Hey Y’all, Max here
The final project of Scimatics 9, and also the final project this year, had us start a business and see if it could survive, whether it would turn a profit, or whether it would fold. I personally found that this project was less difficult than expected, solely because I thought it was entirely based on profit and numbers, which I generally have a harder time with. This project is called Time is Money.
Before anything else, I needed to know what I was going to sell. I thought of assembling an team of bodyguards and being a bodyguard for hire, but I realized that the only people who needed bodyguards were celebrities or politicians, and I had no knowledge of how to be an effective bodyguard. I eventually decided to make cleaning sneakers my business. I have interest in sneakers, and I figured it wouldn’t be too difficult.
The middle of the project was dedicated to khan academy quizzes and learning how to do stuff like linear graphing and finding similar equations. The khan academy quizzes were ridiculously difficult and it took me around five hours to do all of them, and that’s with help from my older brother. I did not find this part easy, and I did not learn how to do linear graphing until around the end of the project when I was required to. I eventually did get help from a tutor outside of school hours, and I regret not paying more attention to what was being taught.
The two main things I did next was make an equation to show startup fees, sale-price, and time.
I also made a graph in the graphing application Desmos. This was literally just my equation in graph from, so it was important that I got the equation right.
The very last thing I did was make a short video about the project, and the process of making my product. I’ll link it below.
Time is Money Presentation Video
The driving question for this project is “How can we predict our finances for the future?” This project hasn’t taught me much I don’t already know, but I still thought it was interesting nonetheless. Investments can greatly help in the future, whether it be in a business, a person, or a place. Data from markets tell investors how they’re investment is doing, whether its losing money or making money. Investors then use this data to make smarter investments and it comes full circle.
Overall, I enjoyed this project, even though I didn’t enjoy most of the math involved. I suppose I’ll have to get used to learning different math concepts, because it‘ll be mainstream next year. I didn’t think much if this project, but it was a good end to the school year. 5/10.