PLTW has been a great experience to have. It was great to have a makerspace in the Ann Richards School, because it gives the 8th graders freedom to build anything. Even if we have all the materials sometimes you can fail. I failed when I tried to make a prosthetic leg for a dog. I built it in inventor and had to change many things. Failing in the makerspace is a daily thing, because you can’t now if you succeeded if you never failed. Failing is part of human nature.My failure though was the dog leg.

My dog leg was the idea of a person I met that said her friend needed a leg for his dog. I took up the task I wanted to make it by 3D Printing it. My sketch of it was very different than I was expecting it to be at the end. My leg was not the way I wanted it to be. But the experience was great. My leg was very hard to make, I had to edit a lot to come out with a leg.

The dog leg was hard to research, I had to look up the weight distribution. I had to learn about the dog’s behavior, and what it does daily. I had to learn the behaviors of the specific dog I was making it for. The dog leg was a fun adventure learning, building, and redoing.

Natalia O.

Blog Post (Skateboard)

This year, I’ve had a lot of really amazing experiences in this class, but also a lot of really frustrating ones. I love the system we have, how there are rules and guidelines. And everyone is doing their own thing; and we’re really lucky to get to use the Makerspace. I’ve done so many cool things this year, but this one time really stands out to me. Even though I don’t regret it in the end, it was a pretty frustrating experience. I had thought that our maker project was due at the day of the Maker Faire, and I was freaking out because we weren’t done at all. I was stressed and didn’t want to fail, and I was almost desperate enough to try and make up an excuse for another day to work on it. I stayed up trying to finish it, but then I suddenly found on the calendar that we didn’t even have to finish it by then. That was really embarrassing and I felt ashamed that I had thought of lying about it, but at least, in my opinion, the video turned out pretty great and I had so much fun helping film it and we’re still adding tweaks to it to make it better. I’m really proud of our video, and am looking forward to the next project with the skateboards. I’m most excited about the design aspect of the project and how we’re going to decorate it and create meaningful and creative artwork on it. I’m already thinking of potential designs for the skateboard and which paints to use. I’m really excited for the Skateboard project and am looking forward to creating it.

Darby B.

Being a student at the Ann Richards School is hard. It’s what we signed up for. But coming into PLTW on my first day of school I was expecting something easy. Something fun. I was close. This class is fun but not at all easy. It’s anything but easy. But when we started a project called the maker project I was expecting something different. We would get to pick our own project. Do what we want. Something easy. I was wrong.

Going into the maker project I joined in a group with another student, Allegra Green. We decided to make a website to help the title one schools in AISD. I was expecting something easy. I thought HTML wouldn’t be that hard. Once again, I was wrong.

First, we went into website design. This was something I knew more about. We were using Photoshop to create a logo for the website. I was able to do this in a few class periods with little difficulty. Then, we actually had to start the website. We needed to figure out how to use HTML coding. With a HTML for Beginners book at our side we were able to make a simple outline of the site. This took some time with some difficulty but we managed to get through it. That didn’t last long.

Once we got a basic outline of the site completed we had to start including photos and external links. This is where it got difficult. We tried so many different things but no matter what websites we went to, books we read, anything, we couldn’t figure it out. I was so tired of looking things up. I  just wanted this project to be done with already . What I wouldn’t have given to have been able to move on to something else. I was tired. But it didn’t matter. We had to keep going. Eventually we contacted a professional and were able to fix our problem. But of course, with one out of the way, new problems started  to  pop up.

We were making a website for different schools so of course we would need the schools permission to put them on the site. I was the one in charge of calling administrators, sending e mails, etc. and it was so frustrating. I got hung up on, ignored, lied to, and more. It’s was horrible but I kept going because it needed to be done. And now the website is going to be published soon and I couldn’t be more proud of all the hard work Allegra spent in this project. She went above and beyond and it was great working with her.

I think that this was meant to show that no matter what you shouldn’t give up. Things may get hard but you can overcome them if you really try and accomplish great things in life.

