Q3 Project: Image Editing

For this project, I edited an original image. Through this i was hoping to learn how to use some photo editing tools. To begin, I chose a topic to take a picture of (body portrait). I then took the photo and found an editing tool to use (PicsArt and Pixlr). Then I edited the picture according to what I thought would make it better.
A success I had during this project was learning to use a camera, as well as a photo editing tool. A failure that I encountered was the first editing tools I attempted to use. This is because they were really difficult to use and didn’t contain any tutorials. Ultimately, I learned how to edit pictures to fit a theme and use various cropping, filtering, and enhancing tools to do so.
Through this project, I learned that I can be creative in certain avenues. I’m not always as expressive but I think that I’m pretty good at editing photos. If I were to do this project over again, I would choose a different editing tool, sooner. For others, I would suggest choosing a tool that someone can teach you to use or a tool that contains tutorials.
These tools helped me convey my message in many ways. I used a blur tool to change the focus from the background, to the person. Next I used a sharpening tool around the edges of the person to give it more depth. Then, I chose a custom color (light bluish color) and filtered it into the picture. Finally, I chose border to make the picture stand out a little more. My goal was basically to show the coolness of winter. As my favorite season, I wanted to show how interesting and calm winter is. Overall, I think a good job of portraying this smooth message and I would do this project again.

Q3 Image Editing Project Wesley White

My project consists of 7 photos in one, along with a couple more layers. My goal was to ultimately learn more about image editing, and I was definitely successful in doing so. Overall, I wanted the image to have the story of a person running, representing life, while the demons represent negativity or real demons, and the angels represent encouragement or real angels. The first thing I did for this project was put the photos on the background. After I did that, I moved them around so that they would seem like they are in the correct place, and where I wanted them to be. For the demons, I wanted it to look like they were behind the person running. For the angels, I wanted them to look like they were guiding the person running, so I put them in the air in front of the trees. Then, I tried to make the ground darker so that the demons would flow better, and that was a failure at first. I darkened the angels just a bit so that they would blend in better, and that gave them a sort of glow, which was cool. What was a first a failure, trying to make the demons flow, turned into a success because I turned the opacity down slightly to make them look more ghostly.

Through the completion of the project, I learned how to put images on other images, edit certain areas in the image, change the brightness and contrast as well as the color of the image, create layers, and duplicate images. What I learned about myself is that it is good to get help for something you are new at. However, at some point, I learned to figure it out myself, which benefited me in the end. The main problem I faced was the technical side of things. So, I really wouldn’t have done anything differently if I knew the same as I knew at the beginning of this project. One tip I would give others doing this project is get to know everything there is to know about your image editing program. Whether you are using Adobe, Pixlr, Polarr, or Inkscape, know as much as you can about the program, and if you don’t understand anything, ask questions. Also, never give up, because there were parts where I was frustrated, but I kept going, and eventually learned something new. This whole project inspired me to build things, whether online or not, and made more creative overall.

The links to each picture on the bottom of the page as footnotes. Adobe Photoshop helped me complete this project because it had many tools and allowed me to create what I wanted to create. It allowed me to move the images around wherever I wanted and darkened them where I saw fit. Overall, I learned a lot myself as an image editor, and I believe it was a successful completion of the project.

Lift Every Voice

“Sing a Song”


Pitch black and total darkness.

Sing a song, filled with light and courage.

Wipe all of your salty tears and get rid of that salty flavors that burdens your soul.

The fresh air of freedom is here.

People rejoicing throughout the land, hearts soaring through the sky.

As the sun is bright because it lit up the darkness.


Human Stem Cells With Half A Genome

Shanni-kie Watson

February 10th, 2017

The Human Body


Current Event: Human stem cell with half a genome could help infertile couples

Link: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2081250-human-stem-cell-with-half-a-genome-could-help-infertile-couples/


Summary:

Scientists have created a new kind of human stem cell that has just half a genome. To create the novel stem cells, Benvenisty’s colleague, Dieter Egli from Columbia University Medical Center and the New York Stem Cell Foundation, used electricity and chemicals to force an unfertilised human egg cell to divide.

Having a set of human cells with only one set of chromosomes will help our understanding of how gene mutations affect the behaviour of cells, says Jose Silva, a researcher at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute in the UK.Embryonic stem cells are diploid cells from which all tissues in the body are built. They are called diploid cells.

