Our project was to build and program a VEX IQ robot for speed and stacking challenges. We started by making the gears and wheels. At first, this failed because we used the wrong gears and connected the motor incorrectly, which made the wheel stuck. We fixed this by using matching gears and adjusting them so they moved freely. We also added a third wheel to the front to stop the car from tilting.
What I did well was fixing problems step by step. When the controller made the car turn instead of going forward, I fixed the code. When the car turned too sharply, I changed the code to make it turn slower. The robot was also built strong and did not break when it hit a wall. For the stacking challenge, I kept trying and got better each round, even after the robot broke.
I could improve on a few things. The robot was never very fast, even with gears. The exposed gears could also be dangerous. The controls were hard to use, an d I often steered the car off the path. The robot sometimes broke during a task, like in the stacking challenge, because parts were loose.
Next time, I would try to make the robot faster by changing the gear ratio, but I would cover the gears for safety. I would also tighten all the parts before testing. To make it easier to drive, I would change the controls or practice more. Using four wheels instead of three might also help the robot drive straighter.
Project Description: To address the issue of public health, our class decided to redesign and create a tissue box. My main goal is to transform a simple disposable item into a functional and aesthetically pleasing tissue box that can help promote and encourage use as well as hygiene awareness within our community, creating something that provides a sense of quality and design.
The process of creating this box was that we first drew the outline of the box, photocopied it, and created multiple ideate drawings. Then, we used a foam prototype and used InkScape to design the box before laser-cutting, decorating, glueing, and assembling. Throughout the process I also recorded what I did and put it into the PPT as well as many reflections.
Something I did well was that I managed my time well and I was able to complete the project quite ahead of time with pretty high quality. The process of coloring the final design took me a longer time though, because my design was quite complex and required a lot of different colors and making sure that I don’t color out the lines. I also did well in the process of completing the Prototype assignment as I got a 4 and I took a long time writing the “Demonstrate Technical Skills” part, so I’m proud of that. However, I got a 2.5 in the testing criteria because I didn’t include a SWOT analysis although I did do well in the other types of testing. Next time I’ll include a SWOT analysis because this time I thought it wouldn’t be neccessary.
This unit, I studied mental health problems in health, and my research topic was specifically on eating disorders. I learned a lot about EDs, including that it had different types (anorexia, bulimia nervosa, etc.) and the effects that it can have on a person. I also learned about the risk factors and how social media may stigmatize this disorder, which helped me better understand how social media frames many mental health disorders inaccurately.
Here are some screenshots of the slides that I presented:
I used to think that mental health disorders only happened to a small portion of people. I always knew that it wasn’t something to be undermined and that it could be a lot more severe than most people expect, but a misunderstanding I had was that all mental health disorders were either related to depression or eating disorders.
However, now I know that there are many types of mental health disorders that can happen to a lot of people, like anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and so on. Anyone can have these disorders and I realized how impactful these are on people’s health and how they think of the world, affecting them both mentally and physically instead of only mentally.
My current goal is to improve my ability in communicating with my classmates and teachers, and participate more proactively in class. I’ve been making slight progress as I try to make sure to raise my hand at least once or twice per class, and I demonstrate understanding of all concepts.
I think I was most proud about my deep understanding of concepts, because science is the class where I learn the most about things I’ve never heard of before, so I’m proud I was able to understand everything and persist as well as get good grades, since I have only gotten 2 once in my 3 for 3s.
I think my biggest challenge was maybe staying focused or contributing in group work, because sometimes I feel bored when discussing with my teammates or doing activities with them, although I think overall I was still able to do a good job in those aspects.
I’m always fully prepared for class and I collaborate well with others as well as reflect to improve. However, I think I could do better by talking to the teacher more and participating fully in class, both by raising my hand more and by being more proactive in discussions.
Something I liked about my sticker project was my creative design and my ability to conduct several transformations to map my pre-images to images that are either congruent or similar to the pre-image. Some of my shapes were a bit sophisticated, so I’m proud of the fact I was able to successfully come up with the final product.