When I first heard that we had a makerspace I was pretty excited. The previous year we had to work in this crowded little portable so I didn’t really know what to expect. Over the summer I had heard rumors about big donations being given to our school for that place, being given Macs along with other “luxurious” stuff. When I first stepped into the Makerspace I was a impressed. To be honest, I could not believe that the 8th graders were being given that amazing place to call their PLTW classroom, but there seemed to be something missing to it.

When we first got introduced to modules they seemed a little bit overwhelming but I was actually looking forward to creating stuff. I remember one of the first projects we did, which was to create a speaker. We had to create a speaker and my group and I watched through multiple videos on how to make one. We gathered the materials we could find and when it was finally finished, NO SOUND CAME OUT.  I, like most of the class was quite disappointed with my “creation” but was still proud of my work nonetheless. The rest of the year was more or less the same.

In the second semester we had to come up with our “Maker Projects”, which was a project that was solely created for the purpose  of presenting those projects in the year’s first Make-o-rama. The Mak-o-rama is an event where both students and adults present what they have been creating to everyone else while in the morning each advisory creates a dress out of upcycled materials. For my maker project I made little stuffed bunnies that were sewn together for the purpose of being hidden and making people smile. In the end we made less bunnies than expected but they turned out okay.

    As of right now, I will be creating a skateboard. I have never done anything like this before but I am willing to learn. So far my group and I have designed what it will look like, the Austin Skyline on the top and a gradient trickling rainbow on the bottom. The designs may sound simple but it did take us a few classes where we just experimented on how it would look like. What I really want to say though, is that throughout this whole school year, I have experienced failure, and success, innovations and creation. I may be just 14 right now, but I have lived long enough to realize that people and all of creation itself need to experience failure to know what success feels like. When I look around the makerspace today, I can see exactly what was missing back then: the marvelous pieces of work made by the students that proudly give the “maker” to that little “space” of Earth that is dedicates itself to generating creativity.

-Karla Rodriguez

Failure Leads to New Opportunities

By Kayla Zinsmeyer

People are always telling you how failure isn’t an option. They tell you how your project must be completed, remind you of all the deadlines, of the people you need to impress, or expectations you have to exceed. You’ve heard it all before, I’m sure. When you try to reason with them, explaining to the people with the deadlines that setbacks sometimes happen, they tell you that the show must go on. What they don’t realise, is that sometimes their inflexible plans are what doom a project. What they don’t realize, is that sometimes failure is the best option.

This is something that my 2 other group members experienced recently when we were designing our skateboard. We were determined to put a collage of iconic Austin street-art on one side of our board, since it would compliment the Austin skyline on the other side. However, we quickly realised that was simply too large of a goal, and even if we did have the time, nobody in my group had the experience with photoshop or the other tools we could have used to create the streetart collage. However, once we reached the point where we realised our plan had fallen through, we realised it wasn’t that great of a plan to begin with. We had pretty much skipped the brainstorming stage, and just went forward with the first idea we thought of.

Now that we have decided to do a design that is more suited to our tastes and skill-sets (art and painting, not computer design), everyone is feeling much more confident about the outcome of the skateboard. Instead of the street-art idea, we are doing a gradient rainbow on the underside of the board. While it doesn’t fit in with the Austin theme quite as well, we still think it represents the diversity of cultures in Austin, even in an abstract form. If our streetart idea hadn’t failed, we wouldn’t have realised the better ideas that were out there. It just goes to show how sometimes failure isn’t bad, but the best thing possible.

 

Crossing the Bridge of Failure

By: Isabella V.

One of our first modules this year was to design a bridge out of toothpicks, string, and glue. We decided that we wanted a simple design, so we decided to create a truss bridge, which we learned how to make in 6th grade. We first created the basic design, which was two trapezoids, and made beams that attached each vertex to create a bridge. Then we used toothpicks wrapped in string to create the trusses. Somehow, when we were trying to reinforce our design, our trapezoids became warped, and our final bridge was too tall, and not long enough, and we had used nearly all of the string. When we were testing how much weight it could hold, it was so unstable that it kept bending over when we put more weight on it. For some reason, it didn’t “break” because of all of the string we had used, but when it bent, it became very unstable, making the weights fall off. We decided that 54 grams was enough weight for us, and we were finished.

