For the last month and a half, we’ve been working on our WWI unit. Our project was to create a comic book with each chapter being a specific event, person, or thing during the war.

But first, a recap. WWI took place from 1914-1918 between different European countries. The Allies (France, Britain, Canada, America, Russia, and Italy) were against the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria).

The war was started by the assassination of Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian man. Germany invaded Serbia, and Britain gave Germany 24 hours to stop invading Serbia. When they didn’t comply, Britain declared war on Germany. Because Canada still a dominion of Britain at that time, so they were automatically at war as well.

 

We started this unit right before spring break, so we didnt do much for the first week. We did have to read a book about WWI over spring break. We got to choose between three books, War Horse, Private Peaceful, or Generals Die in Bed. I chose Private Peaceful, which is a book about two brothers who join the British military at the beginning of the war. After we got back from spring break, we made a book report. I say make, because we could have drawn it if we wanted to. I did, and i drew a very powerful scene from the book. I drew the two brothers getting on the train to (spoiler warning) leave their small town to join the army.

Now then, the juicy part of the unit; our main project. Each person in the class chose a topic to research. Some chose Passchendaele, others chose Vimy ridge, and Jessie and I chose the Halifax Explosion. We split the event into two parts, and did one of said parts. Jessie did before the explosion, and I did after.

We also had a story about a person or group of people that relates to our event. Jessie looked at Vincent Coleman, a man who sent a telegram to an oncoming train, warning it of the explosion. I wrote about the USS Tacoma, a transport ship that had been used as a temporary hospital ship for the survivors of the explosion.

During this project, I learned some valuable teamwork skills. I was able to work with Jessie to create a fluent story, without having to work with her directly. I think that kind of teamwork is good to have, because you’re able to work as a group, but also by yourself.

During the last couple weeks, we have been learning about combining like terms and polynomials in math class. We then had to design and present a driving question that could be whatever we wanted, and we worked on these projects in groups of 2. I was with Kailey, and we chose to look at how combining like terms and polynomials are used in the work force.

But first, a question my mom had. “What are like terms and polynomials?” Polynomials are any mathematical equation that has;
1 or more terms (parts that are separated by either an addition or subtraction symbol)
Variables
Exponents
Every equation is a polynomial, except ones that have something in them that makes them not a polynomial. For example;
dividing a variable
Negative exponents
Even just “1” is a polynomial, despite not having an exponent of variable. Remember, an exponent and a variable can be whatever you want them to be, so you could write it as “1y^1”. Y is 1, so its “ 1 Times y^1”.

Like terms are any term that have the same variable and exponent. For example;
1x, 5x
2ab, 7ab
4y^3, 8y^3
Also, if a term has multiple variables, like 2ab, it doesn’t matter which order the letters are in. You can combine terms like:
2ab, 3ba
5efx, 8fex, 7xfe, 11xef
The following are NOT like terms;
2y, 3x
4ab, 3a, 7b

Now then, the project itself. We chose to look at the usage of polynomials and combining like terms in the work force. We chose three different jobs that use combining like terms, stuck them on a slide show, and presented it to the class. The three jobs are Economists, Foresters, and Engineers. And before you leave a comment saying “umm, actually, there is a large range of different engineering jobs, just saying ‘engineering’ isn’t enough.”, we talked about how all engineers use like terms, not just one type.

I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but I don’t think I did enough work on the presentation. Kailey was the one who put the slide show together, and the one who wrote the script. All I did was some lacklustre research and some final edits. For the rest of my projects, I want to be helping out as much as I can, so I don’t feel as guilty as I do with this one.

I’m upset about the research too, I searched for a couple hours, and couldn’t find much about how foresters used like terms. All I could find was that foresters use them to calculate the amount of trees they need to replant after cutting down a section of forest.

 

DI Regionals have come and gone, and its time to reflect. My post last year goes into more detail, but Destination Imagination is a tournament in which teams in different skill levels create a solution to a challenge. We then present these solutions to the Appraisers who judge us based on numerous factors. This year, I did the engineering challenge again, called Drop Zone.

Our challenge was to build a structure that is meant to support weight that is dropped onto it. We then need to create a presentation around that structure. We also had to have an Event depicter, which was a visual or auditory depiction of a Sudden event in the story. My Team was Myself, Luca J., Logan, Robin, and Isabelle. We were a Senior Level (SL) team, called The Droplets.

We all participated in the solution in different ways. Robin built the event depictor, which was a seismograph. Luca and Isabelle made the backdrop, which was a canvas that opened, revealing a science lab and a forest-y alternate dimension. Logan helped with a little bit of everything, but mostly helped with the design of different things and props. And I built the structure.

I built the structure out of Balsa wood and wood glue. At first, we were having trouble with the design, but I came up with a solution; Mortise and Tenon joints. A mortise is a cut hole or grove in something, usually wood for furniture. The Tenon is the reverse, and piece of wood that sticks out and fits into the mortise. After the mortise and tenon are tight, the carpenter glues the together.

Making these weren’t super difficult. I couldn’t use power tools, because they would just chew up the wood, so i used an exact-o knife. Using one wasn’t difficult, it was just tedious as there were a lot of them to make. 16 mortises and 16 tenons.

Next, I added supports. I didn’t mortise and tenon them, because that would be too difficult. Instead, I used something called a butt joint. Weird spelling, i know. These were put in the middle of each face, with two others butt jointed at an angle on each side.

Next, I added the final pieces: gussets. These triangular shaped pieces were glued onto the sides of the joints to add extra stability and support. At this point, the structure has very little weakness. The gussets make it more difficult for the structure to “parallelogram”, or slant sideways.

REGIONALS

Regionals were here at Seycove, so we had a home team advantage. What that advantage was, I have no idea.

Our presentation was about a seismologist named Dr. Underwood who was studying the effects of damage to tectonic plates. He created a pocket dimension with our other main characters in them. The other characters we called the “Droplets”, played by Robin, Luca and Isabelle. I was the teacher showing the documentary to the students (audience). I was also the backstage special effects guy.

Dr. Underwood created a pocket dimension, and placed the droplets in said dimension. After some exposition, he began dropping the weights onto our structure. Our structure represented the tectonic plates under the droplets dimension. This began a series on natural disasters, in which the droplets responded with a comedic twist to all but the last one. During the first disaster, a rockslide, robin got hit with a rock, and had to pretend to be injured. In the second, a tsunami came, and none of the droplets were able to swim. During the last, and actual earthquake, the droplets were freaking out. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get earthquake sounds to play loudly enough to be heard. I did have them playing, but no one could hear them.

(video here)

PROVINCIALS

Provincials were similar, but at Johnston Heights instead of Seycove. We had the same story, same structure, same costumes, and the same problem with the earthquake sounds. We did have improvements, however. Because I was behind the backdrop, I couldn’t see how many weights Logan had dropped, so my team had to queue me in. They had very specific lines they were supposed to say, and we practiced it until they new all of their queues. Unfortunately, the volunteers had to destroy my structure both times to make sure I wasn’t cheating. I have a video of them destroying the second one.

INSTANT CHALLENGES
We also had instant challenges, challenges we didn’t know anything about until we got there. Unfortunately, I legally can’t talk about them, so enjoy this nice picture of some flowers instead.

During this multi-month event, I learned more about working together as a team. Speaking of which, we worked really well. We all did our own thing, working on a single part of the presentation. But we were able to combine it all together really well, which is something I was both expecting to happen, but I doubted it would.
As with last year, I certainly wouldn’t want to do it again, but it wasn’t unenjoyable. It could have been more fun, but then it wouldn’t be a challenge.