February 22

Genius Hour Reflection Post #2 (I’m so original)

Genius Hour

Source

My Genius Hour Project #2

I posted a while ago a reflection on my first genius hour project, and this is pretty much the same but for my second project.

My topic was coding and video games, I wanted to learn unity and make a video game, or at least a level of it. The idea was to make a game where the player could pilot a nano-ship and they would have to blast the harmful bacteria inside a human’s body to cure them. Though making the game is not as easy of a task as I thought it would be. I still liked what I was doing though, and that’s why I chose to do this for my Genius Hour, because I love playing games and i felt like learning and trying to make games, to make my own creation that people could play. And I have to say, I learned a lot.

To even start making a game I had to learn Unity, I used sites like Codecademy and Codecombat to learn coding, and used Blender, which I already learned to use in my previous Genius Hour project to make the models for the assets in my game. Then I had to watch a bunch of tutorials just to understand the Unity layout, and a bunch more to learn how to add and code assets for the game. All of this gave me quite a lot of knowledge on Unity, but I still have a lot to learn. I also had to learn a bit about bacteria, though not a lot since that is for later stages of the game which I haven’t reached yet, and that’s about all that I learned, much more than I expected to learn if I’m quite honest. All this learning means that I grew as a person, not necessarily in how nice I am or something like that, but because I have earned a lot of knowledge from this project.

Knowledge

Source

This project is a bit like the other one when it comes to helping the world, it’s not a really impactful thing, but it helps bring awareness on certain diseases (enemies in game) and how to counter them (you get to choose certain pills before a level and if they are useful in real life they help you in game). So that’s how it helps, not much, but its something. On the topic of helping, I have my next Genius Hour project coming up, and this one has to also have a positive impact on the world, and I have decided that I will work on science. By this I mean that I am going to find a certain everyday useful thing, and see if I can improve it through the power of science, like an airbag that deploys quicker, or the plans for a more efficient machine. I don’t really know what I’m getting myself into, or if I will even be able to accomplish anything, but I know that I will find something and like doing it, and that if I am successful, my efforts will have helped other people.

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January 20

An image is worth a thousand words #2

No words in between, try to figure out the sentence that these images make, and write your answer down in the comments, good luck. 🙂

Cincinnati: Harambe (1999—2016) Congado  File:Typical internet meme image format.svg

Willard via Compfight          Marcio Erli via Compfight

3rd image:

Barronwebster. Typical internet meme image format. May 13, 2016. Wikimedia Commons. January 20, 2017. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Typical_internet_meme_image_format.svg

4th image:

Verch, Marco. NBA 2K16. August 5, 2015. flickr. January 20, 2017. https://www.flickr.com/photos/30478819@N08/20314000412/in/photostream/

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January 15

My Twitter Connection Assignment (school related).

So I had this one project for my Digital Citizenship class, that links with my genius hour project.

Post on what genius hour is: click this

It was a 3 part project, so let me summarize it.

The first part involved finding the people that we would talk to, they would be our connections for the rest of the project, so we had to choose wisely. My second project, as I might have mentioned in a previous post, was about making a game that consists of shooting microbes with a spaceship inside of a human body, so as to clean said human from the disease (game still in concept phase).

Anyways, we had to follow at least 10 people, and here are the twitter usernames of the 11 people I followed:

Took a while, but I found all these people and decided that they would be able to help me in my research. All of them are either people specialized in coding (game creators, companies teaching coding etc…) or specialized in medical science (epidemiologists’s, health leaders, etc…).  We then had to create a list (the list I made), and add the people we had subscribed to into it.

Quite simple right? Well we also had to introduce ourselves with a mention tweet pretty much to say that you aren’t a bot. Out of 11, 3 responded, which is fine, as to them it would be like I, a complete stranger, came up to their face, said hello, and started talking.

link

So for the second part of our project we just had to ask our “connections” some questions. They had to be questions related to our project, I asked the coders about unity3d and if I should use it, as well as if they knew about good learning sites for coding. As for the medical scientists, I asked about diseases, such as the most common or deadly ones. This was all so that it would be easier for me to choose and make the levels for my video game. It took some time to make all those questions because of twitter’s limit on characters per tweet. If they responded (which few did) we had to favorite the tweet and respond with a thank you, overall, not the hardest part in the assignment.

