Category: Maker

The sun was beautiful that morning.

Simon Fraser university, SFU for short, is where my dad works. He is a professor in organic chemistry, and is really good at his job! So I decided to follow him around for our recent “bring your kid to work day.” The day started off way to early. It was Halloween the night before and I went to bed late, so the morning hit me pretty hard! My dad and I hit the road after I had crawled out of bed and sluggishly put on clothes. We had to move fast because my dad had a new postdoc starting that morning and he did not want to be late to meet her. (The new post docs name is Yang and she is from china. Yang is exceptionally smart and very kind.) We stoped for a bite to eat at a French bakery on or way out,

( we only stopped because it took so long for me to get ready that we had to leave with out eating!) We made it to SFU with a little time to spare, before the meeting. My dad sat down in his desk and immediately started to check his email.

Do you know how some people are hooked to instagram or Snapchat? Well its like that for my dad, but only with “email.” Actually I guess that’s stretching the truth a little, my dad needs email to communicate with people he is working with on projects all over the world and he needs email to apply for grants, as well as publishing papers, and keeping up with his lab. He gets hundreds of emails everyday. I guess you could say he’s pretty popular! Anyway my dad and I headed to meet his new postdoc and introduce her to the rest of the lab. Which by the way is at about 18 people! And only 2 are girls! Yang enjoyed meeting my dad and I, and even brought us chocolate.

Down 2 flights of stairs lies my dads lab. He shares it with 2 other people but is slowly eating it up the space due to the rising number of students joining. I got to meet some of the students and all of them seem really nice and kind. By students I mean, either graduate, postdoc or doctor. My dad guided me around the lab but reasoned that it was unsafe to be in the lab so we left headed to my dads lecture.
My dads normal lecture hall was in use so he had to use a theatre. It was pretty embarrassing walking around the stage with 400 sets of eyes on you as your dad try’s to figure out which button opens the curtains and which one turns on the lights, but I was alright. I sat down in a front row seat i had saved and watched as my dad started to welcome the class. i pulled out my iPad and started to work only to freeze when i heard my name. I was already pretty embarrassed as I was, from just standing up, but my dad was now telling the whole class that he was “happy to have his daughter in for this bring your kid to work day.” I just closed my eyes and hoped it would be gone. But no such luck. He then directed everybody’s attention to directly where I was sitting and and introduced me to the odd 400 university students surrounding me. And to my surprise they started to applaud me, so I waved. That sure wakes you up in the morning! I guess I owe him a thank you, it was really nice and looking back it wasn’t that embarrassing!
After the lecture was over my dad let me go and interview Roger Linington. Professor Roger Linington directs his studies to chemistry. And I had a blast interviewing him and learning more about his research.

After I interviewed Roger I went down to his lab to see what happens down there. Did you know that there are million dollar machines built soully to find the mass of the tiniest things on earth? It’s funny to think about! I had learned so much that my brain was going to explode and it was only morning still! My dad though it was a good time to go for a run so we headed out on one of the most beautiful runs I have ever taken! We ran along one of the west coast trails and ended up at a lookout, though the lookout was not of SFU, it was of deep cove and I could even make out my home! ( Just barley)

The view was stunning but we needed to get back, so we ran/walked (only me) back to SFU. After our run we were famished, and my dad had made reservations at the DAC (The Diamond Alumni Centre) for lunch. ( My dad does not usually attend the DAC for lunch but since it was bring your kid to work day he thought it would be nice.) The DAC was serving Italian for lunch, and it was delicious! There was pasta salads, gnocchi and so many more! We were seated right by the window so the view was of deep cove. It was really weird and in a way cool to look at my home from that angle.
Lunch was finished off with some tirimasu and cupcakes.
The day only got busier from this point on. Well actually maybe after coffee with roger, it started to get busy. (Everyday my dad will go for coffee with roger to talk about science and catch up.)
I now had a meeting with Gerhard and Regine. Gerhard and Regine are from Germany and specialize in biology. Some projects they have done include, wasps, bedbugs, spiders and many more. My personal favourite was the discovery Gerhard and Regine made with the spiders. They discovered that a male spider ready to mate must “twerk” to let the female know! And so they called it the twerking spider and that discovery got loads of publicity!

