by Khammila S.

Just a day ago, I came back from India an entirely different world and unlike the United States, India has a very different system of how things work. For instance, they don’t use lanes when driving, they honk and pass whoever they want. In India, everyone and everything is free, free to wander and do as they please. Cows walk across streets and children play outside till it’s dark.

Going to India, made me see how living “simple” or with less is actually better. Of course, it’s good to have an organized government because in India their government is based more on physical labor, which can leave some people without jobs and in poverty. Whereas ours is more on your mental abilities thus, creating this huge competition throughout our lives in grades and jobs.

Once coming back, I thought, why not both? How could I create something that was able to do the work of complicated machine using simple materials? This is something people are getting millions of dollars for and are also struggling to do. As humans, almost all of the time we are trying to find the easiest route.

As you may have heard, there is a Maker Faire in our city where people present really cool and creative inventions. We decided we wanted to make something that people could use easily everyday and was portable. The Portable Phone Projector was born, and it will soon be able to make presenting and entertainment easier for your everyday needs. To sum it up, it’s basically able to project any image or video on your phone along with any sound or music. Check again in a few weeks for an update!

By Sammie Seamon

This six weeks we started on our Maker Project! The maker project is for our first annual Make-O-Rama. Our grade has divided into groups, and each group is going to make something of their choice to display at the Make-O-Rama. Our group is making an interactive dollhouse. The child can be creative and move the stories either on top of each other in the desired order, or next to each other to make a long house. This will be possible by attaching velcro straps to the outside of the walls.

I am in charge of the furniture of the house and helping with the dolls. To say, sewing. I love sewing and everything to do with fabric, so this is a good role for me. I’m working on my machine sewing skills and am very excited about the personal projects this skill will lead to. I am already very adept in hand sewing and different kinds of stitching, and I have some experience in machine sewing. We just recently got new fabric for the dolls and interior of the house. Helen will be helping me with interior design, and I am genuinely super excited about how our dollhouse will turn out. We will probably be adding bits and pieces even after the Make-O-Rama.

So far, we have cut out the pieces of wood for the frame, and are painting them. The frame is nearly assembled, then we will move on to the walls and room dividers. Meanwhile, I’m busy working on the dolls with Isabella and making furniture. We all still have a little ways to go; I need to lasercut the furniture pieces, and we still need to install the walls and room dividers.

I’m super excited about this project, and I’m really glad that I get to use my interests like sewing in this project. The Make-O-Rama is going to be great!

A first date is an outing with the opposite party, to release tensions, and to get to know each other. That’s what the Construction and Fabrication Basics Module was for me. A first date. And like most first dates, they’re meant to be shared amongst others.

The blades, that’s what scared me the most about the Makerspace, when I first saw it. The way the blade spun made my head get swarmed with images of the blade chopping off my arm. Luckily, we didn’t jump into cutting wood straight away. The first thing to do, before the first date, is to give yourself a pep-talk, get rid of the anxious zoo at the pit of your stomach, and of course, make yourself presentable.

So, that’s what we did. We gave ourselves a pep-talk that went along the lines of, “If you follow all the directions for using the tools, your arm won’t get chopped off.” After giving ourselves this little talk and getting rid of the anxiousness, we presented ourselves to our date, (the makerspace) with a little previous knowledge and clammy hands. First things first, we had to learn what the tools were named and where they were. Once we could name all the tools, we were off to cut lumber, for our first challenge.

Typically, you would go to your best friend for advice on how to approach the opposite party. We, on the other hand, went to Mrs.Sauter. We learned all the precautions and how the tools worked. Let’s just say I will never forget to keep my hand off the “no hand zone”. Once we cut out the lumber , we were given, a round head screw, a countersunk screw, a hex bolt, washer, and two nails. We were supposed to put these into our newly built lumber blocks. Thankfully, Mrs.Sauter, didn’t leave it all to us, she was there to caution and correct us.

