A Comfy Solution

At GCE, during the third unit of Rapid Prototyping, we learned all about a variety of tools and safety precautions when using them. For this Action Project, we were asked to come up with a completely original idea for an object that we could use in our new school space. After coming up with this idea, we had to follow through with it and build it. For my project, my partner and I improved a char by attempting to make it more conformable. The biggest challenge I ran into was time constraints. We only had 2 hours of in-class time to construct this when it actually took around 5 to do. I am very proud of this project because after I took the extra time to do it, it turned out very successful and comfortable!

LS & MI (2015) Finished Chair

Here is a link to our Instructables page where I list all of our materials and explain step by step how to make this chair.

We improved an office chair by adding large amounts of extra padding to both the seat area and the back part of the chair.

The time lapse video we took was taken on an iPhone. Since there was no way to accurately figure out the setting behind the speed, I looked it up online. On 9to5mac.com, I found that when the video is under 10 min, the video is taken at 2 frames per second and is 15x faster than normal speed.  This means that for every 1 second of time lapse video

One thing we were inspired by to make this was an IKEA hack called the cobalt office chair. For this specific chair, the makers completely redesigned the look of the chair to make it more visually appealing. This is similar to what we did but instead of visuals we went for comfort.

To loosen one part of the chair, I had to unscrew something at the bottom which used torque. If the handle attached to the back of the chair had been larger, I would have had more torque and the job would have been much easier. 

There were multiple safety hazards to be aware of when completing this project. First, wear goggles when using a staple gun and sharp blades because a staple can fly off and hit you in the eye or a blade can shatter and do the same thing. Also, watch your fingers when using anything sharp or a stapler. You can slip and cut/staple your hand and/or finger. Using thick gloves can help prevent that from happening. 

One quote from one of the Field Experiences was "...we try to provide artistic materials at a low price..." I really appreciate how available the Wasteshed makes materials and this relates to my project because their materials are so cheap, I was able to purchase a few that greatly helped in the construction of the chair.

Completing this project was both fun and extremely stressful. Using tools I had never used before was fun and so was creating an idea and following through with it. However, the deadline that was placed over us felt unfair which led to a few stressful late nights. After finishing this project, here are 5 lessons I learned: 

1. Safety first. Always make sure you are following the proper safety precautions.
2. Have a plan. Nothing is worse than starting to build and remembering you missed a step when it's too late. 
3. Asking for help from friends whether it be for materials or a helping hand can be very beneficial. Just remember to say thank you.
4. If you've never stapled fabric before, ask for help. If you just go ahead and try to staple it, it can look very bad.
5. Try to gather as many materials as possible as quickly as possible so there isn't any time where you have nothing to do.

The BOO Collection

During my first elective term at GCE, one of the classes I was in was called Book Bound (BOO). In BOO, we discussed and read Lord of the Flies, talked largely about the relevance and contents of the canon, and reviewed some important facts about literacy around the world. Going into this class I definitely wasn't a fan of reading. Now that I'm just finishing up the class I can say I feel the same way. I don't despise reading and I do appreciate it; however, it's not my idea of the best way to spend my free time. As far as our required reading, Lord of the Flies, I didn't mind reading it but it's really not something I see myself reading again anytime soon. In my opinion, the canon doesn't provide high schoolers with books that would be most beneficial for them to read at that time. For this Action Project, we were ask to choose 4 of the mini-projects we've completed throughout the course and blog them as a digital scrapbook. The four I chose were as follows: my poster promoting literacy, my "I, Reader" storyboard, my book choice for the canon in a slideshow, and my group literary journal. I picked these four because I felt the most confident with the work I did. The original AP for this class was to help build/design the library in our new school space. Even though that didn't happen my idea for a dream library would be to have lots of independent space, an open and happy area, and tons of good books! Out of the few field experiences we went on in BOO, my favorite one was probably the visit to the Francis Parker library. Going to a different school and seeing their library was very interesting and cool. Overall, the FE's for this class were very enjoyable. Out of the many assignments this term, my favorite one has to be the literary journal. It was our only group project and I loved the collaboration and creativity that my group put into it.

Poster

For this assignment, I was asked to first do research on general illiteracy around the world. Then I made a guiding question and did further research off of that. Finally, I was to make a poster for the new library space, expressing the importance of literacy or the hard facts of illiteracy. This relates to the class because in order to be able to read, you need to be literate. This assignment allowed us to investigate the term literacy with our own guiding question, thus teaching us its importance while also allowing a certain freedom with our path in learning. I selected this assignment for my blog because of how recent I made it. It was much easier to include this assignment while it was fresh in my mind. The way I approached this poster was a little personal because of my focus being my home city. It was shocking to learn some of things I did, but it was also very informative. Since I made this poster with this blogpost in mind, there are no revisions that I needed to make before I posted it here. Also, there were no challenges I faced when making this poster because of its simplicity. What makes me the most proud about this assignment has to be my visual. I's humor and quite literal meaning makes it a very powerful and effective way of communicating my thoughts.

I, Reader

For this assignment, I was asked to outline my growth and experiences with reading in a storyboard format. This relates to the course because of it's focus on our connections with reading. The reason I selected this for my blog post is because of the amount of creativity and personal connection I was allowed to include in it. Many of the scenes depicted show personal thoughts and events that I enjoyed writing about. My approach to the assignment was very laid back and personal. Making each clip was a fun reflection on old memories for me. The only major challenge I face when making this storyboard was getting used to the website I made it on. At first it was confusing but after a while I got used to it. For this assignment, the revisions I made were the most extensive. I completely redid every text box in the storyboard. This was because after talking to my teacher, she made me realize that, instead of elaborating upon the images in my text, I was simply explaining what the viewer could already see. I changed all the text to have a more in-depth look at my thoughts and feelings during those specific events. What I am proud of in this assignment is my ability to create mostly realistic visuals and connect them to meaningful text.

Slideshow

For this assignment, I was asked to pick a book I thought deserved to be canonized, and make a slideshow outlining why and including the information of the book. This assignment relates to the course because it shows our knowledge of the canon and the characteristics of books that have been canonized. I selected this assignment for my blog because I feel very strongly about why this book should be in the canon. My approach to this assignment was both very factual and opinionated because of the book information and my reasons for its canonization. The only challenge I faced making this presentation was changing the theme of the slideshow. My teacher and I agreed that the current color looks unappealing, but I was unable to change it without messing up the format of the rest of the slides. Revisions I made to this assignment were very minor. I corrected a few typos in my text and fixed some formatting errors, such as book titles not being italicized. I am proud of my book choice for this assignment. I believe very strongly that Looking for Alaska is a book all teens should be required to read.

Literary Journal

For this assignment, a group of two other students and I were asked to gather both original and external text/images and compile them into a literary journal. The title of our group literary journal is 11:44 because that's the time we stopped arguing about a topic which is media. This related to the course because it made us create text to submit to the journal and inspired creativity while we basically made a mini-book. I selected this assignment for this post because it is the one I am most proud of. The reason I am so proud of it is because of how good all the texts and images came out from my group. I also really enjoyed the the cover and the idea of the topic and title. My approach to the assignment was very focused and organized because of the group aspect. I was very on top of making sure we had everything together and that led to us being able to submit it one day early. A challenge I faced while making the journal was formatting the table of contents and attempting to number the pages. Unfortunately, because of google drive's limited options of page numbering, I was unable to correctly number pages which also led to an un-numbered table of contents. I did not have to make any revisions before posting, but because it was a group assignment, I had to ask my group members to correct small typos on their texts.