Month: April 2024

Our Destination Imagination Journey!

The nightmare has become reality yet again! Yes, we just finished our DI provincials competition and wow it was a lot…
If you read my other post on our regionals competition you would know how stressful, scary and did I mention stressful? DI really is. You can find that post by clicking here.

In case you didn’t read it or are just too lazy too, (which I know a lot of you are) I will do a quick recap for you…
DI or Destination Imagination is an organization that creates challenges for children of a wide range of ages to compete in. These challenges would include skills that you would be able to apply to the real world! I could continue to explain but why don’t I show you a video instead…

My Team

My team was called the Bean Baggers and we can actually work really well together if we try 😂.  Here are their blog links so you can see their post about this tournament as well and some other cool things they may have posted!:

Eloise
Sven
Isaac
Sawyer
Cole

Our Challenge

My group had to create a bean bag launcher that didn’t include any electronics and was accurate enough that we could estimate where it landed. Allow me too explain… I am in the engineering challenge with my group as they are listed above…

Anyway too continue for our exact challenge quoted by the book “You must have a ordinary character who does not posses any supernatural abilities and they are having a normal day when a catalyst occurs then your modular device will save the day” So they basically wrote our storyline and we just needed to make it our own.

Story 📖

I did explain the story in my first post for regionals but there is no harm in doing it again for the lazy people!

Our story is based on a normal citizen on a walk around town when OH NO! She sees a mechanical arm throwing garbage into the ocean! Thinking she cant do anything about this she just continues her walk and goes to sleep back at home… She then wakes up in a dream where climate change has taken over the world it is hot, sweaty and people are barely surviving. She realizes what a horror this world is and she knows what she has to do to help stop it! She wakes up and reconfigures the device into a recycling launcher that launches bottles and recyclable objects into the recycling bin. She then passes out into a dream where the world is bright and sunny and climate change is but a un-worrisome subject. We explain how this has occurred and we then finish with a “SCENE!”.

Our story is based on climate change and its problems and we are informing the appraisers and the audience of what may happen if we continue down the path we are on. 

Modular Device

Our device was a wooden mechanical launcher that was able to launch a bean bag over 100 cm away but how? Im not going to go into the logistics of how it works and what-not but basically is has stored up potential energy in the rubber bands and when they are released the beanbag goes flying. 
Here is a video showing us launching a beanbag with our device for the first time:

copy_4B267ED0-48AC-4F37-8955-02BB3A857062

The Week Prior

So we are sitting in the sun, sleeping in and enjoying spring break when suddenly… BAM! School starts again… back to classes, waking up early and the one we were all not looking forward to the most DI. With my team winning regionals (WHOOP WHOOP!) we didn’t really do much over spring break because we didn’t think there was much to do. That was a big mistake because as soon as the day before school, it hit us… DI PROVINCIALS ARE IN 4 DAYS!!! All I know is that me and Eloise are stressing out A LOT. I had created an entire schedule for our week and it looked like this:

I know its not the best but it was rushed and I was stressing out by just looking at everything we had to do still.

Instant Challenge 🤐

It’s crazy how we have to write a post about this when we can barely say anything about it 😂. I will be very vague because I am under oath not to tell you until the end of June. In an instant challenge you may get a task based challenge or and performance challenge or you may sometimes get both! I feel my team did really well and we worked together smoothly and didn’t get in each other’s way (which I can tell you is a very good thing). My team even got max points in one of the aspects we were being judged on! In an instant challenge we are purely judged on our teamwork skills and our solution to the problem that was presented to us. I feel my group handled the stress and pressure of the instant challenge well and the end product was successful.

Awards 🏆

At the end during the awards ceremony our name was called for second place for our main challenge and first place for the instant challenge because unlike last time they did not put the scores together but instead did it separately. Of course we were confused and annoyed that we didn’t get first but the team that did must have deserved it. I hope that next year we can try to win the provincial tournament just like Regionals.

RPReplay_Final1712529868BeanBaggersAwards

THE END!!! 🥲

Apart from what I said about it being a nightmare I might miss DI, like us showing up to tutorial, meeting with my group and performing together! I just want to say that even though I may have complained I actually had a great experience.
CANT WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR!!! 🥳 

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you stay posted for my next posts! 👍

My First mPOL 😬

As a grade 8 I had never done an MPOL before. I didn’t really know what it was to be completely honest, I just learned about it and I’ll tell you all I know…

MPOL

What does it stand for? Well it stands for Midterm Presentation Of Learning.
We don’t show absolutely everything we have learned just the things that really impacted our learning such as…

POL Declaration

(Introductions) Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.

The Outsiders

This was one of our first projects in PLP and it was almost like a building block that added to all of our others that semester as well! The outsiders was a reading that we did that showed us a lot about worldview and our own worldview compared to others. I made an entire blog post on it so I wont be saying too much about it but click here to read it.
As I was saying The Outsiders taught us about worldview. You may be thinking, “But what is worldview?” Worldview is how an individual or a group sees the world almost like their perspective on things and its how they act, speak, live all of that. What I have is a western worldview and I’m pretty sure most of you have it as well! According to many articles that I have read that means that we have more fact based decisions and need more proof before making decisions on anything.

What do you mean by “Building block”?