The first date was over. Personally, I could say that I became more enthusiastic when it came to using power tools. I was positive there was going to be a second date. We were put to the test, with our newly found abilities, to create a birdhouse based on Texan birds. Sadly, the second date is a story I’ll save for later.

I have to admit, it was terrifying, but eventually I got through it and felt safer cutting wood or lumber. Suddenly, I became to using new tools in the Makerspace. This module helped me, not only that, it taught me all the steps of a first date, and got me ready for the engineering pathway. In engineering, you will obviously use big tools, and you have to get comfortable with them. Every single thing you try or do should be like a first date, full of questions to be answered, tensions to be released, and knowing that you won’t get your arm chopped off if you don’t follow the correct directions and precautions.

Pltw (project lead the way) is all about doing projects and learning how to have constraints and using tools.Learning how to use dangerous tools was actually fun, even though i was afraid to try them i ended up loving the feeling of using the tools.

I learned how to use a miter saw which was pretty scary because the sensation of the saw shaking and you having to push hard enough so the tools force would not push it up.

I also learned to use the drill bit which was really cool even though the spinning circle could fly out and hit you in the face if you did not use it the proper way.But it was cool how we made the circle on the wood you just have to place your circle exactly on 5/16 drill hole.

Another tool was the jigsaw i actually enjoyed using that tool it was so much fun cutting our wood for our bird house and its not as scary as the other tools, other than the fact that you can cut your finger on all of the tools.

Overall,i enjoyed using those tools because they helped me and my group create our bird house which came out great and looked great and is know a home for a bird.

Karla Jaramillo

We are currently making a story board for the video that we will project at the maker fair.

Whe n Mrs. Sauter first told our class that we were going to have a maker’s project, I was very confused. I didn’t have any of what I could possibly make. As the days got closer to us having to pick an idea, I kept getting more and more worried. What would I possibly make that could help a human want?

At first, I was desperate to join a group because I had no ideas of my own. I went around asking, practically begging people to let me be in their group. When no one had any more room for one more person, I thought to myself that I had to think as much as I could and figure out what someone would want but doesn’t yet exist?

I went on a mission that day, I asked all my friends what they would want to have in their lives but yet doesn’t exist. They all came to one thing: a portable phone projector. I went to class the next day and asked some people if they wanted to be in my group. I got one person to join my group and our project began. The first thing we did was submit an application to Mrs. Sauter so we could get some feedback. Mrs. Sauter said she liked our idea and thought it would be cool.

As we have begun our first few stages of our project I have really enjoyed the whole idea of this project. I know personally, that a phone projector is something that a lot of us want, but seem almost impossible to get our hands on. After my group and I finish making our prototype I’m excited to see where this will lead us.

When we are little we all imagine being rich and famous. But, for what reason? When I get older and I have a brilliant idea of what we could use in our lives I will use the skills I have learned in this process. I am no longer afraid to take chances of things that seem ridiculously impossible to make. As I look around my pltw class, I see students making things that we never saw possible. I love what we do in this school. We turn the impossible into something possible that we will take with us our entire lives.

-Nishi P.

So we all know PLTW is a pretty laid back class as long as you get your work done. I’ve even heard some claim that they have so much free time and can do whatever they want since they finished modules quickly.

But, now instead of modules we are expected to make something for the Maker Faire that will happen in April. It adds another layer to the class. We have to think about something that will be of use to people’s needs or wants. These are valuable business skills because there are only some consumers who buy things they don’t need or want. And, that’s probably due to false advertising. (Getting kind of off topic, sorry)

Our class formed many groups of project ideas and are collaborating to create many different products. At first I was interested in making a magazine with some of my peers, but decided to join the catapult group.

Prior to actually submitting the application, we just wanted to build a catapult for fun. Then we realized that it could serve a purpose for athletes. It could throw balls at longer distances for them to practice.

When making anything, there is a lot of planning and thinking ahead to do. My group and I had to think about the materials, the blue print, prototype, and the actual building process and assembly.

