Toy Hack Reflection

When I first started on my toy hack I was a little confused on how I was going to symbolize a problem with toys. So I definitely had to put some thought into how I was going to complete it so I decided to write down some ideas on a word document first and then choose one that I thought would be best. I finally decided to use some Lego's to create a robot and also create some humans to represent the problem advancing artificial intelligence/technology can cause humans in the future through a slideshow. When I actually made my toy hack I had to tweak my idea of using Lego's (mostly because I'm not creative and I don't know how to create a robot or a human with Lego's), so after I realized my initial plan was not going to to work I decided to use a Batman toy that looked like a robot and some Lego's men that were already put together. The slideshow turned out well and it was pretty easy to put together once I got an idea of what I was going to do. Overall I think this project was pretty interesting and it was not as complicated as I initially thought it was going to be.

Midterm Blog

After reviewing my previous posts I have realized that I have made some improvements in my learning during this class thus far. When I made my first blog I didn't know what I was doing because this was the first time I had blogged about anything. My first blog post consisted of me explaining what had happened in class the first week and what intrigued me about each class activity. Some of the random activities we did like the improvisations and taking scientific pictures of things around campus were really cool to me because it's not your typical classroom activity but I liked it because I hate doing the same things over and over again. My second post expressed my thoughts and concerns about the field experience/one pager assignment we had to do. I was worried because I didn't really know the campus that well when this was assigned so I had no idea where I was going to get my ideas from. My third post explained how I went about doing my one pagers and the make I created after writing them. While writing these papers and creating my make (which was a campus map explaining where I had went and what I learned at that location) I learned that science is all around us and that all you got to do is open your eyes and notice it. So midway through the semester I am noticing how science and writing relates to each other more and more as this class progresses and I'm starting to tap into my inner scientist more because I'm becoming more observant of the science happening around me. I believe when this class is over I will fully understand who I am as a science learner and writer.

Make Cycle 2 Reflection

These past few weeks I have been writing one pagers about my field experiences on campus and the questions I developed from them. I was nervous about this at first because I had never done anything like this before, but after I did my first one I got the general gist of it. The questions that I pondered on during my field experiences were things that I hadn't really thought of before this assignment, an example would be that I never actually thought about how important plants are to humans until I did a little research on it after visiting the gardens on campus. This experience and research taught me that plants actually provide us with a lot of necessities like food, air, lawn beautification, and a lot of them help produce our medicines. Another example is that I really never thought about how much technology controls our lives and how much it progresses or improves every day because of new ideas about technology being brought up or invented. All of the one pagers helped me construct my make cycle 2 which was a map showing where I had been on campus and what questions I had developed at those locations, and I also included my theories on the questions (Example How far can technology go? Who knows? New technology is being invented everyday and we never know what the next big technology idea will be). Overall this was a fun experience and it brought out the inner science learner in me.