Wow.

 

That was an awesome trip. From February 2-11, my grade 10 PLP class was in the beautiful state of California!

We went to San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco, and in that order. This post isn’t going to be filled with school-talk, I’m going to tell you all about the best parts of our trip.

But first, let me tell you why we went on this trip. Our whole theme this year has been around the word Disruption. How are things in our daily lives a disruption, or were a disruption. We have been looking at how technology is a disruption, and what better place to go see it in real life than Silicon Valley, a land of technological innovation! But we wouldn’t just go there. We went to two other cities, and many more amazing locations.

So, let’s get right into it.

First, we flew from Vancouver to Seattle, and then all the way down to San Diego. Once we landed there we went right to Torrey Pines Natural Reserve. It was a beautiful park on a peninsula dedicated to preserving the last known Torrey pine trees in North America.

Next we went to La Jolla cove, an amazing beach with lots of seals and sea lions. We played frisbee in the warm air while the sun set over the horizon.

The next day we went to the San Diego Safari Park. I was amazed at just how big it is, and the variety of animals they are able to keep there because of the climate. We got to see all kinds of animals ranging from birds to rhinos. We spent the majority of the day there, and I’m glad we did.

One of the highlights I have of the Safari Park is getting to see the Cheetah Run. They had a grass track, and got the cheetah to chase a stuffed animal on a tow rope down it at top speed! Here’s the video:

That was the end of day 2. On day three, we got to board a massive decommissioned turned museum aircraft carrier, called the USS Midway. Again, we spent most of the day here, and again, I’m happy we did. There was a lot to see, and you could pretty much go anywhere on the ship. My favourite part was the flight deck, and learning about how they launch the fighter jets.

For the next two days, we were shadowing another class in their school. Their school is an American charter school called High Tech High (HTH). I talk all about this part of the trip here (coming soon).

 

Right after our second day at HTH, we caught a plane to San Jose. We then visited the Intel museum, and we learned about how the company came to be, and what it does. I learned a lot more about how complicated computer chips can be! That evening, we got to talk with Scott, a man who was on the original iPhone creation team, and Brendan, a software designer that has worked for IBM, and now is working for Amazon. They gave us a lot of great information that ties directly into our unit of Disruption. They talked to us about how Silicon Valley is the heart of innovation, and that it’s not all big ideas working all the time. They said that some make it, and some do, and that’s the way it is, and the mindset is to just keep trying. This is similar to our Blue Sky projects, in how we design a product that solves a problem. Except we aren’t trying to get thousand dollar investments. But overall, they were very interesting and I will take away a lot from that one hour and a half session.

Day six. In the morning, we visited Googleplex. The official HQ of Google, something we all know and love. I was a little dissapointed that we didn’t get to go in any of the buildings, but it still was cool to see the campus and the people.

Next we went to the Apple Visitor centre, across the street from the Apple Infinite Loop building. This visitor centre had some crazy architecture. From curved panes of glass to freestanding marble staircases, this place had it all. And it had a bunch of Apple products you can’t buy anywhere else in the world. Pretty cool place.

And to finish off our day in Silicon Valley, we gave a quick visit to the Intel Museum. This place was pretty small, but had a lot of computer chip information. To me it wasn’t incredibly interesting since I didn’t know what a wafer was…

The next morning we spent at the Computer History Museum. This was really cool because the way it was laid out was you would walk through the museum and the computers slowly got newer and newer. The museum took you through the entire history of computers, from the ones the size of a room, to the Apple 2. I’m not super interested in computers or programming, but I actually found this museum interesting. I liked seeing how each computer got better and better, building off the old model, and other people’s ideas to stay at the top of the market. It’s crazy to me to think of how an ipad will be outdated in 15 years, and I use mine every day.

Next we stopped at the famous HP garage, where the computer company HP all began. There’s not really much to see, it’s just a shed with a green door…

And next, we visited Stanford. This is what I was picturing: a very professional, strict looking school where only geniuses get accepted. What I saw: normal looking students wearing casual clothes ripping around campus on longboards and bicycles. I was surprised, in a good way. The students were all very smart, and I learned that the acceptance policy is to look at who you are as a person and what you’ve done in your community, not just your grades. This changed my whole view on the school and I definitely consider it a possibility in my future.

Now, we didn’t take a plane, or a car, or a bus. We took a train to San Francisco! I thought this was pretty cool. On the trip we took pretty much all the major forms of transportation. We found ourselves on foot, in cars, buses, cable cars, trains, boats, and planes!

But, anyways. In San Francisco we visited Twitter headquarters, which was pretty amazing to see. We saw  how Twitter works, all the crazy cool rooms, and the daily life of an employee.

Then we went to the Golden Gate Bridge. This experience was pretty surreal. When we walked around and took pictures, the bridge seemed fake. It literally looked like it was a backdrop for a movie. It was pretty amazing with the sun setting behind it.

And now. The best part of the whole trip, in my opinion. On the very last full day, we got to see Alcatraz. But before that we went on a pretty cool walking  tour of San Francisco. Wild Wes (that’s his name) took us to all the historical places in SF, and he had a pretty great route since everywhere we went had some historic traits. I learned a lot about how cities have more history other than just who founded it and built it up.

And now, yes, it’s time for Alcatraz. I was quite excited to be able to actually go in a famous prison. On an island.

First, we took a 20 minute ferry out to the island.

Then we walked up the hill together to get to the main cellhouse, and turned on our audio tour skills (there’s not that many). I though the audio tour was awesome. It was perfectly timed with how fast you move through the cell house, and gave some pretty cool information all the while. The coolest story to me was the escape. Three men dug a hole in the wall, climbed onto the roof, slid down, jumped into the ocean, and were never seen again, to this day!

I really enjoyed the entire trip, even with a little sleep deprivation. I would say that my second favourite part of the trip was just having fun with everyone else. Everyone was having a great time, and I got to know a lot of people better. This type of trip I will remember for the rest of my life, and I would never be able to have these experiences if it wasn’t for PLP. I learned so much in just over a week, and I’ll be able to use that knowledge in everything I do. That’s why I see these trips as so valuable. You get to goof around with your friends, while having once in a lifetime experiences. It really was a great time, and I am glad I went.

Heres a book I made about our trip, and how everywhere we went related to our theme of Disruption. Check it out for more photos and other content from the trip: