The Life Of Mimi

Blue Sky!

As you may already know for blue sky I create a wetsuit dryer I was very proud of this because first of all I thought it was a project that I could actually sell (with some tweeks) and second, I learned from my mistakes and was able to improve my project by fixing those mistakes. To start off with the creating process I made a plan and a model of my finished project, although this took me a while to finish in the end it was all worth it. Once I had my plan and a shopping list I headed out to Rona to pick up some PCV pipes, strong glue and some black spray paint. I went home and arranged everything like my plan said and cut everything down to size, next I had to punch lots of tiny holes into the pipes so the air could properly pass through as fast as possible. Once everything was in place the I just added the glue to the shoulders because they kept falling off (I couldn’t glue everything together because otherwise the mannequin wouldn’t be able to fit in the wet suit) Okay so know that every thing was ready I needed to shine it up a little, for this all I did was spray painted it in a glossy black, cut a circle and added some wheeled onto that circle so my “mannequin” could move around. The whole point of this project was to cut down the drying process so to do this I got a construction vacuum and attached it to the top where the neck would be. Like I said in the beginning there where some mistakes in my project and one of them was that the air wasn’t passing through fast enough so to fix this I went back to Rona to buy some cap for the arms so the air would even out and build up throughout the whole wetsuit. Now that this was done It was time to show it off at the exhibition. I brought my surfboard and created a little video, so take a look!

La Renaissance!

So we’ve been learning about the rennaisance and how it effected our western worldview these past couple of months. We started off with choosing three people from that time, an artist, a thinker, a scientist. I ended up choosing Donatello, Isaac Newton and Leonardo DaVinci. Next was creating a Venn diagram with things that all three of them had in common like how they effected the rennaisance and western worldview, there religions, personality and there innovations. So here’s what I came up with:

So next was incorporating all of the things they had in common and putting them into one big picture, so for example if they were German you could put a German flag in the background. Most people did a big collage or a diagram but I decided to go with a scene. I thought mine could be a window sill and I could put some little things like neklaces or flags that would represent something. So first look at the picture and try to guess what you think each bit means then keep reading,to find out!

So as you may have already guessed the two flags at the back represent the nationalities and the little cross represents the religion of those people which was Christianity. Next I put some books on the left hand side, the ones that say science 101 and sculpting for dummies represent how those people inspired people today to do what they wanted and not what people told them to do, they also showed people to take more time for themselve. The other books that say Leonardo, Isaac Newton and Donatello shows how much they invented and created that people still acknowledged today. And last but not least the picture frame which also kind of represented taking time for yourself to do what you want like spend time with family and do many of your own leisure activities. I learned a lot from this and think that the rennaisance was very important for people then but also for people today.

V.2 Of Seycove7!

As you might already know a few classes from our school have been competing in a challenge called destination imagination, and if you haven’t heard of it, this post will not make any sense to you so I would suggest reading this link before. Anyways moving on to this post, so in the regional challenge we got third place after that our group debated if we wanted to move on to the provincial in the end we decided to go and we got *drum roll* second place which was pretty good considering there where some kids who came from China and our speakers ran out of batteries 😂.

The rules were that we had to have two propulsion systems and two movement methods. We had our wheels and our motor but we needed to come up with more before the competition, two nights before the competition we attached a cardboard box with couch movers at the bottom then after we got a drill and made it into a very modified crane. So it was the day of the competition and we where excited/nervous and pretty prepared, when we got on stage our cardboard box wouldn’t move! So we got rid of that and we started up the drill/crane thing. You guessed it, the drill stopped working! So basically while we were changing everything on stage, everybody was doing the play and as luck would have it the speakers ran out of batteries, anyways I’m very proud of our group for pulling it all together on the stage no matter what the problem was and earning second place. Unfortunately only first placers got to go to Texas for the globals but I’m still very happy with the outcome and excited for next year!

Temples, Churches And More!!

So the past two weeks our class has been on tons of field trips! We went to Sihk temples, Buddhism temples, churches and lots of other sacred religious places. The reason for this is that we have been studying different cultures and religions. Another part of this unit is worldview and your own perspective I actually have another blog post on my own worldview and everything that created it, so if you want to check that out here’s a Link. Our first stop was at the Hinduism temple which I didn’t get any pictures of but the second stop at the Buddhism temple I got a few, here’s a little collage I put together:

After all of that we went for lunch to a Sihk temple which was very beautiful, it had intriquite blue and white designs and a elephant and a fountain at the front. Here’s a picture of it for the outside:

when we got inside we went to a room and sat down to have a delicious lunch. There was rice pudding, nann bread, rice with vegetable curry and eggplant curry. In the picture below the white stuff is the rice pudding and the sauce above the nann bread is the eggplant curry.

