Failure on multiple levels
By: Elissa Torrez

So for our last project for PLTW we had to go into groups of 4 or less people and create a skate board! My group was a group of 3. At first we wanted to make our board 23.5in by 11in but that didn’t go as planned and in the end we made a regular street board.

At first our idea was to make our board have puzzle pieces and making it go from black and the darkest colors then slowly making them lighter and ending at white. But while painting we realized that our idea would take too long 😦 so we had to change ideas last minute. I was very upset but I moved on.

We went from puzzles pieces to just painting our board a unique rainbow. We thought it was sorta weird so we decided to do white zig zag across our board. Then we got the idea of doing our handprints on the bottom of the board, in between the white lines. That was our final board design. We are proud of how we did our board, it may not be the best but we put a lot of hard work into it and are suggesting if someone should buy it!

Blog Post: Kick Flip Failure
By: Candace Castillo
This sixth weeks after our marvelous Make-O-Rama, Mrs. Sauter gave us a project on making a skateboard on our own with partners. My partners are Elissa and Arianna. So, in order to make a skateboard you have to learn all these steps and watch videos, you know all the stuff you need to know for building skateboards. After, comes the best and most fun part of all. Thinking of designs for your skateboard! Now, if you don’t have any ideas, don’t fret you can just look on Pinterest for some inspiration, trust me we had to… Now, figure out what you want to be the final product and start your PAINTING.

I know I said that figuring out what you wanted was gonna be the best part but, painting kind of overpowers that. While you are painting you might have a few second thoughts on what you want the final product to be. For example, with my group our first design was to have puzzle pieces and paint it in a rainbow (darkest shade to lightest shade). But, then things didn’t go as planned and we wanted to change our design so we stuck to the rainbow and got a different idea from one of our friends. She said to do a zig zag stripes and our handprints. We decided to change it and do it at last minute our group wasn’t as pleased but, we went through with it and are pretty proud of our masterpiece.

This was a great lesson for us, even if things don’t go as planned, it will turn out well… no matter what, because what truly matters is all the hard work that you put into your project. We decided to name our board Colorantur Ventus or better known in English as The Colors of the Wind. Why? Because all of the colors represent us in some way or the other, and the handprints represent us by showing all the hard work and time we have spent working on this skateboard. Thanks, Mrs. Sauter for choosing this project for us, we really have learned a lot with this skateboard project Kick Flip Failure.

Melanie Arce

7th period

GTT Journey

This year 2014-2015 has been a great year for me. This class has made me learn a lot this year, I’ve progressed in engineering and have more experience as a engineer. I’ve learn how to work a power drill, miter saw, band saw, and etc. I learn that you need to be careful when it comes to using these tools and to make sure you have your hair up, lanyards off, goggles on, and ear muffs on when it comes to using these tools. I’ve learn what drill bits to use to connect to the power drill and how you connect them on. When using any saws, make sure your hands and fingers are out of the danger zone and be within a certain distance from it, make sure your hair is always up. In biomedical, I learn some machines to prevent breast cancer and I also learned how to use the Aurasma App with it. I also learned how to become creative when it’s come to building a prosthetic leg also, you have to use your imagination, creativity, knowledge, skills, and etc. Biomedical is a interesting field to work it and you’re helping people in need. Biomedical and engineering are both great pathways to work in and biomedical involves a little bit of engineering. You’re basically using technology when it comes to medical issues, like we use x-rays, MRI scanner, magnifying glass, and etc. This year I gained many experience from this class within the biomedical and engineering field and I plan to use it in the future for me. Next year I will be in the biomedical field and I will benefit so much from it.

This year was a great experience for me and this class helped me learned so much thanks to the modules and the group project we worked on in this class.

by Arianna Nunez

​This year in eighth grade was a very short but adventure filled. Being the guinea pigs this year with the maker space, had it’s ups and downs. This year we learned things we never thought we could do before. Like using tools, and making skateboards. But while learning new things, people can have their bad days, but the most important part of PLTW is being okay to fail.

​I know that with trying new things not everything is going to workout. I have had my fair share of make mistakes when trying new things in the maker space. When the maker faire at our school started, students in the PLTW had to come up with a certain project. So, my partner and I decided to make a wooden speaker. We developed our plan and got to constructing . We had to use a jigsaw tool. At first I had the hang of it. But one day other teachers from other schools are visiting our class, I had to use the jigsaw.