 A picture on something related medical science, link.

The last part is actually what I am doing right now, a reflection post on the assignment, not supposed to talk about it though. I have to think back on everything and see what went well and wrong, so here it is:

After all the hard work I got decent results, most of the people I followed did not respond to either my question or my hello tweet, but the few that did were quite helpful and nice. No one followed me back, and I’d say that apart from , who responded to one of my tweets asking for coding sites, no one provided more assistance than I asked for. I do have to say I just left it at that, didn’t really talk back to them, mostly because I am not comfortable with online relationships and want to at least hear their voice before becoming friends with them. And finally, how this might help me in the future, well really, it will help a bit, as now I will know how to get help from professionals on twitter, but I usually use information from sites and books, as it is much easier to use than to talk to a person. So I guess this will help me in he future, but not that much.

Well, that does it, long and messy post, but you have made it to the end, good job and thanks for reading. 🙂

 

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December 7

I travel, how about you?

As you can guess from the title, I´m gonna be talking about travelling. I have been to many places in my life, though I have only lived in few, I’m not sure of the exact number but I think I’ve gone to at least 20 countries, though some of them were just because I was passing by.

Now you may be like, why do you travel so much (or you’re just skimming this post), and my reason for travelling so much is because my father has a lot of experience in the field. He previously owned a tourism company, and he has learned to travel because of that. He goes to multiple countries on business trips or to meet family, and he does like travel a lot.

Linkaircraft, airplane, business

I have somewhat inherited that from him, I love discovering different places, using different ways to move around, I actually have the hope that I will be able to go to all countries of the world and document a bit on each of them. Though, I have to say that the best part for me when travelling, apart from discovering new places, is the actual trip, when I’m seated in the car, or on the airplane or in my cabin in a boat. Those times when I don’t have to move, when I have all that I need at my reach and when I have my own undisturbed personal space, that’s what I love about long trips.

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Link

Some countries that I have visited are Italy, Nigeria, Ghana, France, U.S.A and a bunch more that I can’t remember on the spot. I have lived (by that I mean staying in the country for at least a month) in Spain, England and Senegal.

 

Well, that’s travelling for me, but what is it for you, and what countries have you gone to?

See you in the comments. 🙂

Category: Ma life, My interests | 6 Comments on I travel, how about you?
November 29

My communities.

Links to pictures: Ps4, swimmer, google picture, drawing of science, piano

So, it seems that for the student blogging challenge this week I have to wright about my communities, and personally, I don’t really “know” what communities I belong to.

There are many communities I could call myself part of, just because I associate with them. I could say I’m in the scientist community, since I have done experiments and am an aficionado of science. I could say I’m in the gaming community since I game all day and night, or I could say I’m part of the weeaboo’ community, since I love manga and anime. I am from many communities, because I have more than just one trait, and listing all the people I identify with would take too long, so instead, I’ll just list my top 10, as in the ones I am most related to:

 

 

(Note, these are not in order, I’m just listing my top 10 communities)

