It is June 22, 2022 at 6:23am.

The last day of school.

You still haven’t finished your final blog post of the year.

How can we predict our finances for the future?

Hello, internet! In our final Scimatics project for the year (and possibly ever?), we did a project titled “Time is Money”. Unlike most other Scimatics projects we have focused on this year, this project was centred around math. If you know anything about me, you’re like aware that… my math skills are abysmal.

Our entire goal this project was to choose a product we could sell to make a business off of, then use linear equations to calculate our earnings from this business. From there, we were to take into consideration cost of living, operating costs, impact on the environment, and if this “money” is really worth our “time”.

However, we first had to choose a topic. At the beginning of the project, I happened to have some free time. (I know, a rare occurence in PLP.) I decided to go mildly overboard with my first milestone, in which we really just had to choose a product. I chose multiple, such as Holiday Cards, Art Commissions, Jewellery, and Tarot Readings, though I ultimately opted for the first one.

 

Then, we were actually instructed to list materials needed to create your product, the time it takes you to create it, and a start-up cost. I decided to revise my chart from the previous milestone in order to meet this criteria.

After I had calculated my equation, I inputted them into Desmos in order to view it in a graph. However, since I had initially typed out my equation into Pages, the fraction looked slightly different than it was supposed to… which made me have to take a few tries in order to get in correctly in the app. Thankfully, I managed in the end.

In order to further our understanding of linear relations, we completed some Khan Academy quizzes and worksheets. I struggled a lot with this. Luckily, my friends Nolan, Sabrina, and Teva helped me whenever I got stuck! Check out their blogs!

Then, I created my final video.

âś… Curricular Competencies

  • Understanding and Solving: Apply multiple strategies to solve problems in both abstract and contextualized situations

I believe that I am accomplished in this regard. I show this competency not only through my workbook pages, Khan quizzes, and planning documents… but also my final video.

 

  • Communicating and Representing: Represent mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic form

I mainly show this competency in my final video, though you can also view the representation of mathematical ideas within my equations and graphs. I think I did well at this competency, though admittedly I could have gone more in depth when it comes to my video.

 

  • Connecting and Reflecting: Connect mathematical concepts to each other and to other areas and personal interests

I applied mathematical concepts to my personal interests multiple times throughout this project, especially since I came up with many interests of mine I could make a business off of in the beginning of this project.

How can we predict our finances for the future?

To summarize, we can predict our finances for the future through the use of linear relations. In particular, I used the equation y = mx+b in order to predict how my finances for a holiday card business would work out. Using this equation, I managed to grpah out my finances and create a video to present and reflect my findings regarding this business. Thank you for reading!