Now that we can make haploid versions of any cell in the human body with one set of chromosomes, researchers can easily mutate single genes and immediately see what happens to the behaviour of the cell.

“Since we’ve shown they can, it poses the interesting question of why we reproduce sexually rather than from a single parent.” The new embryonic stem cells could potentially be used to create eggs and sperm for infertile couples.

Now, Nissim Benvenisty, director of the Azrieli Center for Stem Cells and Genetic Research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and his colleagues have generated haploid embryonic stem cells with a single set of chromosomes.

“Most researchers believed human haploid cells could not divide and differentiate into different cell types,” says Benvenisty. The cells can be turned into any tissue in the human body, despite only containing one set of chromosomes. Egg and sperm cells are the exception – they are haploid cells with one set of chromosomes. They then showed that it was possible for these haploid cells to divide and turn into other tissues such as heart, brain and gut cells.


Reaction/Opinion: My reaction the article was that the article is really interesting and it reminded me of what I had learnt in my biochem class in 1th grade. It is always a good thing to hear or learn about what goes on inside the human body. Is it always good to see scientists constantly finding new researches in the world of science.  


Questions:

  1. How did they come to discover this?

  2. Is it a 100% that this can create sterms and eggs for infertile couples?


MLA Citation

"Human stem cell with half a genome could help infertile couples." New Scientist. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2017.


Philadelphia Engineering/Math Challenge

Irene Murzyn, Nydirah Torrence, Josh Bowers, Emmy Mattei, Ngozi Enwereji, Patience Elliot and Caleb Hughes participated in the Philadelphia Engineering/Math Challenge sponsored by Penn State University and NCTM. The first day of this two-day challenge took place on Wednesday, February 8th. Students participated in a Math Quiz Bowl against five other high schools, designed a storage box to capture heat, and learned about solar power from engineers. In March, they will build and present their design to judges.
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Tower Garden Photo Journal

This project has been very meaningful to this group. We have been able to care for and watch plants grow as if they were our children. We literally checked on them everyday to see if they were growing. Our plants didn't grow as much as other groups but we tried. Factors that may have affected the growth of our plants could have been over watering, not enough sunlight, too much or too little vermiculite or they were just growing very slowly. The conclusions from these factors and this project that we can draw are to make sure that we place our plants in perfect or close to perfect conditions so that they are fit to grow and grow healthy at that. This project has really been amazing and we would love to do it again. We will still check in everyday to make sure that our plants are doing well

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-3D7VFucAgl0xfjVCaxTlyFqmQksXzG6ipjLSyhQM9c/edit


From Trash To Cash



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For our Botany project, we decided to team up with Mr. Johnson to decide what the school needed. In that conversation, we discussed the possibility of making a biodegradable compost bin for the school to efficiently expose of organic materials.This would include fruit peelings, leftover food, and any other type of decomposable waste. In our bin, we would include a mixture of dirt and compost along with a lid to contain moisture. Adding worms to the bottom of the mixture was also a thought to help with the decomposing process.


For design, we decided that we would use a basic trashcan along with a wheel-based frame for easy mobility. The trash can would be mounted onto the base where it could easily be transported for disposal along with a protective cage to surround it. When stationary, there would be some kind of support to keep it from being knocked over or blown away from the wind. The soil that the bin produces can also serve as fresh compost for the gardens outside making this school a lot more environmental friendly. There would be vents in the sides so leftover moisture and pressure wouldn't build up.  



In conclusion, our product could have came out more complete but we are still confident in our ability to make it productive. We wanted to incorporate more ideas and design enhancements but fell short in decisionmaking. Im confident that or project has the potential to truly reflect SLA and its core values. It would be a very significant addition to our learning community and would teach kids how to care for the world around us. I hope that future projects we create will be better and truly leave an impact on how we learn.


Bio-Compost Bin

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For my quarter 2 botany project I worked in a group with Austin, Obassi, and Darome, where we created an environmental friendly design for the school. We worked with Principal Johnson in order to create school friendly bio degradable trash bins. That helped keep the school clean, and that were used in the school yard whenever students played outside. We followed all the checkpoints, and made sure the project was done correctly by meeting up with Mr. Johnson. 