  1. Gamer community, this is the case because as I said before, I love games, I always try to play as soon as I have free time, be it on a PlayStation, computer or phone/tablet.                                                                                                9991248754_eb0700a6db_m
  2. Swimming community, I may not be very involved in this one, since I don’t research or talk much about swimming, but I definitely have spent a lot of time doing it, and I would say that I identify quite strongly as a swimmer.                                                                                                                                                                                          8244744146_f427ca1bd5_m
  3. My friend’s community, this is more of a personal one, relating to me and all my friends, the ones I sit at lunch with, the one’s I talk to casually, those people that know me, that’s one community that I definitely am part of.
  4. The internet community, you could say this applies to anyone that uses the internet, but I think of the internet community as more than that, I think of youtubers, bloggers, 9gagers, memers and more. I’m talking about people who post content, who live on the internet, not scholars that use it as a resource or people who just browse for fun, I’m talking about active internet users, and I feel like I am just that.                                                     4627171329_33dbac5377_m
  5. My family’s community, which makes sense, since I am part of my family, and it’s a community of people I really love, so of course it would make it into my top 10’s list.
  6. The scientific community, this is so because as I said before, I experiment and associate with science, I understand it, like it, and wish to be involved with it in the future, thus why I chose it.                                                6670904559_8df1e8b45e_m
  7. The student community, of course, I am a student, so it makes sense that I would be part of this community, it’s an important one for me because, and this my sound very cheesy, I am happy that I have the privilege to go to school and get a good education, which will help me greatly in the future.
  8. The privileged community, again, so cheesy, but seriously, I understand that I am privileged, I get food every day three times a day, I get a good education, toys and technology, and all at the expense of others, so of course I would be privileged, and of course I would be grateful for it.
  9. The musical community, this is because I play piano, simply that and the fact that I like music, and since I have passed quite a while learning piano, and guitar before that, well, it’s quite an important topic, and hence community, that I identify to.                                                                                                                                                      8294093622_ef8fe985dc_m
  10. A happy community, just because I’m a happy guy that lives a happy life, and happiness should always be important to anyone.

Welp, that does it for this reeaaaalllllyyyy long post, let me know in the comments below what kind of communities you associate too, see you later. 🙂

The post master whose hands hurt a lot.

Category: Ma life, My interests | 4 Comments on My communities.
November 23

Let’s talk about… university.

So university, what comes after high school, the hardest stage (supposedly) of learning, and a usually costly experience. I personally am planning to go to university, I may not be the one who pays for it, my parents are, but I will be the one studying there. There are multiple reasons why I want to go to university, and why you should want to go too.

One of the reasons are that university helps transition from student to adult, becoming more independent of parents yet still learning in an institutional area. That one part about becoming independent is quite attractive, since I’ve always imagined myself in a small flat all for myself. Also, university greatly improves your chances of getting a job, since it looks much better on our resume to say that you have a PhD than to say that you graduated from high school.

 

Also, there is the fact that the job that I want pretty much requires me to go to university, since I want to be an aeronautical engineer, rocket scientist for short.

That’s pretty much it, I may not have covered all the positives of university, or even mentioned the negatives, but I want to hear what you have to say about university, and what course you’re planning to take.

 

See you in the comments 🙂

Category: My interests | 1 Comment on Let’s talk about… university.
November 17

SBC week 6 reflection.

The three blogs that I visited for week 6 of the student blogging challenge were Loic’s, and a blog that had two different authors, Lepadenb and Leanniek’s.

Here are the links to all blogs:

Leanniek’s: http://mcdowellmedia.edublogs.org/2016/10/19/the-pumpkin-show-the-greatest-free-show-on-earth/#comment-520

Lepadenb’s: https://mcdowellmedia.edublogs.org/2016/10/06/most-popular-pets/

Loic’s: http://loicisd20.edublogs.org/2016/11/10/the-orange-grinch/

In Leannick’s post, I commented on something that confused me, the fact that the pumpkin show is free, because the blog was about a pumpkin show, but you have to pay for food and rides, and what I asked was what else was free, because normally there isn’t that much else in a festival.

My second comment was on Lepadenb’s post. The post itself was about pets, and the favorite kinds of pets for people in four categories, dogs, cats, snakes and birds. My comment was just to compliment his post, as it seems like quite some research went into it, and also tried to compliment his choice for a favorite animal (it was a snake by the way).

Lastly, in Loic’s blog post, he kind of rants about how the election of Trump is quite a problem, with a video explaining how his election will only worsen climate change. I agreed with the fact that he isn’t the best choice, but that choice has already been made, and now we must only hope that his campaign was more of an act than we thought. Also, there was kind of a motivational speech about how we should take our problems in our own hands, and not just expect governments to right all our wrongs.

