Alex Fischer
Sophmore Year
Reflection 1
Reflection 2
Freshman year has gone so fast Its almost difficult to remember everything. I do feel that I have had a very productive year so far, and with all the work I have done its pretty cool to look back and see everything that I have acomplished. From the Rube Goldberg machine, to the BB8 that I am building, plus alot more, I feel that I have acomplished a ton this year. I also feel that I have greatly strengthend my math and science skills.
My BB8 project has been going very well. It all started when I told Buch and Kerr that I wanted to build a BB8. Then my Idea was out there so I got to work planning, reasearching, and thinking of what I would need to make the BB8 thought come to life. First I got a big beach ball to paper mache, and plaster. after that I started making his internals which are the magic to making BB8 move. I have also designed his head to speak, and roll on top of the body using a magnetic locking mechacnisim.
Freshman Year
8/ 17 The first week of school this year has gone great so far! Since I missed a week do to a 3 month camping trip, I am surprised how quickly I got back in sync. So far I have been researching my inquiry question " why is the universe endless?"
9/7
So I am on my second IB now. and this time my question is "why are the tides on earth affected by the moon?". So far I have found this very interesting. I am now trying to find more factors that will help my reasearch
9/8
Can you belive that it is the 5th week of school already? I sure can't! I feel like that sofar I have learned so much. I have learned about the unverse, tides and the moon, even history events in the past. So I am even more excited to see what the resty of the school year has to offer!
9/29
These few past weeks have been very busy for me. I am now in two bolts, in German 3, building bb8, and doing an inquiry block, and I have only two periods a day to get all this done. Doing things at home is difficult because we are always having to go somewhere.
10/25
The first term of the year is now over and I feel like I have been productive so far. The term has really flown by.
11/18
This week I did a mouse trap challenge for my bolt, where I had to build a car with the only power source being a mouse trap. I found this activity very challenging because I had never built a mouse trap car before. My major issue was my wheels on my car. I figured out to late that if i hot glued my wheels, instead of taping them, my car would work a lot better if I had figured this out in the beginning. I also could have improved my triggering system to make my car go further. On the day of my trials I had to improve a ton of things. First i had to add a pencil to the mouse trap to give the car more power, second I had change the twine with fishing line. I did this because the twine stretched to much and the fishing line was very taught. I also improved my car a little bit with these thing to make it go further. I still was not able to get within the red zone though. I was able to make my car much better in the 3rd challenge when I had to build another car. Overall I enjoyed this activity, and thought that it was a good learning experience.
2/1/17
For my last bolt I was in show me the money. This bolt taught me about financial stability and how to use my money wisely. And to finish it off I learned about 401k's, and compound interest. Here is a definition of each. A 401k is a company funded investment, this can be used as a long term investment. Compound interest is a type of interest that builds up on its elf over time due to the amount of time you have had your money in a bank that gives you compound interest.
1/5/17
We have just return from winter break, which was extremely nice! But now it is time to work on commitments for the rest of the school year. I would like to finish out BB8's coding , so I can have him rolling around by the end of the year. Currently I am enrolled in the Architecture IB, and in 3 bolts. These bolts are The Andromeda Strain, 3D Printing 101, and Show Me the Money. This time I have chosen bolts that will go help the credits that I am slightly behind on.
12/15/16
Wow it is the end of 2016 already! It seems like just yesterday I was a freshman. This year has been so productive and amazing for me. For starters, I am now done with German 3 , which is crazy because to me I feel like my strength in the language has grown more than ever before. In Mosaic I also feel like I have improved as well, over the course of the semester I have challenged myself with taking more mini courses (bolts) as the semester has progressed. I have learned a variety of new and interesting subjects like physics, Aquaponics, mutation of enzymes, and a lot about space and the universe. So far I think it has been a great Semester and I cant wait to learn more next term.
12/13/16
This weeks challenge for the mousetrap bolt was extremely challenging. I had to build a mouse trap car that had a catapult attached. The objective of the project was to get the car to move 3 meters, then stop and launch a ping pong ball from the catapult. I was able to create a car, but mine did not have enough power to trip the catapult. I was also able to com-pleat my trial, but my car failed the objective. I specifically struggled with my trip mechanism for my catapult, and the weight of my car. I tried to change my trip mechanism a few times, my first one was a plastic brick with a slot cut into it attached to the spoon, this brick then was connected to the spoon which launched the ping pong ball, and my last one was a couple Lego bricks glued together, that held the mousetrap catapult open. Mean while the mousetrap that ran the car snapped down on the Lego bricks releasing the catapult when the proper time came. The most I could launch the ping pong ball was about 1 foot. I feel like I could improve this by doing some research on trip mechanisms. To improve the weight of my car I could work on finding lighter materials. For example I used heavy would to hold my catapult, but the weight was to great for my car to work properly, I could probably use card
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12/11/16
This past week I had to build a mousetrap powered catapult. When I finished I had to try to launch a ping pong ball into a bucket the size of a coffee can. I found this challenge extremely difficult because I had to launch the catapult the same way every time for it to get remotely close to the can. Now for my design I had a wooden base that was decently sturdy, then I mounted my catapult on top of the wood l had my plastic spoon attached to the mousetrap. For my catapult to launch close to the bucket, I had to launch from the same spot every time, so I marked a square on the floor with masking tape so my launches would be consistent. I a;so had to put a vertical stopper on the catapult would not snap all the way down, this was to make the ping pong ball launch upward more in stead of forward. This let me get into the can easier. So I had to modify it a few time, with the stopper, a new spoon when one broke, and my wooden base. The materials I used were wood, a mousetrap, a plastic spoon, and a ton of duct tape. These materials served me very well as they accomplished the task multiple times in my practice runs but not the trials.
Overall I found this challenge awesome and cant wait to do another one.