Our project design is made for the purpose of throwing away bio degradable items into a mini compost bin, that will be removed every often it needs to. This project was made to get rid of bio wast and keep the outside of the school clean because there is a problem of students leaving food behind after lunch, such as banana peels, and orange peels. 
We could use the compost from the bin for the rest of the other compost that is used in the school yard for plants that need, water, and sunlight to grow.

This project shows what we as mankind can do to change our environment and take the initiative to improve it. Nature is apart of our environment, full of living organisms and fauna, if we use technology to help better it to keep it safe. Technology is man made we need to create more man made devices to help our environment and nature. We didn't complete and create some of the things we wanted for the design but it still came out right. Its not our exact blueprint and we wanted more but its our basic and general idea of how it should be.

As you can see I am very proud of our project we could of done more and better, if given a second chance, we created the bin so it would be movable with wheels. We wanted to make sure it be protected and nobody be able to steel it or break.

Computer Science Project

https://youtu.be/pbZENPNRKAw

I did my project on Code HS, where I had to give this dog named Karel commands to do things with different levels. Some examples of the commands were I had to tell him to pick up and put down balls, move,turn right and turn left. This gave me many challenges which I wanted to give up because I felt stuck many times. This website though has taught me to be patient and find the little mistakes. It showed that coding takes time and you will have to restart your whole code often. If you make the simplest mistake like not indenting something or putting a ; it will mess up your whole code and it wont work. Its frustrating but the satisfaction of the success when you complete the code is worth it. Coding is everywhere in this world since we are now a technological world and everything is dependent on technology. But everything is about technology is stupid without a code from a human built into it. Without people knowing how to code we wouldn't have game consoles,computers,etc. If anyone else wanted to do this project I would tell them to go for it but have a lot of patience and concentration.

Green Top Landscaping - Model Desk - Errion and Epifanio

Our project was about us becoming a Green Design company aimed at creating furniture items convenient for your home or classroom. We aim to keep it simple and realistic. For our client, we researched important items deemed necessary for a classroom since she is a teacher. We concluded that we could build her a desk. The only suggestion was that we included her favorite colors which were cobalt blue, goldenrod yellow and purple.We were able to include a shade of yellow on the sides and blue on the acrylic.  

Before we began to build the desk, we brainstormed and mapped out what we'd need with a blue print. The blue print showed the amount of pieces of wood we'd need and their sizes. We also included where these pieces would go. 

We created a space in the desk where the plant would contain a moderate temperature, space and shelter. The plant will be able to grow and vine itself around the legs of the table while sitting comfortable flat on the ground. It should still be able to obtain sunlight from an angle through the acrylic. 

Nature and technology can connect greatly because it speeds up the process of the plant growth or aesthetic of the technology. 

I believe Epi and I worked great together. We communicated well and greatly brainstormed what we'd like the outcome to be. I think we could've planned out our classes and planned in a timely order of what was needed. I feel that that way we would've put in a little more detail into the table.

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The Plant Design

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​ The project was creating a planter for Mr. Rosen-Long that represent the Maya era. It was supposed to look kind of like the urn. Mr. Rosen-Long wanted tropical flowers or fruits to be planted. Tropical plants will need a lot of indirect sunlight, water, and high humidity. The design can probably support a small flower or two. Plants adapt to wherever they grow in order to grow and flourish. If the area doesn’t fit the plant's required needs the plant won’t be able to survive. If the plants grow a certain way our design won’t be able to support it. For example, since our planter is small a pineapple won’t be able to grow inside because of how the planter isn’t shaped for it. A flower just needs enough room to grow it's rooted until it gets a certain size or unless the flower is very small. Nature and technology go hand to hand without nature we would not have half of the creations we have today. Nature can be anywhere from where you live too deep into a jungle somewhere. We need nature to create what’s best us and everything. Technology is just advancements we create for the future to get better or worst. The group I am in created something to grow a beautiful flower or something. We could've communicated more, but other than that project came out pretty well.

Q2 Botany compost bin and base

  1. What is your project about? Describe the process you used to accomplish your goals. Look back at the steps you had to take in your checkpoints. Describe your landscape architecture company and what your clients had asked for. How did you accomplish your goals and meet your clients' desire? Hint: Green Design Research
My project is about collecting biodegradable items for a compost bin and making sure we have fertilizer for other students plants. We have a base that we tie the trash can to an we can tie the trash can to the hooks on the base with wheels at the bottom. Our project is to help out other students in the future, people have said they needed to collect compost so we are going to build a device for them to use when they need it.

