cut out in the middle. If I did not bridge, the middle parts would not be connected to the sides, and would just be floating. In Lightburn, the first time I imported my file, it kind of corrupted and a lot was missing. I had to change my fingers in fusion then import back into Lightburn again, and that time it worked. I then colour-coded my file and submitted it for laser cutting. The prototype had no problems, but it was a bit hard to assemble because I had left space for glue. My final design in wood was then made, and it was finally time to add the finishing touch. I used a style called impasto (though it didn’t go as well as I expected). Impasto is a technique using acrylic paint, where you take a large amount of paint and smudge it onto the platform. Kind of wasteful, yes, but the textures you can get are quite nice.
Reflect and Sharing:
Overall, I am proud of my design and the tech challenges I have come across along the way. One tip I would give to students taking this class next year is that saving your file is very important (Save early, Save often, as Ms. Kim says). I once accidentally lost a bit of my project because I forgot to hit save. I would try the locker phone holder project if I were to take the class again because I had a great idea but changed to the lamp. One thing that I would change in this class is to work in groups on the lamp project to understand, but then create your own design. I kind of struggled in the beginning because I didn’t know how to use Fusion, and my friends were ahead of me. If we worked in small groups, we could share ideas and things we learned with each other.
Identify, Brainstorm, Repeat:
On the first day of brainstorming and refining, my partners and I created 6 unique designs for daily problems people have with food. 2 of the designs are automatic, 2 are semi-automatic, which requires pressing buttons, and then the other 2 are manual. The automatic designs are called the Popcorn Shover, inspired by our teacher, and the Pizza Feeder. When eating popcorn, usually in front of a TV, we will end up with oily hands and an annoyed mood because of having to wash our hands to use the tv controller. The Popcorn Shover solves this problem by feeding you popcorn. All you have to do is open your mouth, and enjoy the popcorn while doing something else. The Pizza Feeder solves the same problem, and also works in the same way as the Popcorn Shover.
The 2 semi-automatic designs are solving the problems of eating noodles/ramen, and apples. The Noodleater 2000 is an elegant utensil that contains an electrical motor, attached to 2 chopsticks. This solves the problem of noodles slipping off normal chopsticks. With a click of a button, the motor spins at a speed perfectly fit for spinning up noodles. The Apple Chopper Supreme is just a simple, small and easy-to-use design to cut your apples into 8 equal slices. There isn’t a big problem in eating apples, this just provides an easier way to cut apples.
The 2 manual utensils come from the inspiration of the Swiss knife and the spork. When going to a “not-so-good restaurant,” you might want to bring your own fork and knife. The Swiss forknife is the ultimate combination of the Swiss knife and forks, knives, and spoons. It works just like the Swiss knife, a tiny metal grasp that can fold in large utensils. When eating beans and peas, it is hard to pick up the beans, with any utensil. The Beanpicker 200 gives us a better solution for eating beans and peas. There are tiny spoons attached to the chopsticks, and at the end of the body, there is a disposable paper fold to hold the chopsticks.
Feedback and Revision:
After considering our many designs, we selected the top 3 best designs out of all our brainstorming: The Noodleater 2000, the Bean picker supreme, and the Popcorn Shover Ultimate. We then got feedback from our peers, but they did not give any feedback to improve our designs. Mostly just things about improving handwriting and more labels. we listened and worked on that, but we did not get much feedback on our design itself. So, we reflected on ourselves and gave ourselves feedback. We improved the safety features of the utensils so that they are fit for more ages. For instance, the Noodleater motor is refined to have different speeds, so it is easier to control. We also added a cooling system inside the chopsticks, because eating noodles will usually be hot.
Our Final Design
Ultimately, our team decided on the final design: The Noodleater 2000 Supreme Ultimate. This Design has 2 stainless steel chopsticks with a safe cooling liquid inside that cools down the ramen as you’re enjoying the tasty treat. The chopsticks are detachable, to put into your refrigerator when the liquid goes warm. Inside the utensil’s body is a motor, that comes with a battery that lasts for around 10 hours of continuous spinning, and a charger. If the motor detects unusual torques, it will immediately stop spinning. The motor can be activated with a click of a button on the outer side of the design. You can toggle or press the button to make the chopsticks spin. The Noodleater 2000 is a complete, safe, and waterproof design. Despite its many advantages, the Noodelater 2000 Supreme Ultimate has some tiny flaws. First of all, it is very fragile and is not fit for sudden movement, since it is also quite heavy.
My greatest
success for my pet chair would be cutting the holes so that my cat can stick his arms in and play with the fluffy mouse inside. If I did this again, I would change what material I used. The cardboard was way too soft and when my cat sat on it, it broke (kinda). Overall, I think this project has been successful because my cat did like it and it kept him away from my desk. The pictures aren’t very good, because I used my computer to take them.
When you blog you create posts and posts are categorised according to your subject. Some categories have already been set up for you. If you need more categories you can add them as needed. It’s important that your posts have the following:
- An engaging title – this should not include the name of the subject since this is referenced in the category.
- Body – this is where you share your learning. This can include text, images, embedded videos from Dragons’ Tube or elsewhere. You should always consider how your post looks to your audience. Is it engaging? Do they want to keep reading?
- Category – select one that has been set for you or add a new category. Posts can have more than one category e.g. Humanities and Myself as a Learner
Click on the images below to learn more about blogging:
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- How do I make a Post?
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- How do I upload media?
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- How do I embed Media from Dragons’ Tube?
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- How do I add new categories?
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