 

So that’s the second challenge of the 6th week of the SBC, I recommend that you check out all links and read the posts yourself, because they are quite entertaining.

 

From the post master 🙂

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November 14

My dog (that I love).

So yeah, I have a dog.

She is the cutest thing ever, in my opinion, around 3 years old, with the name of Lily.

Here are some pictures of her:

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I call her a cutie derpy doge, she always has dirty hair, since she just runs around in the dirt, and her tongue hangs out constantly. Now, this is because of a condition of hers, she has an overbite, so her jaw isn’t aligned well, but personally I just think it makes her cuter. She loves to eat, mostly our food, and she just hangs out beneath our feet at the table, waiting for her gaze to take effect and make us give her something. All this even though she always has food in her bowl (though they are dog food, so I guess it’s not as good). She is quite energetic, running up and down the walls (figuratively) when we come back from school, and then she just naps for long periods of time.

 

Well, that’s all for today, just a bit of hindsight about my one and only doge.

 

From the master of posts 🙂

Category: Ma life | 4 Comments on My dog (that I love).
November 1

Gaia probably isn’t a thing.

Link to the post that gave the prompt: http://mikefarmer.edublogs.org/2016/10/24/gaia-yes-or-no-12-18-yrs/

My boring and long response:

So, Gaia, the Greek representation of Earth and mother of the Greek gods. Could it be that all beings are linked together, every disaster, global warming or cooling, happens because it was meant to be, because this “singular life form” controls all and makes everything according to plan. This theory by James Lovelock seems quite improbable. Even though an accomplished scientist, this is just a theory, and a far fetched one too. This theory implies everything is meant to happen, so that means that all those negative things that humans do, all those things that scientists say could cause the end of the Earth, are intentional. Humans are also relatives of the first living organism, yet unlike all others, we have advanced to a point where we are planning on sending people to other planets, is this meant to be? If I understood correctly, Gaia represents all life on Earth, so if humans were to live on another planet, would they still be part of Earth, would this mean that a part of Earth’s “life” is lost. All this seems quite improbable, so that is why I think that Gaia isn’t a thing.

Category: My interests | 4 Comments on Gaia probably isn’t a thing.
October 28

Genius hour, the time I can actually learn what I want in school.

My presentation in video format:

If the video doesn’t work, here is a link of it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb9u_Mdnalo

Remember that post I made before about the rocket that I made on Blender, the post is named “I made this”. Well, now I am going to tell you all about my little project, even if you don’t care about it.

Picture of said rocket: screenshot-2016-10-26-at-13-09-24

So, I researched, as I told you before, on how to make a rocket, even if it is simplistic and needs a lot of work on it. I chose this topic because I love rockets, and I am planning on becoming a rocket scientist, or aerospace engineer in the future, though it does take a lot of work to get that job. It also seemed like something cool to do and a good way to start learning blender.

I learned a lot in the time I was working on my project, a few new things on physics and calculus, the basics of blender, and the design, time, construction, and all the factors required to make a reusable rocket that can leave the Earth’s atmosphere and come back down. Personally, this made me feel much more respect for the scientists behind the Apollo 15 and he Falcon 9, since their work is really  hard, it also made me grow as a learner and scientist, since I learned a lot on rocket engineering.

Personally, I would like to say that I helped the world, but until I can actually make a reusable rocket, I won’t really be helping anyone. Though, the closer I get to knowing how to make a rocket, the closer I get to actually helping humanity reach for the stars, so, in a way, I am helping humanity, step by step. I’m planning to make my next project about programming, and making a game that instructs people on diseases, through shooting said diseases in a micro-battleship. This way I can make people more aware of diseases, and maybe even convince some players to give money to charities or do something about those diseases themselves.

From the person who wrights really long posts 🙂

Category: My interests | 2 Comments on Genius hour, the time I can actually learn what I want in school.