​I started the saw, at first,everything was fine. Until I started the saw again, and the blade broke and popped off hitting my finger. I was mortified for myself and my teacher.

​Even though, a teacher visiting us for the incident, we had to keep working. So we kept the speaker way it was. And it actually worked out, the design resembled an owl which was a positive mistake, because the teacher we were gifting to loved owls, and the speaker worked great. So even after a little accident, we still got a rainbow afterwards. And our teacher loved the speaker. So even after, we failed, we retried and tried to work with our mistakes.

By Arianna Nunez

Mayrin Silva

5th period

5/21/15

Failure

Failure is something that happens everyday. Failure helps you be better because you don’t do the same mistake twice. In our PLTW class we always fail in something but we always try to redo it because I know I can make it better. What I like about failures is that it makes us better persons or makes things way more better than it was before.

During this project I helped my group by being the illustrator manager. I liked to learn new stuff like computer and adobe illustrator. My group members were Jacky Ortega, Jazmin Martinez, and Vanessa Leija. They helped me in the adobe illustrator with the shape of the skateboard. It was easy to do because we had a picture of the skateboard so we just had to trace the shape and keep the shape in the computer. During that period of time we wanted to give up because none of us didn’t know how to use the adobe illustrator.

After that we finished our shape in the computer. We were ready to laser cut our board we just needed our wood. We had trouble in how many wood boards we needed and which kind of wood board. We had all the wood boards we needed. we were ready to laser cut. After we laser cut we needed to but the boards in order. We had to glue them together in the right order. It was actually really easy.

Then we had to know about which design to pick. The monkey in our skateboard was the design of Jazmin. We all liked it and we decided to use as our design. This was our process in this project. we had a lot of fun with this group.

The most easiest thing in life is to give up. To stop what you’re doing and just completely give up. Failure and giving up was always in the back of my head when I did a project in PLTW. I always had negative thoughts and I constantly told myself I could never do it and accomplish my goals. The most stressful project that I completed this year was bathbombs my group and I made for the Maker-o-Rama. This project was all trial and error. We had to do the project all by ourselves and this put a lot pressure on our shoulders.

In the beginning, we had a lot of ideas rolling around our heads and we didn’t exactly know what we wanted to do and what we wanted to show at the Maker-o-Rama. My group and I had a little trouble with money since our project wasn’t prioritized, but we teamed up with Ms.Nixon who was working with Girl’s Club and we got to do bathbombs. We used our own money to buy materials and we also brought our own from home. We had some trouble with getting some oils and citric acid but we eventually got the materials from Ms.Nixon.

At the Maker-o-Rama we were set up at a table with Girl’s Club and while we were setting up we already had a line of girls patiently waiting to make their bath bombs. At our table, the girls got to make their own bath bombs and we made origami boxes with the ingredients so they could take home and make their own. Towards the end of the fair, we ran out of materials and even though girls didn’t get to make their bath bombs it was overall a success. It hit me that the Maker-o-Rama was almost done and suddenly and my stress was gone and I was relieved. Knowing that all of my effort and time went into this project and the girls enjoyed making their bath bombs it made me happy. At the end of the day it was all worth it so don’t ever give up on a project because the most important part is that you had fun.

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all” -Dale Carnegle

Vanessa L.

Dosen’t giving up always sound like the best option? When you don’t succeed the first time you feel like throwing the towel and giving up. We all have those moments in which we rather fail than keep going, but no, we should always push ourselves to the limit.We have all had those moments not at least once but many times.

I always wonder why do we fail? Don’t you always wish you could have a book that explains everything and look back at it any moment you need help. Well would that be great and be they key to life, but no, actually, we have to work hard to get to where we want to be and we have to work for it. Nothing in life is given free. You have to work for everything, just like the creator of Apple did not just boom come up with the idea of making an iPhone.It all took a process with lots of trial and error, as we can all see iPhones have changed over time and they have changed for the better.The picture below shows how iPhones have gotten better over time and that’s what happened. You have to fail to improve things.

This year during our skateboard project, my group and I failed because we used the laser cutter to cut a stencil to trace on our board the first time. But we did not place it right so the paint went though so it was messed up and we had to remove the paint and start over again the second time it worked perfectly fine, and our skateboard looks great.

