This last six weeks I got to work on the materials module. We had to decide what word we wanted to do and we chose ARS. At first my partner and I thought we had to build the letters out of recycled material so we gathered up cardboard and drew our letters on it. Later throughout the module we found out that we could make the letters out of wood so we used the cardboard to be the outline for our letters and we drew it on the wood. When we finished drawing them we cut them out and decorated them with recycled material.

 

I loved how in this module we got to choose what word we wanted to do and how we got to make them out of wood. I also like how the letters can later be used for something else too.

 

We had to start over when we found out we could make the letters out of wood but it was worth it because it turned out better than the cardboard.

By: Angelica Garcia

During the most recent module, my group and I did videography. Now, I thought this module was going to be much easier than it was. But it was way harder than I expected. My experience with this module was nto terrible, but not the best either. Our group had some difficulties, mainly due to the absence of members, but other than that, there were only minor disagreements. The minor disagreements set us back a bit each time, but not too much.
This module was meant to help us decide if we like the media tech pathway, but it felt like something different to me. It felt like we were moviemakers. I really enjoyed making our video. I think I might’ve enjoyed it more had we not had to make it revolving around school, but what can you do?
During this module, our group had some difficulties. Some difficulties we had, were not knowing how to properly use the camera, or use the right angles, or even ideas for shooting. But the main problem was time. We crushed for time. It seemed like we ran out of time too quickly.
We struggled most because we probably didn’t pay very much attention when we had to do something. Like, when someone explained something, we didn’t listen very well. And now I feel that we would have been way more sucesful if we had listened.
So in conclusion, listen. Just listen to people who try to help when you definately need it. Accept them and their help. Do your work on time.

STEAM in a Car

 

When we went to the Circuits of the Americas we learned that all of the cars that participate in the Formula 1 use STEAM to guide them to build the best racing car they can. For example the Williams Martini race car is an example of the term STEAM.

 

STEAM represents science, technology, engineering, art, and math. The williams martini car took “25” years to build. But really they just built a newer and improved version each year. Each year they would build a better version of the Williams Martini race car. But before any building they had to plan out their new creation. The Williams race car has specific features to help it go faster and not crash when doing turns at about 100 miles per hour. The race car also has special “effects” for the driver, like a button that squirts water for when the driver is thirsty, and the driver wears a fire proof suit in case of an emergency.

 

When creating this race car they had to think about the material the wheels would be, so the car wouldn’t slip off the track and crash. They also have to design the car a specific way so it can be airborne to help it go faster. For example for the race car to be airborne it needs to have the shape of a teardrop so the car can be able to go through the air. If the car was a simple square the air would hit the car and make it go slow.

 

The term STEAM is in the Williams Martini car. Science for designing the perfect fast race car, Technology for buttons that help the drivers, Engineering for building the car, Art for making designs on the car, and Math for calculating the dimensions (etc…).

This six weeks I learned a lot about designing and working with limited materials to create something. I discovered that coming up with an idea is actually a lot harder than it sounds – an idea that’s original and creative and meets the constraints of your client. Then there’s process of elimination and having to compromise with your partners to create something everyone likes and agrees on. This is a lot harder than it sounds; while there are many benefits and disadvantages to working alone and working with a group, having to come to an agreement and decide on something with others can be a little difficult but will most likely end up appealing to more people because it was created with diverse point of views and opinions.

 

First we had reviewed what exactly computers are, and we divided them into groups of ‘simple’ and ‘complex’. Then we came up for our own definition of Computer Science: The study of principles and use of computers. We decided to create something with light, because we liked the neon wire glow in the dark littlebot. We discussed ideas like nightlight, book lights, disco ball, flashlight, and we decided on a night light. Then we talked about design, and listed lots of ideas until we decided on a Christmas tree because it sounded simple, had to do with light, it’s Christmas soon, and it sounded fun. Our team got frustrated a lot, and we had different ideas so it took a while to come up with something we all liked. We brainstormed on materials and appearance of the Christmas tree, and how we were going to attach the tree to the rotating cervo. We decided to make the tree white, because the light is already green, and we wanted a contrast in color. We decided to use the 3D printer to make our Christmas tree, and then we decided to cover it in glitter! That was kind of a messy part, but we really liked the way it came out and we had fun covering it in glitter. The project came out really well and we were happy with our product.

Now we’re faced with choosing a project for the Makerspace project, which is a lot harder than it sounds. I had a lot of fun doing the Hour of Code and think that online coding would be something that I’d be really interested in doing, like an app or a game. I kind of wanted to do a team project, but everyone had so many different ideas and opinions that pretty much everyone is doing a solo project. Though I haven’t even done a Mediatech module yet, I want to do something on the computer for my Makerspace project, and am looking forward to discovering how to create something new for my project.

This six weeks has been a blast. Some of things I enjoyed doing was the prosthetics leg module. I had a good time designing the leg. Building the leg was even better being able to bring just a little sketch in my notebook and turning that into something real was the best feeling ever. And to see your final product.

Another module I enjoyed doing was the hour of code. It was really fun programing and I bet a lot of people don’t even know that they use programing in their life style. Iam glad that everybody particapited in the hour of code and it opened up a new expirence for them.

