Right now in PLTW we are working with Little Bits. These are small peices of hardware that snap together with magnets. This makes it easy for anyone to create things without learning programing or having to know any background in computr sciences. All you need to do is put together power, input, and output.

There were many great projects including a lighthouse, spinning Christmas trees, and fire spitting dragons. We chose to do a car that was driven by a motor and its front lights come on.

We had many challenges along the way and the end result was not as good as we were hoping for. But all that matters is that we put our all into it. We had to redo it around 5 times, adjusting the body and adding/ taking away additions.

Our finished product might not roll on the ground but its wheels turn and thats what counts. I think the fact that ours isn’t perfect just shows that we reached as high as we could and didn’t settle for anything lower. We didn’t take the easy road

In media tech, I have just finished working on videography. Videography is about -you guessed it- making videos. The assignment was to record parts of Ann Richards and have someone saying the mission statement in the background. The creative part about it was that you could do any part of the school and you could do it from different angles.

It was my first time working with these types of cameras, so it was a little difficult to figure out how to use the tripod (the stand for the camera) and how to download the materials from the camera to a computer or laptop.

The steps it took to make the video were simple up until the end. First, we had to record the school from many different places and angles. Then we recorded the voice with an apple iphone app. The hard part was when we took the two recordings (one of voice for a voice over). We had to take them and overlap them, which is harder than it sounds.

Overall, it was a fun experience finding all the different ways to angle the camera. I also had fun figuring out how to do what.

-Elayna Middleton

Trial and Error
By: Chloe Leline
8th period

 

Today I am going to be talking about trial and error. It isn’t very often that we do something perfectly the first time around. Usually it takes a couple of times to fail before we don’t. I am sure that you have heard the saying, “Practice makes perfect.” Yes, I too think that this is extremely overused and maybe even cliche but it is absolutely true! Everyday there are things that I fail at. Somethings small, some things little. I know I am not the only one. Some people get so afraid when they hear the word fail. I personally think of a big F on a test, and every body dreads that. But, PLTW has taught me not to be afraid of failure. It has taught me that sometimes, failure is a pathway to success (very cliche).

I am going to share with you an example of my failure within the class PLTW. The pinhole camera. Wow, ok. My experience with building a pinhole camera was anything but good. It all started when I accidentally spray painted my friends shoe. After that, we tried drilling into a plastic container and nearly cracked the entire container open. We finally got our camera into acceptable shape and were excited to take our picture! We went outside, set up our camera, and counted for 30 seconds. All seemed well until we put our film through the entire process and ended up with a black picture. No big deal, it happens all the time. We were ready to try again. Our second time everything is going good. We set the camera up. 28 seconds, 29 seconds, bam. The camera fell over. At this point we knew it wasn’tt going to work but we weren’t going to give up. In the dark room, the red light stopped working. We were standing in the dark room and we started laughing. In the end, we failed everytime.

At this point you’re probaly wondering how this is positive…at all, but I must say, I learned so much about cameras and even myself through this experience. I believe that sometimes failure is better than instant success. Failure leads to questions, and questions almost always lead to extra information. Making this pinhole camera was one of the biggest trial and error cases I have ever faced, but I learned a lot and had fun. So next time you hear the word fail, just take it as a challenge.

Hello! Lendy C. here. So today I’ll be talking about our Makerspace. The makerspace is a place that the Ann Richards Girls have a privilege to have it. In the makerspace the 8th graders have class and were the only grade that has class in the makespace,. The makespace is free for everyone, just theirs have to be an adult with you when you’re using the saws. Any way the makerspace feels like a classroom that we can explore there’s always something new to learn and to look at. We have all the freedom we want. This space just seems like a forest, everyday is an adventure with Ms. Sauter. She helps us alot to giving us lessons about coding, to how to use the laser printer and 3D printer. In the makespace I feel like I can do whatever I want, either, Engineering, Media Tech, and Biomed modules. I’m really enjoying the engineering module because all the things you can do with wood just fascinates me. The makerspace is just not a classroom, its a place that has adventure in its name.

PLTW fun 2014 process    –   Emelyn Macias

8th period PLTW

 

PLTW is one of those classes that brighten up my days. PLTW has been pretty challenging because I’m still not sure what I like, but PLTW has taught me what i’m interested and how to solve problems, For pltw we do modules and they are in categories by the pathway such as Media Tech, Engineering,and Biomed. Since we’re in 8th grade we choose until 9th grader year for high school. I’ve only done Biomed, and Media Tech, I’ve loved both them so far but I haven’t done engineering  for a reason, I’m not looking forward to it for some reason because I don’t like building and engineering  so that’s why I didn’t do engineering. Bio med and media tech has been a really fun experience for me because I’m trying new stuff and I work well with my partners, which really helped me out what I want to do for my pathway

One of the recent modules i’ve done is Mediatech and for media tech we had to film our school, so we took a camera and filmed the school and added some cool effects and edited our video. It was pretty cool seeing how technology has got bigger and how it helps so much. I loved media tech, I first thought it was going to be pretty hard, but I wanted to try something new and I continued more of the modules and it was pretty cool. I love how PLTW has taught me what I really like, and what path way to do. Maybe I do get time I’ll try engeneering if I time for another module

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AP61cwq86Q (link for the tour of ARS- Mediatech) In this video we did this for a module that we had to film our school and use the rule of thirds in order to record different angles of the school. The rule of thirds and filing has been super fun, filming has been really interesting.