I experienced a failure moment with my group but we managed to work through it and get out skateboard to look the way we wanted it to look. It all took time and failure, but at the end it all works out.

by : Karla Jaramillo

In my opinion failure isn’t really a bad thing to take as something negative, it’s more of something to learn off of so you can do better than the first time.  My band directors always tell me if I mess up during the song it’s okay because at least I would messing up with a beautiful sound which is what really inspires me to do my best even if it does need help with.  During this school year the most time where I felt like I just wanted to give up and not try anymore is mostly during this time where is school is almost over and all final grades are do and we need to have everything done on time so we can get the highest grade. I have an algebra project that is due soon and because school is almost over and summer is almost here, I have nothing but plans for summer in my mind. So lately I’ve been thinking of just giving up on the project and not do my best on it but still turn it in.

I just feel like there is no point in working hard it’s the end of the school year we should be having fun and be glad that we’re done with another school year. So even though I think I should not be doing projects and taking finals at this time, I still want to finish the year strong not worrying during the summer that I did bad and that I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing. Basically finishing the year strong is the only thing in my mind right now, making everything great  like it’s something that is going to matter in the future is my goal for these last few weeks of school. Failure isn’t something that you choose for it to happen it happens for you to be successful in that one thing that you failed in. Failure isn’t exactly a negative thing it’s more of a positive thing that has a great outcome in life.

This year has been full of hard work and many obstacles in our modules. Modules are small projects where we are assigned a task to do in a certain pathway and later turn it in online. The purpose of these modules were to help get an idea of how the 3 different pathways which are Engineering, Biomedical Science, and Media Technology work and also to help us choose the pathway we want to take in high school. Some tasks assigned can be either easy or a bit challenging, and we for sure were challenged throughout the year leading up to the Make-O-Rama, where we talked about our major project we worked on for like a month. I will say that my knowledge has grown a lot compared to the beginning of the year and there have been many times when I would think that giving up was an option because of how challenging the modules were or I fell behind. Working on these modules have helped us a lot with learning how to build things and we are lucky enough to get the chance to build our own skateboard.
As we got started, everyone in the class got different tasks in the process of the Kick Flip Failure process depending on a certain color we got. My group started off with a the color blue, which meant our first task was to build. We started off learning different types of skateboards and how they can be built according to size and shape. As we learned about this, we decided to build a penny board. At the beginning, it was a bit challenging because we were having some problems with the Illustrator app, where we were to draw the shape of our penny board prototype that we would later laser cut on paper. After we made our prototype, we laser cut the veneer, were able to get our penny board shape but it did come out with edges we didn’t want that were uneven but later fixed them since we were limited with supplies. We later went to the gluing process where we were to glue the layers of wood together. After that, we started to drill mounting holes which was a bit tricky since all the layers of wood were a little too thick. All we need left in our building process is to add the wheels. Building this skateboard was pretty easy towards the end but the beginning was a bit challenging.
After the building task, as a group we all were to brainstorm three different designs that we would like to put on the back of our board as art to end up choosing one final design. This was a fun part because we were able to get creative with art we wanted to be added to our product. We ended up painting our board white and splattered blue, black, and pastel purple paint on it. After we finished painting we added a coat of Polyurethane as a layer of protection.

It was really fun to be in this class and learn different things and also being able to build our own skateboard as our final project. Many things will be challenging, not only in this class, maybe other classes or just life but with failure you learn a lot and find ways to make things different afterwards.

By: Crystal R.

Let’s take it back to when we had to do a maker project. Ok so my group we found out that the most common fear for humans is the dark, which is why we came up with the idea to make our own night light that represented the school. The design that we came up with was a box night light that had the school’s logo and we were going to make the whole box from acrylic and engrave the logo into it so that when you turned it on the logo would appear on the wall.

First we had to laser cut all the pieces for our box and then engrave the logo, this was where we failed the first time we didn’t put the right settings for the engrave part so we had to start all over so it was back to the computers. Once we got to fix the problem we were ok but then was the part where we had to put the box together. First we tried to glue it together with epoxy but that failed so we had to wipe it all off and start to glue it with a hot glue gun and it worked perfectly. Now that our box was put together we had to build the circuit to light the bulb, now this circuit was a huge failure because we tried every circuit we could to try and light the bulb but the bulb just wouldn’t light up I think it was because of the batteries we used but my group knew that there was not enough time to get new supplies.

Now in the end sadly our project didn’t get to shine (see what I did there) at the maker faire but it’s ok at least we didn’t give up on trying to make it work and now we can take the experiences we got from our failures. Now to conclude this something I learned is that it’s ok to fail because you learn more from your failure then your success, so if you fail or mess up do it loud and proud.

-Alyssa Infante