The last day of the field trips we went to learn about the Islamic traditions where the guy who was there answered all of the questions we had then we went to a church were the lady did the same. All of the places were lots of fun to learn about and see and I think that it’s even better that we went to all the temples and churches so we could actually experience them and not just read the information off of the Internet.

My Worldview

So in class we did some learning about others religions and world views, in the end we had to create our own little video including 5 things that changed your worldview and perspective in life. I chose to do my family, were I was born, where I grew up, education and travelling. All the things were important but the top two in the end were my family and were I grew up. Anyways you can learn more about that in the video down below 🙂

So by the end, each part of this video created a story like first there was where I was born then since I got old enough to talk and think for myself my family has guided me through my life and accepting my perspective after that came where I grew up then how my first years of school taught me about others views and finally my vacations and travel experiences.

I hope you enjoyed this post!

Sincerely,

The person who’s writing this:)

Et Tu, Brute?

“To be, or not to be: that is the question”

-Shakespeare

Have you ever heard of that guy? Well if you haven’t you need to look him up right now. So a while back we did this big Shakespeare play about Caesar, but instead of having the same timeline we had to alter it to make it seem like a modern day theme. We first got split into groups to decide our theme, our groups first decision was that it could be placed in a fight against Apple and Microsoft, yes that’s right Steve Jobs against the world, but then we realized this was supposed to be a tragedy and not a comedy. After that our final decision was to do a spy themed timeline, where it was the battle against the spy’s. Once we decided this we had to take a part in the play and modernize it.

Here’s a pic of our script, hope you like it!

So once everything was figured out we had to practice, practice, practice! For our props we needed some fake knifes, we wore all black, sunglasses and hats (to make it look more secret) and a file that said top secret just like in those James Bond movies 🙂

Heres the final product!

SLC’s here we come!

If you don’t know what SLC’s are they basically student led conferences, were you prepare a presentation about everything that you have learned throughout the year and the highlights of your learning, I’m sure your itching to here my presentation by now, so here it is!
A while ago we did a unit on Star Wars and we had to create something to answer your driving question mine was “can I make a replica dress at home just like in the movies?” I’m sure you have already heard about how I made it since I made a post about it but if you haven’t well then click here to get an idea of what I was making and how I made it. But before you click that link take a look at this picture one side is mine and the other is the real one.

You may be asking what I learned from this and why I’m so proud of it, well the answer is because I learned how take an image and recreate it without help from any website or book. I also improved my sewing skills tremendously. And most importantly what I enjoyed the most was expirementing with the dye and just having fun with it. But actually the most challenging part was also the dyeing process because I never knew how much water or dye to use because I had never used that type of dye before. The one thing I would do differently would be I would make the mannequin before hand because in the end I ended up making many alters because I didn’t know all the right measurements.

Next I will be talking about one of the projects this year that I think really showed growth as a learner, it’s DI! Destination imagination demonstrates growth as a learner I think this mostly stood out to me because I’m not a very technical person. I don’t know much about wiring or coding, I spend my time outside of making new decorations for my room and even cooking. What I’m trying to say is I’m not a woodworker, you may be wondering what I did involving electricity, well to start off the motor needed to be hooked up to the battery. When i first looked at the motor I had had no idea of what to do so I did some research, once I had all of my research I started to play around with it a little, but the problem was the battery was bulging! This is bad because first of all its very dangerous and second of all we couldn’t use it anymore. I learned that we needed to find a battery with the exact same watts otherwise that would be the end of our go kart. So I learned how to use this tool called a wattage were it could measure the exact watts that the battery had, perfect! Once that was done I needed something to turn the go kart on and off so we used a light switch. Now that I had all of my main parts all needed was three wires! That’s right three wires to make a car move, one would connect the battery to one side of the motor the second would connect the other side to the light switch and the third would connect the battery to the light switch.

