Category: Scimatics

Rube Goldberg science

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Recently we had to do a project about Rube Goldberg machines and circuits. More specifically, we had to make a machine that showed the scientific method then make a short video explaining it. For this blog post, I’m going to be talking about what I believe are the three most essential milestones milestone 1, 4, and 5.

What we had to do for milestone one was first we got our groups mine was me, Ciara, and Jude. After getting our groups, we had to make the start of a project mind map so we could see what we already knew about the subject. The reason why I found this milestone so important was because it helped immerse myself in this project and figure out what I already knew about the subject.

The second milestone I’m going to be talking about is milestone 4. The reason I think milestone 4 is so important is because it is when you first actually put your Rube Goldberg machine designs on paper. What we had to do for this milestone was to make a blueprint for our Rube Goldberg machine that had measurements. We had to do this in two parts. In part one, we had to make a draft for what we wanted the machine to look like. Then we showed it to our other group members. After showing it to our group members, we had to start part two, which was making the final blueprint.

The final milestone I’m going to be talking about is milestone 5. What we had to do for milestone five was finish building our machine and make our video. I think this was probably the most critical milestone because it marked the completion of the two most essential parts of this project.

In conclusion, this was a very interesting project. If I were to change one thing that I did, I would probably have gotten the video done on time. I think I met the competency’s in this project.

Like terms project

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For this blog post, I’m going to be talking about a project I just did. The project was about like terms and polynomials. In this blog post, I’m going to reflect on each of the competencies and how I could have improved or how I met them. 

But first I’m going to show some highlights from our project using photos and a short explanation

a screenshot of the ide visual studio

a screenshot of unity

The first competency I’m going to be talking about is understanding and solving. The more specific description of it is “Apply multiple strategies to solve problems in both abstract and contextualized situations.” I think I met this competency because, throughout this project, I have shown problem-solving time and time again using very different strategies each time. An excellent example of that is the tool Unity and the issues I had with it. One of the most significant issues I had with Unity was not being able to attach scripts to my game objects. For example, in order to make the character move, you have to add a player movement script and if you can’t add that script, it doesn’t work. So to fix this issue, I had to think outside to box and test many different solutions. 

The next competency was communicating and representing, which was described as “Represent mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic forms.” I think I met this competency because, as you can see, just by looking at our game, there is a clear quiz box that shows equations for you to solve. 

The second last competency was connecting and reflecting, which was described as “Connect mathematical concepts and to other areas and personal interests.” I think I met this competency because not only did our game show mathematical concepts through a small quiz box. It was also programmed by my group, which ties into our interests in programming. 

The last competency was applying and innovating, which was described as “Contribute to care for self, others, community, and the world through individual or collaborative approaches.” I think I met this competency because the game we made, in future versions, could through repetition help people with their math skills. That is because repetition has been proven to help better memorize skills like math. 

In conclusion, I think I met all of the competencies and overall did a lot of learning. My favourite part of this project was being able to do some programming because that’s something I’m very interested in.

Winter exhibition

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Recently, we had a huge project that was called The Story Strikes Back. Why was it called The Story Strikes Back? It was because we were studying Star Wars. Now, I know what your thinking, isn’t that the best project ever. To answer that I would say yes it was the best project ever. So what did we actually do for this project? The biggest thing we had to do was write a story about a Star Wars character of our choice and then build some sort of artifact  that relates to the story. 

The first thing we did for this project was to learn more about Star Wars and storytelling. We did this by reading short stories and examining them to figure out how to write our own. We also researched Star Wars so we could understand it more. In addition to reading the short story we also watched the Star Wars movies, although that was not mandatory.

The next step was to get assigned groups and planets. My group was Noah, Holly, Fin, Owen, Thomas, and Grace. Our planet was Tatooine. After getting our groups, it was time to start writing our story. The first thing we had to do before actually starting to write was to pick a character. We ended up picking a character named Teemto. The good thing about Teemto is that he had limited back story and that to our advantage.

Now, it was time to start writing our story. Our group divided the story into the 7 core parts of the story structure and each of us picked one part to do. For example, grace did the climax. My biggest challenge when writing my part of the story was making sure that I was using the right tense. I kept switching from past tense and present tense, but I was able to overcome that challenge. One of the big things that helped me overcome that challenge was that made multiple drafts. 

at the same time as we were writing our story, we had to make some sort of item that related to what we were writing about. My original idea was the make a scale model of a land speeder that actually hovered. But after doing research, I realized that it would be a lot more difficult and expensive than I had thought. So I decided to make a working credit chip which is a form of digital currency in Star Wars. This was easier to make because we actually have digital currencies like bitcoin. In the end, what I did was I formatted a USB so it would work as a crypto currency wallet. I also designed a case for it so it would look more like the actual credit chip. Finally I created my own crypto currency called the Imperial Credit using a website called wallet builders.

Finally, on the night of the exhibition, my group had a lot to do. That was because our designated part of the school was the hallway and we weren’t able to start getting ready until around 3:30. Somehow we were able to get our area looking good in a short amount of time and I would credit that to our good teamwork. Overall the night was fun and went by fast. I would have to say the highlight of the night was probably Hoths “snow”. And by snow, I mean cotton candy.

In conclusion, this was one of the best projects I have done in PLP. My highlight was being able to go see the new Star Wars as a class. Overall I think I did well and met the competencies. If you would like to read the entire story here are the links to each person in my groups posts where you will find their partstory part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 , part 6, part 7.

 

Science blog post

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I’m going to be talking about our recent project where we had to research and then make a video explaining ionic and covalent bonds as well as show how electron arrangement of atoms impacts their chemical nature.

For this project, we had to meet some guidelines called curricular competencies. The first of those was communicating and it was described as “Formulate physical or mental theoretical models to describe a phenomenon”  I followed this competency because I demonstrated during my video and my Bohr model drawings that I could explain through speech and drawings phenomenon like covalent bonding.

The next competency we had to follow was processing and analyzing and it was described as “Construct, analyze and interpret models and/or diagrams.” I meet this competency pretty well although I still have space to improve. The reason I meet this is that one of the things that I think I did pretty well in this project was the Bohr models. Why are the Bohr models so important? Bohr models are so important because they were a huge part of what we had to do for this project. They were such a huge part of our project because everything we had to animate started with a Bohr model.

The Final competency we had to follow was Questioning and predicting and it was described as “Demonstrate a sustainable intellectual curiosity about a scientific topic or problem of personal interest.”  I demonstrated this competency because all throughout the project I demonstrated interest and curiosity about compounds and chemistry overall. I even did outside of school research into certain things I had heard in class that I wanted to learn more about. For example, I did more research into elements.

In conclusion, I demonstrated all of the competency and had a very fun time doing this project.