We are just starting of course, so right now we are working on Illustrator to create the parts and laser print them. Laser printing gives precision and requires less time than you invested in drawing the parts. It is much better than just cutting them out.

There is only a few weeks until Maker Faire and still lots to do. We must keep persevering and work hard! Fighting~!

By Bella Roberts

This is an example diagram of a maglev train. (This is not the diagram for our train)

Real Maglev Train

As we start to enter the last few months of school I have been spending a lot of time recalling my past experiences at Ann Richards, and in the makerspace. I have realized that they have taught me so much and I feel quite comfortable using the skills that I have learned to challenge my own abilities and the ones of people around me.

In between all of the soul searching that I have been doing, I find myself coming back to my maker project and how it is effecting my experience in the makerspace greatly. I am really enjoying it as we embark on bringing our ideas to life, which is one of the best parts! My team and I are creating a maglev train, which we will produce by laser cutting pieces of wood and putting them together to make carts of a train. Then we will attach magnets to the carts and onto a track. The magnets should create a magnetic field and by doing this we hope to make the train carts float above the track and eventually move along the track.

While continuing this project I am thinking about the process that we are going through and the challenges that we have yet to face. I am realizing that down the road we may face more problems that we should prepare ourselves for. I do not mean to doubt our project but at the same time I am catching myself getting nervous at the possibility of not finishing or failing. So, it is important for us to stay on task and try our best, but I have to realize that it is okay to make mistakes and that they can lead us to making even bigger accomplishments. This project has taught me a lot of things and this understanding with myself was a really important one.

Our train is meant to display ideas and innovations for the future and inspire the idea of new technology in the world. We hope that the image of our maker project will help convey these messages and we are starting to focus more on including them in our design.

This maker project is helping me to recognize and understand so many things, but I think one of the most important things and one that I hope all of you remember is that all of the experiences that you go through, the problems that you solve, and the discoveries that you make are necessary to the process of bringing your ideas to life.

Mayrin S.

3/26/15

5th Period

Maker Fair Project

Hi my name is Mayrin and my blog is going to be about the beginning of building a skateboard in the illustrator. My group members are Ora, Alex, Karla, Jasmine, and Me.

Our group decided to do a skateboard for the Maker Fair because people in our community can see how we can use other ways of doing a skateboard. Well using the Adobe Illustrator is really hard unless you learn it right and practice every single time.

Right now we are doing our skateboard in the Adobe Illustrator with the help of everybody. Our challenge is to do the whole skateboard altogether by the due date which is in April 24th.

This is how the skateboard should look like when we finish the skateboard all build up but with a unique designs.

Clarisa Belman

Hello my name is Clarisa and today I’m going to  tell you about my last module that I did. The last module that I did was construction & fabrication basics which are in the engineering pathway.

For the first module we had to do a tool sandwich. A tool sandwich is 2 pieces of wood together with tools in them to identify them. What we did first was fined 2 pieces of wood, and then put different screws in the wood; we also learned how to use different drills.

(This is an example of a tool sandwich)

The second challenge was to create a meaningful word out of recycle materials and put it anywhere around the school where people would see it. We started looking for a word that would have been meaningful, we decided to go to the haiku page and see the other words they have done. After looking at the words we decided to make the word Justice. We decided to pick justice because we thought it was a really meaningful word and that people can relate to it. The next step was the materials. How would we create the word out of recycle materials? It took us a while to figure out, but we got it’s a group we decided to go and find recycle wood that we could use. When we found wood we decided to cut it in little circles, put them together to create the letters. We were 4 group members we divided and choose 2-3 letters each. We used a saw to cut the wood; after we were done we glued it with the glue gun. We left it to sit and dry; when it was dry we painted the latters the color we wanted.

We glued the letter together to a big piece of wood and we decided that we should put our word in the front office because a lot of people could see it and remember that the word justice is really meaningful. We had a lot of fun creating this module we learn how to use new tools and all the process was fun. I really enjoy sharing what we made with other people.

(Picture of our module)