Here’s my favourite video!

The twerking spider is actually a really cool discovery, and I totally suggest reading deeper into it!

Gerhard and Regine showed me their lab ( so cool!) and then I had to move on. It was getting later now so we were pressed for time. I interviewed my dad, and I interviewed Yang and then we set off for our last stop. We got in the car and drove to SFU’s inqubator labs, where people starting there own company can have there own space. We went to go meet and interview my dads running partner, Ernie, who started his own drug company! It was really interesting, and he had a lot of information about his company. He created a drug and it is still in testing, but they are into testing on humans now, so I hope all goes well and his drug makes it out to curing people!

The sky had clouded up during the day and now promised of rain. I traveled back and I discussed what I had learned today with my dad, and I thought, “I am so lucky to have this opportunity, to be able to explore SFU, and to be introduced to science this early.”
I really owe my dad a thank you for giving me this opportunity and even if I do not want to pursue the sciences, I have is freedom about knowing what goes on, and how science works that not many have.

Anyway I had so much fun and learned a ton!

Thanks for reading and until next time..

Here’s my day!

 

For my recent filming and attendance of a live action event for maker, I chose a trip to Gastown with my friends, Luca, Isabelle, Celina, Melika and Maggie. (Most of them have blogs and I hope you go an visit them!) The criteria for this event was basically to catch all the footage you could, make sure you got an interview, time lapse clips, slow motion clips, use freeze frames and the ken burns affect on still photographs and, well thats it!

To start my project I made an action plan. An action plan is a list of all the shots you might want to take, since its a live event and you can’t recreate any certain shots. The action plan helped me put all of my ideas into a chart so I wouldn’t be worrying about it in the moment. 

The next step I took was actually filming the live event. The whole night I had my camera out and on. I was filming everything! I didn’t really look at the shape of the clips till later but in the end I was pretty happy at the quality and mass of film, and I felt that I could easily shape the clips into a story. Only one problem, since there was so much film (over 15 mins) it took a while to select which ones could be used and which part. When the first edit was done, I took the video into Vont, a font app that helps with unique titles. I put little tittles on the interviews, for when the audience watches they can tell what the question that was being asked is.

We watched the videos in class the next day, and we found certain things in our own videos that we wanted to change, shape, or just completely remove. We wrote out 3 points that we wanted to change about our videos and got to work.

 

In my final edit I added freeze frames on the interview so you could tell who is speaking. I also layered the interview so that you wouldn’t get bored while watching and it ties the interview back to the story. 

I hope you like the video and have a good rest of your day!

In maker 10 we’ve recently been remaking videos about humour. I’m just going to tell you guys about our process and how they all turned out.

We started this project by talking about humour, and what makes certain people laugh. We talked in class about the serendipities of humour and the scripted versions of it. Ms. Willemse tasked us with the job of making a video that can make us laugh. Thank god we did not have to show these to the rest of the class, because we also had to make them in 5 minutes. This is a practice of unplanned humour. This is the video I created if you would like to watch it!

I am not gifted with the instant humour, but I did learn that a bit of planning never hurt the final product. So knowing this we were tasked with the job of recreating a video that Ms. Willemse found funny, and it was the perfect length.

My group was Kailey and Lucas, but the film consisted of 2 boys, so we had to pick up another character. I made the crazy idea to cast Kai as our second guy. In class we figured out the filming logistics, and picked which day would work for filming and we got all of our costumes figured out. We used our class time to film and got some of the shots done early, but for the main scenes we left them till the end and, well we payed for that. 

We decided to film in the strathcona park because it looked a lot like the actual scenery in the video. I struggled through filming, and took it home to edit it. Kai’s group also needed the footage that we had shot, so I had to send them all of the clips that I had taken. I did the editing and lucas added the sound affects and music to the video. 

The video turned out quite nice and I thought that the scenes were pretty accurate. Here’s our first video, it is a recreation of this video.

After we had created it and showed them to the class, we got our next assignment.

For our second project we had to take a bunch more steps to see if we understood the video, also if we can recreate it to the full potential it will be much nicer. We had to make a storyboard, a story spine, and a screen play. We divided the work up between our group and got it done really quickly.