2. What does a plant need to thrive? Describe how the design of your project took into account the needs of the plant you are planting in your design (i.e. water, nutrition, temperature, safety, amount of sunlight).
A plant needs soil, sunlight, water and air. we are helping others by providing soil and fertilizer for them to keep their plants healthy. some plants don't need water but most do, and 


3.Describe what affects a plant's design based on what you have learned from your past assignments. Hint: look back at BozemanScience: Plants VideoNature’s Blueprint: Solar cells inspired by plant cellsFall Leaves InfographicWhat determines a plant's design?
you need certain prerequisites and certain conditions for a plant to show growth. if you don't have the correct soil, or the correct weather conditions the plant could die. We learned that compost doesnt need anything done to it except soil added and then just compiled biodegradable items


4.In what ways are the plant's design and the design of your project similar? Think about what affected the overall design of your project and also the development of plants. 

We have the soil and other items to help nourish plants. The compost is different from actual plants, there arent many similarities because it helps to grow plants and isnt a plant itself. Thinking of similarities, the actually trash can is like the stem of the plant protecting the plants cells inside. 

5. After doing the Green Design, how do you perceive the relationship between nature and technology? Why? Remember to define nature and technology in your own terms. 

We are taking old plants from nature and re-purposing them. We are making them help out the growth of other plants. Technology is anything created by man. We created the base and we have a trashcan created by man. 


6.Overall, what did your group do well in the project? What could your group improve on?

We did well incorporating the thing Mr.Johnson wanted, a trash can holder, and a compost bin that we wanted. We had a hard time in the makerspace because so many people were working at one time. We were all struggling to do things in a timely manner because of other problems. I wish we had more time in the maker space and more wood to make the pillars and base we wanted. we wanted to make a door to protect the trashcan inside but there wasnt enough large pieces of wood.
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Botany Project: Tyrone Grant

Hello, I’m Tyrone Grant, one of the members of Peachy Designs. I am here to talk about and represent a design that my company has made which would bring a better economy into the school. The design we made was to help bring plants into the building, more specifically for our client, Ms. Fanning. This design brings much more life into her small and lifeless room. She requested to have some life put into her room such as plants because she loves plants and want some in her room. This is how we came up with our design. The design that my company made was a planter. We believe that a planter is the most capable for bringing in plants into her room.


When you think about what plants need to survive such as water, soil, and sunlight, these needs are important information when we made our design. So, We made our planter deep so that there would be an abundance amount of soil so that Ms. Fanning could have a diverse selection of plants, made sure that the planter was open so that the plants could get plenty of sunlight, and we closed up the cracks and and laminated the wood so that the water wouldn’t negatively affect the wood or her room in general. It was crucial for us to improve our design because plants can be affected by so many things like: if there were a lack of water or sunlight for the plants, it would most likely kill the plant, or if there’s a lack of soil, the plant wouldn’t be able to obtain enough nutrients from the dirt which would make the plant die as well.


Most of the plants that Ms. Fanning chose can usually be grown inside of a building which beneficial for us because we would then have to create a design that was built for more of the outside. That’s why the design of the plants and our own design are so similar, because they were both made for the inside. When we made our design, we’ve used different types of technology to come up with our calculations and produce our object. At first, I always thought that technology and nature don’t mix with each other, they just try to cancel out each other. But after doing this, I realized that technology can enhance and improve our nature because we used technology to make something economic and beneficial to our economy.


Overall, I believe that all members of the Peachy Designs have come together to make a wonderful design that has potential to brighten up this building, but there were a couple of problems that our company did bump into. For example, some workers contributed more than others. I want all of the members to contribute an equal amount of work so that it would be fair to call it our design. The second thing is that if my company had more time, the overall design would probably be more “polished” than what it is now. Beside those two things, the design was a success, and our client was happy with the overall design.


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The Green Design Adventure

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Good morrow ladies and gents, it is me Tymere Alexander here with mine, Morgan, and Tasheba's finest plant design created! The shape as you can see is a pentagon that looks kinda like a popcorn box, but has a strong structure which will protect the plant as it grows withing the popcorn box. 

This was definitely an interesting experience with this project. I never worked in the Maker Space before because I had a fear of using tools. So I had to overcome that fear in order to continue the process on creating the structure.

My group mates were extremely helpful. They all do their work. They were very helpful in contructing the project. Each of us had something to contribute which made the project all the easier.