After we had finished our bridge and we were marveling at how awful our bridge was, we lost confidence, and we gave up on our design. We were disappointed in ourselves, and our bridge didn’t reach requirements. We had worked so hard on something that had failed, and failure didn’t feel great. But I realize afterwards that failure doesn’t necessarily mean that you have failed on your own terms. You can still work hard and fail, but be proud of yourself because you’ve accomplished something. I realized that creating a bridge that holds weight out of toothpicks, string, and glue is not an easy task, and now that I look at our bridge again, I don’t see failure, I see something that could be improved, I see the next step in an engineering career, and I see our hard work.

This year has made me learn so much- not just about our three pathways, but also working with others, how to succeed by taking risks, and most of all, failure isn’t bad, it’s how you reach your goals.

Here’s our bridge that we have made. It’s even hanging on a wall!

While I know failure isnt about how you fall, it’s about how you get up, there has been a time in which I was worried about the way I would fall. Not literally, no, but metaphorically speaking.

Earlier in the year for an engineering module I believe it was, I was in a group of three including me, Mikeyia and Jousie. Our task was to make something that either moved, lit up, made a noise, or a mix of different things. As a group we all came to the decision to make a moving dog. Now, while that sounds easy, it’s really not. We spent a whole lot of time trying to build this thing. Clearly there were times in which we failed, and we did that a whole awful lot.

For example, we had to get the dog to move and what we decided to use was a straw, dowels, rubber bands, and Little Bits. Now, it was very clear what we had to do, which was to get the dog to move, but it was easier said than done. A lot of the time, the rubber band which was used to move the wheels would get stuck on the wheel or it’d get tangled and stuck. So, it wouldn’t move. Other times there were instances in which the measurements were off by a little or by a lot. We’d have to go and cut everything all over again so that the measurements were precisely where we needed it.

I was so over everything at that point. I was annoyed, done, tired, frustrated and most of all I wanted to give up. But of course, I couldn’t, if I did, I would let down my teammates, my teacher and myself, and that wasn’t something that I wanted to do, ever. It was then that I had to make a decision, do I give up and let everyone down, or do I keep trying? I just kept trying and trying and trying and trying, until eventually we got it done. Actually, we we’re done about 2 weeks after it was due. When we finished, it moved about and inch or two, but it still moved. You know that feeling you get when you make the winning shot before the buzzer goes off in a basketball game, or when you hit a spike in volleyball, or cross the finish line at a track meet, the winning feeling? That’s what it felt like. Although it didn’t move all the way across the classroom, it moved and that’s what matters.

Failure is inevitable, but giving up is an option. What I realized is that we all have the option to choose to give up and move on or keep trying and be happy in the end, because either way it goes, it’s all worth something.

It’s always the scariest thing taking off the training wheels off of your bike. You already learned how to ride your bike with the training wheels, which at the age of any average toddler, is scary enough, but now you have to start back from where you started and learn to ride your bike without the only things keeping you from tipping over.

I was terrified when I was first trying to ride my bike without my training wheels, which I think everyone felt when they had to experience one of the “basic steps” of growing up. I had my knee pads and helmet ready for failure.
Learning to ride my bike without those set of wheels on the back, always ended up messy, with me on the concrete, and a bike on its side. There wasn’t an automatic switch or solution to my problem at hand. There would be those exciting, exhilarating times where I felt the wind blow through my hair and I knew I was moving forward, but even after those times where I was finally doing what you’re supposed to be doing on a bike-and not slipping onto the hard ground, I would try to give it another try, and a centimeter later, I’d feel the familiar floor that I had came in contact with many times before.
After many tries and many failures, I persevered and eventually got to the point where I could ride my bike without meeting the concrete. It wasn’t an easy process. Where I come from, riding a bike is essential to growing up, it tells you and the rest of the world that you were able to overcome a difficult task, meaning: everyone I know, knows how to ride a bike, but it doesn’t mean that just because a majority of people knows how to do a certain thing, doesn’t make it any less important for any of us, or for any other kids going through this process or looking forward to experience something that allows them to have fun and enjoy their day.
The mindset that you take on while persevering through a difficult task, such as riding a bike, can be used in our everyday lives. I know that each and every one of us has a problem that we have to solve: it can be anything from a math equation that seems almost impossible to find an answer to, or a life crisis that makes you feel like the world is ending and there is nothing to live for, either way, no matter what troubles you are facing at the moment, you are able to persevere and make it through. I think one of the tasks that may seem so simple and basic, like riding a bike, is one of the tasks that show us that we can stick it through, and no matter how small are big our accomplishment, it is important that we continue to put in effort and try again.