 

The next step was to talk with your group about props and times that worked well for each of us. Since the movie was filmed in a small room with a basic couch we had to use my house and so we got together and picked a day that would work for all of us.

 

I totally forgot to charge my camera for filming so that was the first mistake and it really affected our final project because we had to use an iPad for the rest of the shots because I didnt have a back up. The rest of the video went by smoothly, lucas had some great acting and we solved more problems than we faced so it went pretty well. I decided to give Kailey the  opportunity to lead and complete the editing, because I had filmed and Lucas had acted. The video turned out amazing and I was really happy with the final project.

This is our recreation video number 2

In the end I learned a lot about filming and angles and I think all of this will come in handy in the future!

Thanks for reading

Adlih

What a roller coaster. I am here to tell you about the highs and lows of my recent experience with blue sky, so welcome.

If your reading this you most likely know what blue sky is, but for those of you exploring around, and just reading this out of curiosity, I’ll explain it for you.
Blue sky is a project where all of the students from grade 8-10 create a question based on different criteria, answer their question and show their learning to parents on the exhibition night.

For the grade 9’s and I, the criteria was to create an answer to a problem that expanded ourselves. What I mean by this is that our answer to our problem had to be something you could find at a department store, in a certain section.
Ms. Willemse got us to do question practices, to help us open our minds to the vast amount of options that we had. We asked How Might We questions and watched LAUNCH videos. Now you might be wondering what these things are and I would like to share with you what my opinion is on them and how they helped me and my project.

How might we

How might we questions are questions that we could ask that would provoke our learning. The structure to the question is enforced to push the student to think outside the box. An example of some how might we questions could be :
how might we entertain kids?
how might we speed up homework?
how might we engage children more?
You get the just of it. The questions cant be to broad, and they cant be to narrow, they need to offer a variety of answers. This helped me because when it came time fro me to write my questions, I was able to have a more open mind and be able to conjure and accept more of the ideas coming from my brain.

The LAUNCH cycle

The LAUNCH cycle is a bit more complex then the “how might we” questions. Blue sky is built around the frame of “the LAUNCH cycle.” So let me explain what this cycle is. The LAUNCH cycle is a cycle of learning.

It begins with looking listening and learning, sort of taking in surroundings, creating empathy, awareness, and most importantly creativity.
The second step is asking questions, and tons of them. This is also the part where “how might we” questions come in, so in this step its important to ask important questions.
The third step is understanding the topic, and to do this research becomes a big part. It is vital that for research you use authentic, and trustworthy sources. What I mean is don’t ask your friends questions fro your project that they would not know anything about. Ask the proper source.
Step four is analyzing your ideas, and begging to navigate through them.
The fifth step is creating a prototype. This prototype can be digital and action event, a piece of art, engineered, etc.
Step six is revising the object that you created in the step below. Highlighting the pros to keep your self feeling productive, and remember every mistake takes you closer to success!
The seventh step is sharing your work with others. This step is very important, because after this step, you head right back to the beginning!

 

Now that I’ve explained these first few steps, I would like to get started on my actual journey through blue sky.

The first step for me once I had picked a topic was to fill out the Blue sky project pitch form. I had to create 2 of these because I changed my idea half way through! The pitch form is a form to help you begin your whole journey into this project, I do feel it is more for the teachers to understand your project, but it helps the students figure out things for the future of their projects as well.

After this step the kids are left to complete the main project itself. For this section I needed to complete my research and do my interviews. I also needed to create prototypes! For this section we had a bunch of time so we didn’t have to be super stressed but I was anyways. I had done a lot of my research just looking into this topic so research was not on my priority chart, but drawing my first prototype was. My first prototype was very simple, and did not really consist of to much back round knowledge. It was a rough drawing but I’m glad I didn’t go all out because I realized later that I did not even want to do this topic, so I had to scratch the whole thing and start again. This is a photo of my first prototype of my inflatable vest.

After I had changed topics to a more “adlih” topic, I had to make another pitch form and another prototype. It didn’t take to long and when I was done I was really happy I had made the switch!

