Sijun's Portfolio

In my project, I wrote about how Ryan and I picked up trash to earn the Ethical Global Citizen Awards, showing our journey with a piecewise function. I’m really proud of how I showed our teamwork to finish this project more effectively. The hardest part was figuring out the y-intercepts for each section of the function, as I had to be careful with my calculations. If I could change one thing, I would show my work for each of my calculation and process. This project helped me understand piecewise functions better by showing me how they can reflect real-life situations and changes over time.

Reflecting on the robot-building experience, my partner and I encountered numerous challenges that ultimately enhanced our understanding of mechanics and teamwork. Initially, we faced setbacks with gear malfunctions and instability, but having 3 wheels helped us with the problems with fitting the gears into the robot between the wheels. Our testing was pretty successful. Trial 1 took 35.08 seconds, Trial 2 improved to 27.59 seconds, and our final trial concluded in 25.69 seconds. However, we recognized that the three-wheel setup was unstable during our claw testing. Transitioning to a four-wheel design provided the necessary stability, allowing us to efficiently stack boxes and succeed in that aspect of the challenge. This process taught us the importance of detailed planning and testing, and despite our trials, we celebrated our achievements. Overall, this journey underscored that perseverance and creativity are vital in overcoming obstacles and achieving our goals.

I created this project to design a tissue box that enhances hygiene by allowing users to dispense tissues without touching the box. This initiative is aimed at individuals and families who prioritize cleanliness, especially in shared spaces like homes and offices. By minimizing contact, the tissue box can help reduce the spread of germs, making it a functional and essential item for modern living. In my research, I discovered various Memphis-style designs that can add a vibrant aesthetic features to the tissue box while ensuring its functionality. I utilized Inkscape to create a detailed design that had these elements. The design was laser cut, which was had some errors. It cut the same lines multiple times which created some issues. To ensure timely completion of the project, I created a structured timeline, allocating specific hours each week for research, design, prototyping, and testing. I also worked from home when possible to maximize productivity. Additionally, I gathered feedback from friends and family to make good changes.

In 8th grade PE, we focused on water polo. In water polo, we practiced treading water so that we could freely move and throw in the water. One thing I did well was treading water as we did a lot of practice during class. As we did so much treading water, my water treading skills improved very much. One thing I should work on is shooting as every time I threw the ball, it frequently went over the goal and missed. I should also work on my positioning so that I am in the best position to score when I someone passes the ball to me.

In the Socratic Seminar, my speaking frequency was 2 times although the class average was 3 times, and my talk time was 54 seconds although the class average was 1.3 minutes. Next time, I want to contribute more by speaking more frequently for longer amounts of time. I used academic vocabulary such as “emphasize” which helped me express what good word choicing can do to a narrative story. One moment in the audio that clearly showed my thinking was at 17:24 when I said that inner thoughts made the story more relatable and more realistic. This was clear because many people experience this while they are reading themselves and it is very relatable. I entered the discussion by connecting to the discussion of word choice [9:25]. My opening move supported equity as I hadn’t spoken at all until then and it was a good opportunity to speak as I had some things to say about word choice. The flow of the conversation improved when I added onto Michael’s question about inner thoughts as it kept things connected and kept the question relevant.

I chose this artifact as it shows my lack of frequency of and duration of the time I spoke.

My current goal is to always put my best effort when doing my assignments in science class without any encouragement from teachers or my peers. I improved on this a bit from a few weeks ago as I put more effort into my 3 for 3s or other assignments that I did. The thing that I am the most proud of in science is doing the 3 for 3s as most of my scores were 3 with only a few avoidable mistakes. My biggest challenge in science class was making the meteor model because I didn’t look at the rubric and requirements properly and didn’t have some information that I should’ve had. I have demonstrated qualities of an active learner by always coming to class prepared, collaborating with my peers in certain activities, and reflecting to improve.

During the first unit of 8th grade Language Arts, we explored more about grammar and how the way something is written can change the tone or add emotion to a text. We were able to actively practice this by doing the Alien Simulation where we were given the task to teach an alien as an AI chatbot English from the very beginning. One thing I did well was teaching the alien parts of speech precisely so that it knows where and when to use certain types of words. Another thing I did well on was teaching the alien shades of meaning to add tone and emotion to the alien’s texts. One thing that I could have done better is sentence structures as although the alien knew what the different types of sentence structures, it lacked diversity of sentences as there were only a few simple sentences. This unit, I grew by mastering grammar and learning different ways I can add tone and emotion to text with precise words choices

This unit, I enhanced my understanding for table tennis and my techniques improved a lot. My strengths in table tennis are serves and forehand as it improved significantly. I should work on my backhand shots because I missed every time and my opponents targeted my backhand side because I kept missing. I should also work on doubles because every time after hitting my shot, I didn’t move out fast enough so I crashed into my team mate. Overall, I improved a lot compared to last year and made progress.

For probability fair, our group made a lottery game, where the person playing the game draw 6 card from their deck and another person also draw 6 cards and the amount of same cards determines the quality of the prizes the person gets.

Our group worked really well together, all of us doing work and finishing well before when we were supposed to finish. There weren’t any conflict and we all brought in some prizes for the fair.

One thing that went well in the fair was that many people played our game and we also made sure that the next person could play right after each person without waiting much.

I think people won way more prizes than we thought so the experimental probability was higher than the theoretical probability. The chance of winning our game was 100% because we just gave out free candy for everyone that played.

One thing I did well this unit was finding powerful and relevant images for each slide. These images really helped make my presentation more interesting and engaging. They caught the audience’s attention and supported my points. However, I need to work on memorizing what I want to say better so I don’t get confused. Sometimes I got mixed up, which made it bad. If I could do this project again, I would spend more time practicing my presentation.

This year we did many things including dystopian stories, abuse of power presentation, and many other things. I enjoyed the dystopian story the most and I am satisfied with most of the things I did this year.