Project Lead The Way(PLTW) is a class we have in the ARS Maker Space where we focus on technology and innovating inventions through modules. A module is a basic lesson that helps us by learning new things about the pathways offered at Ann Richards and we take that knowledge a step further by coming together with ideas to innovate an object that could be helpful to our community.

At Ann Richards we have three options to chose from as an eighth grader to take as our pathway in high school. The three options we have are Engineering, Media Technology, and Biomedical Science. I am going to talk to you a little about my experience with Media Technology since it’s the pathway I have focused on the most.

Media Technology would be for people who consider themselves a visual person or who just love to use technology to create a 2 dimensional amazement. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a lot of experience with technology because the whole purpose of taking Media Tech is to increase your knowledge about technology.

So far this semester, I have only focused on Media Tech and I have done every module on it. Media Technology has modules as Blogging, Videography, Intro to Photography, and Screen Printing, which had to be taken away since there was too many problems with it.

I would say Blogging is the easiest to do, we blog to practice on our Blogging skills. Videography was a little tricky to be honest. We had to record many places around our school that went along with our mission statement and edit it together on iMovie. The next module I have done is Photography, which I would say is pretty easy as well, we basically take a picture ourselves using the rule of thirds. The last and unsuccessful module I did was Screen Printing. Screen Printing was difficult because we had so many obstacles like the Screens not being clean enough and we weren’t able to print our design out.

Even though the Media Technology pathway is fun, it can be a little tricky at times, but I think I’m starting to get an idea on the pathway I want to take for high school.

By: Crystal R.

Videography

This 6 weeks we did MediaTech again! We did videography which was so much fun!!! We had to shoot a video about our school and our mission as ARS students. We shot different places in our school such as the cafeteria, the track, the stars on the ceiling the hallways and all the beautiful motivational quotes and words on our walls. We also recorded our voices saying the missing statement and put it in the background of our video as well as a bunch of fun music such as “fergalicious” and “Under The Sea”. It was really funny and made our video really fun to watch!!

This module was really cool because I always loved photography and I learned a lot of photography skills in this module. I learned about rule of thirds and lots of other different shots taken by photographers that give you the best picture possible. Now I really am more inspired to do Media Tech for HS!!!

I learned lots of skills from this module. I learmed how to manage my time and with something that was difficult. Taking this video we had to try lots of different shots and we lost a lot of our videos so we had to reshoot a lot but overall it was really fun!! I now know how to make a music video, and actually it’s so much easier than I thought! The hardest part was trying to come up with a way to make all of our groups ideas fit together… but we made it work!!!!

This six weeks was so much fun… I hope I get to work with media tech and my amazing group for the maker project!!!

by Maddie I

Videography

“The Ann Richards School for young women leaders dedicates itself to prepare young women to attend and graduate from college, committed to a healthy and well balanced lifestyle lead with courage and compassion and solve problems creatively and ethically to support our global community.”

For this module we had to film several videos that had to follow the idea of our mission statement we filmed many videos and sometimes we had to redo them because our videos would get lost or because the video would be too shaky.

During this module we had to film about 14 videos but only used about eight. We had many different ideas like we filmed the front of the school and show the name of our school for the first part of the mission statement. The second part was a video of ms.Mathai teaching her class and also a 7th grade teacher and her class. The third video was of the college center. The fourth was of the cafeteria followed by the gym and us playing basketball showing the our well balanced lifestyle. We also filmed us helping the community by helping students in our school and donating food for the food drive.

During this module we had some problems like having to redo our videos and being off task we also had to get an extension date for the video. But, besides all of that we worked hard and did a good job in our video.

For Module number six, I chose to be in the Construction and Fabrication Basics Module. The main idea for this Module, was to be able to use new tools correctly and know their names. What we had to do for our first challenge, was to create a wood sandwich. We had to put two pieces of wood together and nail 3 different types of nails into the two pieces of wood.

For our second challenge we had to create a right angle birdhouse. And let me tell you, it wasn’t that easy. Our first try was a fail because we didn’t have right angles and our second try was the same. We weren’t giving up. So instead, we had a third try, and we finally had a birdhouse.

I really enjoyed working on this module. It was fun and at the same time I learned a lot from my mistakes. I can use the skills that I learned in class and use them later on in the future, like probably making a doghouse or creating something else.

Videography and iMovie

This past module I completed was Videography. We were told to basically make our school’s mission statement in a video. If you don’t know our mission statement, it’s the following:

The Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders

dedicates itself to prepare young women to

attend and graduate from college,

commit to a healthy and well balanced lifestyle,

lead with courage and compassion,

and solve problems creatively and ethically

in support of our global community.

The first part of our module was to create a storyboard, which is when you draw out and draft your ideas of what you want to do in your video. I think that this is very important to know, because when I grow up I might want to work in advertising, and they use storyboards for every commercial that is made.

 

The next part of our project was to actually finalize and film what we planned on our storyboard. The filming of our video was caotic. We got about 4 days to walk around the school and film what we had planned. We used tripods and samsung cameras to film. During this process, I learned how to use the rule of thirds, and I think that knowing how to use that tool is very important for good picture and video taking.

The final part of our project was to edit our video using iMovie. I really enjoyed this part, because I enjoyed learning how to slow the video clips down, clip things out, and just learn the basics of the editing process.