It’s a little confusing so here’s a diagram to explain a little more:

In the end I was very proud of what I had done because it demonstrated growth as a learner, it that because I took something I didn’t know anything about and I learned to use all these different things like wiring, how to use a wattage and lots of vocabulary.

As we conclude this presentation I would like to share with you how my blog helped me with more creative writing, as you click on each one of the links I have below pay attention to how my writing got more interesting and how I changed the style for example I learned to space my paragraphs out to make it look more appealing to read and added pictures each time.

This was my first post. 

This was my third post about halfway through the year.

And here’s one were you can see the difference in writing

So as you can see I’m still not Shakespeare but my writing has improved through time, and writing more everyday.

Thankyou for reading this post, I hope you have learned more about my learning and maybe what you can improve in yours!

Seycove7

Do you know what DI is? Well if you don’t it’s basically a tournament where all the schools (well most schools) compete in. You basically find a group and choose a challenge and each challenge has a topic like scientific or technical. Our group had a challenge called the pace of change. which was the technical challenge where you had to make something that could carry one member from your group while acting in a play, and your timeline is 8 minutes.

So we started off with getting a craddle for free off of craigslist which would be our base, next we needed to figure out our 2 propulsion systems (motors, drills, basically the source of energy) we started off with a simple motor but the problem was that they were to expensive since our budget was only 260 dollars so we had the genius idea to just by a 20 dollar lawn mower and pry the motor out! Next we needed to attach two gears, one on the motor and the  other on the wheel, so once we were done the motor was spinning which was attached to the gear which had a chain on it which moved the gear on the wheel wich moves the wheel. It’s a lot to take in so here’s a diagram:

So now moving on to the next propulsion system, we decided to do a drill idea were you basically take a circular drill bit and tie cable to it, next you put the drill in the go kart and thread the cable through the hole until you can wrap it around a wooden chair or wooden stand and bring it back to the go kart and tie it to the screw that we added at the front. So in the end the drill acts kinda like a crane!

Heres another diagram:

Now the skit! Our group decided to make it about a boy who grows up and goes through all the challenges of life. So for our props all we needed was to go on a dollarama shopping spree and get some fake bibs, lunchbox’s, diplomas and more!

I will upload the final presentation at regionals in a couple of days.

Mark Antony AKA Marcus Antonius

So we had to make a body biography about Mark Antony AKA Marcus Antonius, and if you didn’t know what a body biography is, its basically just a paper figure with facts and a biography about the person just like in the video.

Our group decided to place each fact or picture in a certain place like all the facts about birth and his place of birth was placed at the top of his head because that’s basically the last bit of the body that’s formed before your born. And all the facts about love are in his arm were all his power is, also all the people that he loved like his children and cleopatra are placed on his heart and all the stuff about his work is placed on his feet.

Here’s a quick slideshow of my body biography that I did in class:

Star Wars blue sky project

A couple of weeks ago our class watched the new Star Wars….. The Force Awakens, which fit in perfectly with our blue Sky Star Wars projects. Each person had to answer a driving question that related to Star Wars. My question was “can I make a replica dress just like in the movies?” In the end I chose one of Padames outfits because of her wide variety of costumes. Here’s a picture of Padames AKA Princess Amidala’s lake dress:

Also here’s my Star Wars pitch form that we had to hand in:

Usually to make a outfit by hand you would need a pattern (which is basically like tissue paper) to trace but in this case I didn’t have any, so I had to carefully look at the pictures from the movie and make sketches and meseurements to make the dress. Once everything was put together I had to dye it. For this I just picked up some RIT dye from Michaels which you seperate into two bowls with half water. Then you fold the fabric and put each end into the bowls then I slowly moved each bowl together and in the end it created a ombre effect.

After my project was finished I was thinking about what I could put it on then I found a duct tape mannequinn idea, which was perfect the first step that I did was I found an  old shirt, put it on and started duct taping until it was all covered then I cut a slip up the back of the shirt, stuffed it, and tightly wrapped it with fabric to finish it off.

Finally on the presentation date we were put into groups by what subject we were doing, then we were given planets for our groups which we were suppose to decorate the room according to the theme of the planet so our group got Dagoubah and we decorated it all green and we had yoda soda and yoda sugar cookies!

Heres a picture of Dagouhbah:

In the end of the project I was happy with the dress. But to answer my question I don’t really think making a costume at home is the same as making one for a movie, because of how much more things you have access to making it a faster process.

Here’s the final product: