Journal 22: Tues. April 29th, 2014

Barnes and Noble Fundraiser 

Unfortunately I was unable to go to the fundraiser, but I made a poster for a display to explain my project to customers and other students.

Journal 21: Mon. April 28th, 2014

Happiness Revisited 

Today in the weekly class meeting we got a short reading about happiness, and a flow channel. We read it in class and were asked to respond to a couple questions.

1. When do you feel most happy?
I feel most happy when I am with friends and family. When I am with people that I care about, life just seems easy and fun.

2. React/Respond to the article
When reading in class I stopped and highlighted something that stuck out to me. "Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times-although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile." This is so true. I think happiness comes when you have accomplished something that is outside of your comfort zone, or something new.

3. Where are you on the flow chart?
I think I am definitely in the anxiety portion of the chart right now. With a short time left in school and so much to do, I am getting very nervous. I definitely need to backwards plan to the end of the year and get my butt working!

4. How has this changed throughout the course of your project?
In the beginning of the year, I was definitely in the flow channel, I was confident and relaxed. Once I realized that I couldn't just not work on my project for 2-3 days in a row, is when I got a slap in the face from reality.

5. How can you achieve flow?
Planning. I need to plan what I need to do and then actually DO IT.

Journal 20: Thurs. April 24th, 2014

Red Flag 

This week I decided to go to the weekly Red Flag meeting with my friend AuBree. I just needed someone to talk about my project to. I think I have made a decision to change my project up a little. I feel it is a waste of time I already don't have to work on the details in SketchUp. It will end up never viewed again once I graduate. If I get the basic dimensions of the school to help me with my real life 3D model, I will be happy. The next couple days I am going to start backwards planning because I need to start getting this project done!!!

Journal 19: Tues. April 22nd, 2014

Pro and Cons for the future of my project

SketchUp Model

Pros:
-I will get practice using SketchUp before I go to college
-I enjoy using the program
-It will look really cool, and I will feel accomplished I did such a big project

Cons:
-Will take a very long time
-Serves no use to me after I am done using the model for dimensions
-Might not even be able to do as many details as I want because the size of the project. File size might be a problem
-Will need to spend time I don't have getting additional dimensions of the school that will waste time
-I am a perfectionist. If I end up doing this model, I will want everything to be perfect, and I don't think I have time for all of those details.

Real Life Mini Model 

Pros:
-I will get more experience with the program AutoCAD (something I will use in college, and a program I really like)
-I will actually build something that I can either keep, or give to the school, or something!
-It will look really cool

Cons:
-Will take a long time to assemble all of the pieces

Journal 18: Mon. April 21st, 2014

Back to work

Back to school, and back to working on my project. I did a lot of thinking on the plane back to New York about my project. About how much time is left in the year. About how much I need to get done. It is a lot of work in 8 weeks. I have come to the conclusion that something needs to change about my project. I need to do EITHER the computer model or the real life model. I think this week I am going to put some thought into it, and really figure out what I want to do.

Journal 16: Fri. April 18th, 2014

Spring Break

ITS SPRING BREAK! WOOHOO!
I am going to be completely honest, I will probably get little done this break. Currently I am writing this journal, sitting on the lanai, looking out to this...

Journal 17: Wed. April 16th, 2014

Returning to the project

I'm sitting in the Southwest Florida International Airport realizing that I have a lot to do in the coming weeks. There are these little kids behind me creeping on what I am doing and it is quite annoying. But anyways, I am excited to come home and get this project done! See you soon Ithaca! 

Journal 15: Sat. April 5th, 2014

Self Reflection

Let me start this Self-Reflection with explaining how much I love WISE. To be honest, last year when picking my classes friends were telling me about this class where you didn’t have to go to class the second semester, and I immediately chose that. I can honestly say it was one of the best decisions I made in High School. The freedom that the WISE project entails is great. Picking my project, getting out in the community, exploring my interests, and getting a grade for it is amazing. So far, my project has been fun, interesting, but at times, stressful; the good stressful.
With my project, there has been a lot of hands-on experience. In the beginning of my project I interviewed an Architect who was helpful with my project, but also my future career in Architecture. This interview was very helpful and I enjoyed talking to someone that I hope to be some day. Also, I have been doing a lot of measuring with my project. I have gotten heights of buildings, windows, and doors. So far, I have all of IHS basically modeled. When I say basically, I mean with no windows and details. I am a little bit behind with the modeling so I have decided to maybe overlap parts of my project. Once I get back from Spring break I plan to get IHS accurately modeled without details so I can see what the size of the building walls so I can start with my real life model. With a project this size, I will have to make my real life model ⅛ scale. For example, lets say I am making a 10x10 wall, in my real life model, it will be 1 ¼ inch x 1 ¼ inch. This will end up being a very large model, but will look realistic and really cool.
Researching has been interesting for me. At this point in my project, I haven’t been doing a lot of research. I have tried to find IHS’s architect, building plans, and some basic SketchUp questions. As I am writing this, I am realizing that it will be better to do all the research now, in the beginning, that later on in the year. As of right now, I know what to do, but later on when I need to start texturing my computer model, and working with AutoCAD for my real life model, I will have questions. I now think it will be good to get those questions out of the way now instead of later. That is definitely something that I will be working on in the coming weeks.
Journaling is a huge part of the WISE project, and for the most part I have enjoyed it. I really like to share my progress and ideas. I think writing everything out, and then having the satisfaction of crossing it out when complete is awesome. So far, difficulties I have had would include getting the building plans, and time management. I regret waiting to start my project so late because I was waiting for something that I ended up never getting. I started modeling later than I wanted to and that set me back quite a bit. To be honest, up until a few days ago, I forgot about my working bibliography. I know all of the sources I have used, I just have not put them up on my blog. That is something I need to do as soon as possible.
I think having a mentor for the WISE project is great! They are there for support, help, and just someone to talk to. So far, Mr. Cowell and I have met every Friday 5th period since the start of my project. He always makes sure I am working on my project and reads my blog to see all the details. Later in the year I will definitely be going to him more with questions on my real life model and using the laser cutter.
Time commitment for me has not been an issue. It has taken a very long time to get the High School modeled to scale, to get measurements, and also keep up with my blog. The last couple weeks have maybe been a little bit on the slower side, maybe more like 6 hours, but I have still been making progress and trying to keep up. I think for the next 8 weeks, I am going to have to kick it into high gear and get going. This year is flying by, and soon, the project will be due.
The WISE project is all about pursuing a project that interests you, getting out into to community, and pushing your comfort zone. So far, I have pushed my comfort zone with little things such as going to a Government Planning and Development meeting. I hope next time I go I can talk to someone about my project. For the next 8 weeks, I need to blog everything I do! Also I am going to have to overlap both parts of my project to get it done! This will be a lot of work, but I can do it. I look forward to finishing my project, and completing my WISE journey. With everything I have done so far, I think I deserve somewhere between an 80-90 for this quarter.

Journal 14: Sat. April 5th, 2014

Parking Lot Sketch

A while back, my mentor Mr. Cowell asked if I could draw up the parking lot for a project that he is working on. I thought that it would be a good side project for me because I might be modeling in the parking lot in my model, also I like Mr. Cowell, so I was happy to help him out.
I spent a lot of time thinking about how I was going to do this. I thought that it was going to be too time consuming to go out with a tape measure and record everything. I had to think of something quicker. It finally came to me!

This is a snip of a Google Earth image that I took. I zoomed into the parking lot on Google Earth and taped a piece of paper on my computer and just traced it! It was a lot easier that measuring, and probably more accurate. 

Here is my rough draft of the parking lot! It is a little messing, but it was a good first sketch to get an idea of what Mr. Cowell wanted. 

For my WISE project I think I am going to include the parking lot. I can model it as a 2D plane and just sketch out the lines as if it were a piece of paper. 

Journal 13: Friday, April 4th, 2014

Mentor Meeting and Self-Reflection 

Last week in class, Ms. Lord gave us a midpoint self-reflection sheet. It had 5 categorizes (hands-on experience, research, journal, weekly mentor meetings, and time commitment) that we had to grade ourselves on. Along with that there is a 2-3 page paper. I am currently working on that and will post my reflection in my next entry.

Journal 12: Tues. April 1st, 2014

Building Outlines

Hmmmm, again, a whole week without blogging. It seems I need to write down reminders to blog all of my work. It isn't that I am not working on my project, it's just I seem to forget about my blog! But anyways, I have pretty much the whole high school ROUGHLY modeled. 

As you can see, I have a Google Earth birds eye view of the school below my model. Since I never got the layout of the school, I had to improvise. I used SketchUp's geo-location tool to insert an accurate size picture to model off of. This came in really handy when I modeled the basic lay out of the school. I have everything modeled except J Building, and parts of the new gym. The hardest part of the modeling is height accuracy. I measured the height of the classrooms, multiplied that by two, and added 3 feet for in between floors, and used that for G and H buildings height. The rest for now is kind of based off that. I will be doing more measuring in the coming days to make sure my model is as accurate as possible. Buildings such as Kulp and the new and old gym still are not modeled correctly. I am planning on taking some measurements and pictures this week to model off of. 

So I think I am off to a good start, I think I need to kick it up a little bit, but I am on my way!