Something I wish I would’ve done better was re-checking my project and checking off the bullet points, because I had missed out on the center of dilation and a transformation that needed rotation, since I ran out of time and probably forgot about it, causing my grade to go down. It was a shame, so I would make sure to definitely check my work again next time I work on a project like this.
Select two questions from the Unit 1 Celebration of Learning that reflect your best thinking in this unit:
I chose question 8, the critical thinking question on determining the imposter, as evidence of my best thinking because I was able to label all triangles in the correct way and use detailed mathematical language to analyze why three of the triangles were congruent to one another, and why the last one was not congruent to any of them based on the evidence provided.
The other question I choose the second L4 extension question, because it showed my complete understanding of dilations and negative dilations, as well as my ability to go beyond expectations and reflect across diagonal lines. I was also able to explain my solution and thinking in detail, which demonstrates that I can provide examples to support my reasoning.
Through this unit, I improved the most at describing the sequence of transformations for similarity and using correct mathematical language, which the pre-assessment proved that I was not very good at at the start of the unit, since I used language such as “move up and down” instead of “translate”, and I was unable to describe dilations, using word such as “halving or doubling all sides”. I feel that I still need to work on is being specific with my wording and not over-abbreviating, such as writing “alternate interior angles” instead of just “alt. int”, as well as “reflexive property of congruence”.
Three of my strengths I developed so far this year:
Critical thinking
Correct use of mathematical language
Ability to solve problems correctly and provide solutions / explanations
Three things I wish to improve on:
expressing my ideas clearly
double-checking my work and being less clumsy with silly mistakes
participating actively in class
In the next unit, I want to develop a habit of double-checking my work so I don’t make silly mistakes on tests.
What might get in the way? If I run out of time, or if I am over-confident with my work, I will either be forced to turn in my test without checking, or I’ll be lazy to check it.
What can I do if I get stuck or need help? I can ask my teacher for help or demonstrate my understanding in other ways.
WOOP GOAL: If I continue using the HeadSpace app, I will be able to have a calmer state of mind and be able to manage my emotional outbursts a lot better.
3 MEASURABLE OUTCOMES:
I can notice how I feel whenever sudden changes of plans happen and journal it down, and hopefully I find that I feel better.
My screen time hopefully decreases by at least 1-2 hours per day (specifically social media).
The amount of sleep that I get increase bit by bit (because sometimes I can’t sleep due to anxiety or stress)
Functionality:
The app features videos that focus on putting your mind at ease, meditation sessions, podcast sessions, and music such as white noise to help out with sleeping at night, and calming someone down.
The features I used most were the meditations and listening to music, as they helped me feel most balanced and mindful, helping me take my mind off of some things when I’m stressed. I find those two features most useful, but the videos were a bit useless for me personally.
The app promises to help improve mood and mindfulness. This app takes you through your entire day, so I feel it helped me out with mindfulness and staying calm quite a lot, and it was surprising because I expected meditation to not have any effect on me, although I do feel like I’m not that grumpy in mornings anymore.
Some limitations of the app was that I feel it was not anything out of the ordinary: it couldn’t measure my screen time, or limit me to using my phone. It mainly focuses on just making me feel at peace, but I think it would do better if it had something to do with my screen time as well.
Usefulness:
My hypothesis was somewhat supported: the app is definitely useful, although not as much as I expected. Something unexpected, however, from the app, was probably listening to music for sleep, as there were even features for listening to music for 480 minutes – 8 hours, through the entire night to encourage good sleep.
Evaluating my metrics from the baseline I set at the beginning:
“I can notice how I feel whenever sudden changes of plans happen and journal it down, and hopefully I find that I feel better.” – I do feel better sometimes, but not much has happened, so there’s not many chances for me to evaluate this.
“My screen time hopefully decreases by at least 1-2 hours per day (specifically social media).” – It helps me focus more and it helps me be more mindful, but it doesn’t do much to decrease my screen time.
“The amount of sleep that I get increase bit by bit (because sometimes I can’t sleep due to anxiety or stress)” – Honestly this didn’t really help improve my sleep so much because I still have to wake up at the same time every morning.