I have a different view on nature and technology after this project. After completing an assignment on nature and technology, I learned about the yin and yang of the two. Nature is used to create new technology and technology is used to discover more of nature and vise versa. I always thought differently about how they worked.

Q2 Botany Benchmark - Ali Mohammed

We are Peachy Designs and we work with many people all over to help them be more green in some shape or form. Our most recent client Ms. Fanning located on the second floor next to Mr.Johnson’s office is our wonderful Guidance Counselor and fabulous creative writing teacher. Sh told us that she wanted her room to be more green so we decided to create a garden box and place it in her room.Ms. Fanning will give the plants what it needs to thrive such as water and general care and since her room has a lot of sunlight that will come naturally. Our green design relates to almost all of our previous assignment which teaches us the inner workings of the plant therefore teaching us how to take care of the plant better and create a stable place for the plant to survive. Overall I would say the as a group we did good on the project however and think that since we were so  exciting in creating we did not plan ahead for possible problems of the garden box such as it being knocked over. We do believe that we satisfied our customer and look forward to working with her sometime soon.


Our project is to create a box that satisfies our client in which we can plant. To complete this process we had to go through many many processes. First we had to have a client means a teacher in this building who is willing to have a green design in his or her room. After that we had to get trained in order to use the tools that we need to work in this project like how to cut and glue etc….  Or how we can use the equipments that are in makerspace. And we arranged another appointment with our client to ask or be asked about what was going on and how we are going to place the box there, and the needs of the plants in order to survive.

We also had to work ai different assignment like answering questions or watching videos in order to understand how we can fulfill the desire of our plant.


Our plants need

  • Soil

  • Water

  • Nutrients

  • And Sunlight to survive. We already build our wood box for our plant. The box will be as I showed in the picture below in order to get sunlight and will be watered by Fanning Mrs. Fanning.

I think their similarity would be being dependent to each other. The box needs to be perfect for supporting the pants to develop and grow. The plants also need to get what it needs like rich soil, sunlight etc……

Nature is the phisical of our world and everything in it. Technology is development, creativity and invention. The relationship would be we act wisely with nature in order to have a good technology. We use like plants, animals, and other sources to have a good technology.

Our group did well in communicating with Ms. Fanning of what plants she desires to have and how we are going to place the box. As well in building the box. We are dedicated to do out best in our project and collaborating in doing that.  


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Q2 Benchmark Green Design

  • What this project is about was creating a useful green design to go in my client, Ms.Moran's room. As we discussed what kind of design would be best we came up with an idea to keep the design simple. I came up with the design by just sketching things and playing around with wood pieces until something worked out nice. The steps I took were finding scrap pieces of wood cutting them with different machines into correct sizes. I next put the pieces together by using wood glue and the nail gun. Last to finish off the project I painted a coat of wood protector on to keep it safe from water damage.  .  In order for a pant to survive  it needs the proper amount of sun light, water, and space. I have made sure this design is capable of given the plants it will hold these resources very easily. The design is very spacey and can hold up to 3 pants cups. It has a lot of open space and slits so that light ca reach the plants and last the piece is water proof. I know this is import because sometimes if plants are not taking care of correctly they can not grow and function the way they have to be healthy. Technology plays a big part and helping nature because with out it we wouldn't be able to create the things plants need in order to survive by a mans hands. I think I did well taking on leadership skills to get the job done. My group could have done better by communicating and taking care of responsibility.
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    Tower Garden Photo Journal

    This was a nice experience for me. I learned a lot about Tower Gardening and how can it be helpful for all of us and also the environment. With our plants, it was also nice to see how they grow up- especially lettuce. This lesson taught me a lot about the environment and "Tower Gardening". It is really important because in Turkey we haven't got a chance to grow our own plants in the lesson and see how things will work. It is not only about learning something;
     it is also about "making" something with your group. 

    Q2 Land Pollution PSA

    This PSA talks about the potential dangers of littering, illegal dumping and the after effects of when people don’t take care of the environment. There are many different things I see people my age do that I don’t like which is why I chose this particular issue. This PSA is how to get their attention to stop harming the world we live in. My group worked diligently and we made sure we spent as much time as we could perfecting the video. I spent a lot of time thinking of ways I could write the script and made sure I edit the video a certain way, giving the viewer a good presentation. I liked being able to make people laugh at our script