WINGS & WHEELS
In this project, we were prompted to create a CO2-canister-powered car using one block of wood. A seemingly simple prompt, often given to juvinile boy scouts, turned difficult very fast. We created video advertisements in Spanish, flyers in photoshop, speed analyses, and more. This complex project allowed me to grow immensely not only within my individual sections, but also in my interdisciplinary connections.
Collaboration on this project was extremely difficult. We started out as a group of 3 then found out towards the end of the project that we had a 4th person who I'd never even heard of. This was a huge cause of stress in our group. Another person in our group was often gone or wandering the hallways while we worked. A lot of the weight of this project fell on my shoulders, and I ended up scrambling to get everything done. I would give myself a Leading in this category, because I recognized what needed to be done, saw that it wasn't progressing, and took it into my own hands to make sure a quality project was submitted. As a group, however, I would give us a Catching Up. This wasn't our finest moment in teamwork.
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Creativity was definitely a strong suit for us. We did a great job of brainstorming ideas and modifying our tasks until they were as good as we imagined them to be. We constantly went back and forth between things that weren't up to our standards and redid things multiple times. For example, our final car (Lightning McQueen) took about a week of consistent cutting, sanding, drilling, and painting until it looked right. I would give us a Leading in this category because our final products looked amazing and performed as designed.
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We did an awesome job of problem-solving. We were faced with a challenge, and we tried solution after solution until we solved it our way. When we had obstacles come up, we talked and worked through them. Different problems required different approaches, so we really widened our horizons on ways to discover solutions. For example, when we discovered that we would need a video advertisement, we created a plan of action to meet and divided tasks to get it done quickly and with quality.
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The final competition was hectic for us. We were both absent the day bracket sign-ups happened, so we had to figure out a way to still compete. That was a rough moment for us because we thought we wouldn't be able to race, and all our hard work would be for nothing. Our booth, on the other hand, went really well. We were able to really show the effort that we put in and it looked very professional and well done. Something to grow on would probably be time management. We barely finished our video before it was time to compete, and that was really stressful. In the future, I think it would benefit us to know our deadline and be prepared for that.
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In Humanities, we conducted a lot of in-depth research on transportation throughout the world. This helped us see things from a global standpoint that was really beneficial when designing cars and ads. I feel that I definitely met the standards for this portion, as shown through my Worldwide Transportation chart.
Math was probably the subject I grew the most in for this intensive. I was able to take the math I learned in class and apply it to an actual real-world problem. Using Logger Pro to find graphs and equations, and solving these equations by plugging in variables was an amazing skill to learn that I can keep in my bag of tricks for the future.
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Science was really easy for me. I knew most of the concepts we used, and I was able to apply them during labs and in my car design. It was exciting to discover physics through labs, and the hands-on learning really stuck with me.
The learning we did in English was incredibly helpful when writing persuasively and informatively for advertisements and commercials. Learning ethos, pathos, logos, and the Golden Circle allowed me to write convincing statements in order to sell a product.
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I think I met my Spanish standards really well during Intensive. I was able to use dozens of new vocab words as well as new tenses. This allowed me to expand a lot on what and how much I could say. I was able to write a 2-minute advertisement in Spanish, and persuade people in another language. I also worked a lot on sustaining conversations with others and was able to talk for entire class periods. Though I've never liked cars, I found myself incredibly immersed in this experience.