After prototype 1 was finished it was time to move on to step 6, which is revising and finding some positive work. I can not tell you how long this step took. I don’t know what it was but I could not wrap my head around some of the solutions to the problems I’d been having with the filter. ( forgot to mention I switched my topics to a nano plastic filter!) I spent 2 whole days trying to figure out why so many new problems kept coming up, but finally I figured it out and created the second prototype.

After the second prototype the rest of the project just fell into place. I interviewed a man named Byron Gates. Dr. Gates works at SFU, and majors in the study of nano particles. The interview that I did with him went really well and I learned a lot of new information.

 

 

I also interviewed my long time friend, and owner of Room6, Megan. Megan told me a lot about the business side of products, but was also very interested in the science behind it.
I put the information together and created a poster board. I also nailed a sink to a box of wood to show how you use this filter, but in the end I didn’t even get to show anyone. I came down with the worst flu I have ever had the night before the exhibition and I didn’t get to share my project with anyone.

In the end I learned a lot about my topic and I really enjoyed the experience

So I’ve successfully made it through one year of PLP, and I would like to say that it has changed me for the better, so with that thought in mind, lets begin.

That would normally be a hard question because I sometimes have a hard time remembering things from a while ago, but I have been really good at remembering projects and work, from the beginning of this year. I feel that the most important thing that I learned this year, wasn’t in a project but in a way of learning. I learned lots from the hands on learning aspect of this program, and I am so thankful for it. I didn’t know how much I need to picture something to truly comprehend it. But the main thing I learned this year is how to work cooperatively with other students. This is super important to me because this will be a major part of my future and it is good to learn how to incorporate different personalities into a project and still work to your best abilities, and create a final product that I am proud of. I think that this is a very important aspect of PLP, because in standard line school you are always with other people, and projects are less often, but in PLP projects are a huge part of the course, and I really enjoy learning about certain things people are good at. I found it hard in the beginning of the year, but now since I’ve been in PLP for a full year I don’t find it as hard to work with others. An example of working with others, and pushing my comfort zone is our recent Ottawa trip.

On our trip I had to work with other people, and create new bonds.

I think this is a really important aspect to learning, to realize that sometimes the history that we intake is different than what another person might take in, because everyone has different perspectives on things. An example is Louis Riel. Recently we have been delving into the intense history of Louis Riel, and all of his controversial acts. Ms. Maxwell is super good at facilitating our debates, and showing that not just one side is correct. Let me explain. Louis Riel was executed so Ms. Maxwell thought it would be good to debate ad try to figure out what our thoughts were on his death, and if we thought it was justified. I think this is a really good example of seeing things from other peoples perspectives, and sharing these thoughts with others. Also when doing a project you will always get a different perspective, where as a test you would get one singular perspective.

 

I have improved as a learner through the unique opportunity’s that are offered through PLP. Examples being Calgary, and Ottawa. In Calgary I learned so many things that I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t gone. Things like the discovery of Banff hot springs, and that there are female empowerment groups that do the coolest things, like a group of woman who metal work, and travel around the world sharing there stories. It was so inspiring, and yet there are thousands of kids who dont get these opportunities. So I think my learning has improved greatly throughout this year because I realized that I am a hands on learner and standard school never really addressed this, and I realized that there is so much more to learning than just a text book, and some tests. And that learning can be fun! I have also become more thorough and interested in my work. By this I mean I have become way more dedicated to the work that is put infront of me than I was last year. I find the reason for this might be the fact that the amount of effort we put in to our projects is recognized, and we get rewarded based upon that. I have also improved through the exhibitions and blue sky.

I have many goals to set for myself for next year, many including getting to know people better, pushing myself harder, trying to comprehend the new information better, and improving my video skills.

Franken stuffies

I would really like to improve on these skills, but I would like to focus most of my time on time management, and composure during the busy patches of homework. I have never really been a strong time manager but I think this year I have improved majorly with the help from my friends, and teachers. Examples of this are last year I would never plan ahead and always be stuck completing assignments the day before they are due. This year I have been using all my time so much more efficiently, an example would even be this Tpol. I realized that the week before my Tpol is due, I have something to do every night, so I decided to get this done ASAP, so I wouldn’t have to worry about it on the day before it was due.

I think time management is a super good goal for me to strive to achieve next year, and I look forward to completing it!