Elyssa J. Castillo
Mrs. Sauter
7th period
Failure

Failure. Why do we fail?…I don’t know why we fail, it’s just part of life. I can tell you that there were so many reasons and so many times where I wanted to fail and give up. But failing and giving up shouldn’t be an option. I know that from personal experience. Plus, failure and giving up gets you nowhere in life…or just in general that it gets you nowhere. You can’t succeed if you fail, give up, or find the easy way out of things. Good work comes with hard work.

I remember at one point I wanted to fail, and just give up…there were a lot of times where I wanted to fail and give up… We were coming up with ideas for the maker project…me and my group decided to make a dog house. It was a great idea, and it sounded fun too. We started to think outside the box when we were coming up ideas, some were pretty funky ideas, and others were like…woah, thats really good and clever.

So everybody had to get an idea and come back and we would compromise all the ideas. It was pretty hard at first but we came up with an idea, that kind of fit everybody’s idea…it was a pretty good compromise. So yeah, it was fun…but then things started to get complicated. But our final product was making a two story dog house with removable stairs…the measurements were 2 by 2 by 3. And the colors we chose were pink, white, and black (the dog was a girl).

So now I’m going to talk about the process of building the dog house (brief). First we had to make a sketch and then come up with the measurements for the dog house, we wanted it to fit perfectly for the dog (or at least pretty good). Then we had to build the frame for the dog house. It was pretty difficult at first but then we started to get the hang of it. Then we had to measure the boards for the outside of the frame. Then we had to make stencils. Then we spray painted and the dog house was done.

People in my group weren’t doing what they were supposed to. So we had to stay after school…but not everybody stayed after school…some people couldn’t stay after school because their parents wouldn’t let them (which is okay I guess), some people stayed after school, but not to work on our project…they stayed for something not important. So only me and other two people stayed after school and we worked well together. We got a lot of stuff done after school.

We all experience some type of failure in life. After experiencing struggles success makes its way. Why, of all ideas do we think that failure shows us how to live?

This school has mainly taught me to always believe in yourself and to never give up. I’ve had band since sixth grade, even though it’s a short period of time, I take band really serious. Some people might think, “Why care it’s just an elective.” Except for me it is. I play the french horn and I have a really good section, and they all are really amazing and I have to admit I am one of the group members that struggles the most. I got braces on my second year of band and we were going into high notes, and I could never really play them. When that happened it just brought me down because all my section members could play, except me

I thought to myself, “I am really bad, why not just quit already?” But then I processed that thought, and I just kept going back to one thing. That, I do not give up easily until it is truly over. Yes it’s hard for me because even now I struggle with notes. I am not the best player, but being the best is not important, trying your hardest is. This is just one of the problem I have in band.

I have learned from my past that if you let yourself not get beat by failure you will accomplish what you want. Also that if you feel down, use it to give you strength.

Judgement. This word scares me. In band when they ask us to play the first thing I think about is what are other people going to think. But this bring failure, if you let that thought creep into your mind. And failure for me isn’t a choice. I still have that thought but I do not let it settle in my mind I push it away as far as I can. And I always tell myself, “You are the best.”

Failure is scary and embarrassing, but how would we learn if we didn’t have mistakes. For me it is band. Mistakes happen all the time but it doesn’t matter because there is always the result, which is better than failure.

I have never been a person that has never  made a mistake, but be free to correct me. I don’t think there is correction to be made. Some people have the mentality that failure is bad, but is it really? Think about it. Is it? In my personal opinion it isn’t, because we would be totally different. All I am saying is that failure whether you give up or not, it comes with a positive ending.