Design:
The design is very simple, consisting mostly of warm orange and yellow. The animations involve smooth pulsating of a figure breathing in and out whenever the application is opened, which I find quite calming and soothing. Animations within the application are also slow and smooth, such as the transitions from one element or one feature to another, which is also calming.
The application makes money from the subscription of 88 RMB per month after the free trial, which is actually so expensive for amount and quality of features it presents. Nevertheless, again, as I mentioned before, simply just its appearance seems to be quite useful in helping to calm minds.
Users who use the app over a long course of time may actually develop a healthy habit of keeping mindful at all times, meditating, and being able to sleep and manage stress well. However, since I only used it for a short amount of time, it might be the main reason it’s not that useful for me yet.
What did I learn about language, communication, or writing through this unit?
I learned many elements of grammar, including parts of speech, connotation & denotations, and complex-compound sentences. Communicating with the alien was also something that helped me learn more about teaching these concepts, and it also made me mindful when writing my own paragraphs about what types of sentences I’m using.
For the interviews, something I did well was that I was able to explain parts of speech and types of sentences, effectively pointing out examples from my alien’s speech and what could be improved, as well as what was mastered. I feel I could’ve done better on explaining connotations – I was able to give examples of how I could improve my alien’s speech, but I was unable to fluently explain the exact definition of denotations and connotations.
I was also able to explain slangs and idioms well, giving out examples of my alien’s speech and what he could’ve done better: I explained that its use of slangs and idioms were correct, although they didn’t fit well within the tone. However, I think I could’ve explained the sensory details better and provided more specific examples.
During the process of teaching the alien English, I was able to do it quite easily as my alien was very nice and he learnt extremely quickly, and was also reactive to rewards that I gave. This made teaching it all of the parts of speech, sentence types, and the elements of grammar on the rubric a smooth process.
Learning about brain science this unit has helped me learn about my own behavior by letting me know why my body reacts to stress the way it does, and why I sometimes freak out for no reason. This understanding of the amygdala and how the FFF reaction is triggered allows me to think about why I behave like this when I get extremely stressed, and makes it easier for me to calm down knowing that this is normal and my brain hasn’t completely matured yet. This slightly improves my stress resilience, although not much.
The most surprising thing I learned about the teen brain was that it was more impulsive than adult brains because of something called the prefrontal cortex, as I never knew that before. I knew that the teenage brain would definitely not be as mature as an adult brain because teenagers are a lot younger, but I didn’t know about the brain developing from back to front before.
Understanding the teen brain may improve communication as if adults understand teenage brains more and how they work, it would be easier for them to understand why teenagers sometimes act the way they do. Although it might still be dangerous and it’s not an excuse if a teenager does something dangerous, at least knowing that would allow adults to help younger children out more.
Personally I feel like I manage stress better with social support and talking to somebody. This takes my mind off of things for a while and helps me calm down a lot, especially during swimming competitions – if I’m stressing out so bad that my chest hurts, talking to my friend and playing small games with them distracts my mind from worrying and calms me down. Taking deep breaths also help me balance my heart rate, although only temporarily.
Through this unit, I also learned a lot more, such as delayed and instant gratification, which I can relate to a lot because lack of self-control and the desire to want something immediately can get to me sometimes, but other times I can also hold it in and be patient. I also learned about the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of the nervous system that calms one down and relieves their stress, while the sympathetic nervous system is the part that triggers the stress and excites someone.
This is a screenshot from my Teen Brain Expert Project that I made with my friend Elaine. It is a video demonstrating our understanding of the different parts of the brain: the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the pre-fontal cortex. We also gave examples about how to relieve stress and become mindful of our actions, using the example of one teenager who had a dream about an impulsive decision and learned about his brain through the dream, which helped him calm down when stressing out over his homework.
Something I think I did well on this unit was that I was able to keep a rally between me and my partner for quite long and I learned to move around along with the ball instead of just standing on my feet and just following the ball with my eyes without moving my body. I was also able to use backhand and serve a legal serve, so I was pretty good at singles.
However, something I think I could improve on was doubles, especially because I often couldn’t react to the fact that it was my turn to hit the ball across the table. I also think I could use more force when hitting the ball or be more precise as I often hit the ball in the wrong angle, causing the opponents to win a point during doubles.