During this year we have done so many projects that are based around the idea of worldview and our first project was the starting building block to help us understand all the other projects as well.
As said by our PLP teachers then idea of worldview and learning about it and applying it to our learning and assignments will be carried on with us till almost grade 10 that 2 more years! I do think that worldview is a great concept to know about deeply and it is also a great concept that you can learn more about.

 Tryptic

This is my groups digital triptych! Our tryptic was one thing that really impacted my learning and the reason for that is it made us think about other times and their worldviews. A tryptic is a 3 panel art piece so in one panel we had the medieval times in another we had the renaissance times and in the middle we had the contemporary times (now). I have another blog post on that so you can click here to view it.
The triptych was a group project and it helped me build teamwork skills and helped me understand how much different it is to work in a group than by yourself. 

Poems Book

A Journey Through My Poems

Click the photo to view my poems book!!!

This was the hardest project for me to do because it required me to express myself in a new and different way that I never had before. I know a lot of people are saying it was one of the easier projects to do because they just had to write some meaningless poems. I wasn’t able to write some poems that were meaningless because for one I wanted a good grade and also I was intrigued in this project to learn and to discover more about the different ways I could display my learning.
Just like all the others I also have a blog post for this humanities project so you can click here to read that as well.

Destination Imagination

So yeah of course I am going to talk about DI a reason I am going to do that is because it helped improve my teamwork skills and my building skills. What it also helped me improve was my actual life skills which is what DI is “supposed” to do. I feel DI has improved me the most and has actually been the most fun and stressful at the same time if you know what I mean. 
Me and my group have been able to work together and actually win together! I feel that my group has many strengths that were demonstrated in our challenge. We do have many strengths but we do have a very big weakness having the same level of commitment, we find it hard to make it to meetings such as tutorial and lunch practices. Here is my are both my blog posts for regionals and provincials.

What Have I Showed A Great Understanding in? 👍

I feel that I mostly understood the Bon Voyage project where we had to make an AR maker video on the European settlers when they came to Canada. Another thing I felt I really understood and did well was my blog posts. I put a lot of effort and tried really hard to make them intriguing, long-ish and enjoyable! If you read any of my recent posts I try to include images and videos so that it is more intriguing. Another thing I am proud of is DI I feel I did well making props, writing the script and working with my group. I also feel that me and my DI group have come along way from the beginning where we used to argue and not agree on the same ideas.

My AR Maker Video:

Blog Post On This Project Link

What I Need To Work On? 🔄

I need to work on listening and using other peoples ideas when I work in a group of people. I usually like to use my ideas because i think they are the best and only include others sometimes. Another thing I need to work on is staying focused and doing the work I need to instead of talking to my friends or playing games. Another big thing I need to do is ask for help when I need it. I feel like I struggle with this because I like to think I can do it myself (when I cant).

Things I Can Do To Help Me Improve: 🛠️

– Going to tutorial when I have questions

– Challenging myself and going past the expected amount

– Using the app Things to help me hand in my assignment on time

– Asking for help when I don’t understand something or if something is unclear to me

– Reading instructions more carefully before I do an assignment

Learning Plan Goal  🥅

When I say learning plan goal it is technically called “Statement Of Learning Intent” So this was my statement of learning intent also my goal that I am going to try to achieve by the end of the year. Here it is:

This year I want to know and want to be able to receive feedback on how to do things in a deeper and better way. For example I may want to learn how to ride a bike but instead to learn things more I want to learn tricks and skills to become a star trick biker. For me I want to not just have people tell me that I’m doing things wrong and for me to accept that I want people to tell me what I can build on and be better at and I want to be able to use that feedback to make it better. Basically in conclusion I want to become a more Open learner who excepts feedback and can grow on it.

How Will I Make Sure I Achieve My Goals By The End Of The Year? 💭

To make sure I can complete my goal I will look over my goals often and will make sure that I am motivated to complete them all. I will also try to go beyond the expected amount more often (as one of my goals say) and why I am doing this is too get a better mark and prove that I am willing to do more. I have many examples where I have done the work and gotten a proficient mark ✅ but to show that I can do more and am capable of it I will work harder to get extending 💯 in the future.

How Have I Shown That I Have Grown From The Learner I Used To Be?

To show that I have grown as a learner I have proven to ask more creative questions about the topic we are learning. I have also shown that I am capable of doing what’s expected and sometimes even more. Some evidence I have that shows I have grown are my blog posts. At the beginning sure they had words and pictures but they weren’t really as intriguing I got this advice from most of my teachers saying how I need to “Improve” so I took that feedback and have tried to apply it to all my more recent posts. As I look back at the projects I have done I see that at the beginning I wouldn’t have been able to do them at all. For me that shows that I have grown as a learner.

Other than me growing as a learner I feel that I have grown as a person. By that I mean I have been exploring different learning techniques and just learning new things (un- school related). With us doing that I have discovered different ways I like to learn and what I like to learn about! I have found out many things about myself such as what I have improved on from the beginning of year to now! Something I have learned about myself is that I am able to talk in front of people and speak publicly!!! At the beginning of the year I could never have done a presentation in front of people where I would have to talk… for a really long time… I have noticed over time I have been getting more used to talking to groups and talking in a presentation (like how I would be doing while presenting my mPOL) I have been growing in this area and I hope to keep getting better!

Thanks for reading! And stay posted for my next post! 😁👍