The materials we used were;

• camera
• apple computer
• -imovie ( for editing )

We only used this and it was such a fun experience. Having PLTW in the Ann Richards Department is such a really big privilege because I can honestly say that PLTW is the best class ever because i’m always learning new things and ways to get better with my mistakes.

By:Enalisa Blackman

For this module, I decided to do the Biomedical pathway. For our 1st challenge, we were instructed to interview someone in the field that we are doing in our module. I interviewed my dads neurosurgeon and, doing that  made me really want to go into the medical field because its something that I’m interested in. Also, medicine has always been a big part of my life. Not with me, but with people I know and people in my family. My dad has to take a lot of meds because of the condition he’s in. Alot of people I know or used to know have been diagnosed with cancer and part of that is chemotherapy.

Being a part of the Biomedical pathway will bring more awareness and information about medicine and how they work. Also, I want to make a difference in the world and, who knows, maybe I will make a cure for cancer one day or maybe I’ll make a vaccine. To me, the big idea of the biomedical field is to help others help themselves. That’s my goal in life.

For our project, we were instructed to make a poster about medicine in 50 years and to come up with an idea on what it would look like and how it works. My idea was that maybe, in 50 years, there would be machines that would surgically remove tumors and other harmful things in the body that does not belong. Or maybe to make a medicine that directly attacks the source of the illness and kill it with little to no side effects.

 

The importance of Photography

Catherine Gavin

PLTW as a whole is about learning and experimenting in different fields of STEM, and hopefully seeing what you would like to do in your future academic career. I know now that this class does not only revolve just over things like math and simple sciences, but also art, engineering, health, and history. Obviously having the skill of being able to solve problems includes being diverse in different fields and subjects in order to make the best and “well rounded” decision. Having this in mind, you would be silly to say that mixing two different classes is a bad idea, and I agree. That is why PLTW has been so successful in it’s academic career, it is a giant melting pot.

 

My recent module with my group, which was making an old camera,  incorporated history, to develop and learn ideas about the future.  Our first assignment was to find a photo that “made you feel something”, personally I have always loved learning about the past, because as I mentioned earlier it can help unveil things about the present or even the future. As I was searching the web I found many interesting early photographs, mainly of people, and mainly showing a hard time. Personally I believe that pictures from a while ago will tend to have more meaning because it was more rare to have access to a camera, so if you are going to take a photo it would be of something important.

 

I think that learning about things that have happened in the past can, and will affect you in the present and future. I sincerely believe that having the ability to find a picture, an idea, or really anything that can be manipulated by your mind, or others, and being able to interpret it, dissect it, and get something out of it, is an amazing and raw talent. And I think that this project, and even this class, helps people develop that skill and ability, that is so amazing, unique and useful.

Mikeyia Murray
7th Period
Makerspace

The makerspace is a place where you dreams come to life. Your ideas actually make it to the paper. You build. You design. Your dream becomes reality.

In the makerspace you have the ability to create almost anything. My experience in the makerspace was and is so fun. You get to learn new things and get to use tool you would never think of using. At first I wasn’t so sure about the makerspace and it is a lot of work but you have to give it a chance. Now that I come to class I get a little more excited because maybe there is a chance i get to use a NEW and IMPROVED tool. Step out of your comfort zone for a while. Give the makerspace a chance. Let your dreams become reality.

HOUR OF CODE WEEK

This past week has actually been an interesting week, because I was doing both hour of Coding for Art and PLTW and I actually enjoyed it! I was surprised on how the computer can work with numbers and some letters. For Art we had it based on making an animal and for PLTW it was based more on more movement WITH animals. Coding is really fun and it is something that we should all do. The wonders of the computer can actually be quite amazing you know!!

Photography. Such a wonderful art. Creating the picture just the way you want it requires so much creativity, but has anyone thought about the process in which you need to make the actual camera itself? The mechanism that shares with the world, your point of view. During this module, I learned to make a camera! A camera that actually takes a real picture!

This process wasn’t easy, my teammates had to go through the process of trial and error. Even when we felt so done with everything, we all realized that we were already so far, we couldn’t give up now!

After a lot of handwork, we finally got a photo! We were so proud! I wish I could do this module again, I had so much fun! I didn’t even know the people who I was working with that well, but working on this module together really brought us closer-not just as friends-but as teammates and partners!