Author: angelina.armstrong

Science Engineering Challenge: Spaghetti Tower

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Our Challenge for Science this year was to build a spaghetti tower that reached 60cm tall and a base smaller than 30cm by 30cm. We had a budget of $60, with one gram of blu tak costing $1 and a piece of spaghetti costing $1. I was in a group with Saskia Catalan and Anna Gray, the goal of this project was to build a spaghetti tower that simulates a building to resist 10 seconds of shaking which simulates an earthquake. This engineering assignment was fun to make, and I want to thank the teachers for coming up with this project.

The engineering process took us two weeks to complete overall, which included making designs, building our prototypes, doing a test, changing the prototype’s design, rebuilding the prototype, and doing a final test run. For the first part of our project, we had to draw a draft of what we wanted our tower to look like. To do this, Anna, Saskia, and I drew a design for our building, debated a few changes we needed to make and then drew a final detailed drawing. We constructed it using 40 25cm pieces of spaghetti, 20 grams of blu tack, a ruler, scissors and a board to build it on. While making it, we had multiple problems, such as the middle part of our tower wouldn’t stay upright, making it hard to support and build the final third layer. When we finished building, we tested it on the shaking table, which acts as an earthquake. The middle part of our tower came apart, so we redrew the design, fixed a few things on the design and finally rebuilt it for the final test. The test didn’t go as well as we hoped since five seconds into the test, the top layer fell and came apart, but it was an easy fix.

Teamwork was an essential part of the process, we couldn’t all do the same thing, otherwise it would take much longer than it could to do anything. So what we did was we assigned everyone a job to do to help speed the process up and get the job done. Saskia has amazing drawing skills, so we gave her a few ideas, and she drew the first design. Anna was good at organization and management, so she made sure we stayed on task, and that we were building the right things, she cut up the spaghetti to the exact measurements and made sure we had all the right equipment. I was good at research, so I came up with a few ideas, and inspiration, and I drew the second design and did most of the building.

||On the left is the first prototype and on the right is the final prototype||

English Engagement Reflection Year 9

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An achievement is anything you successfully do that reflects or uses effort, skill and courage. One of my major achievements I have to say of this year would be surfing. In Bike, Board and Boat (BBB) we were given an opportunity to leave the All Saints campus once a week for five weeks and go to one of the East Fremantle beaches to learn how to surf.

We went to East Fremantle Leighton beach which had great waves we could try and surf on. We were taught by, 5 different people outside of school who lent us dry suits, a surfboard and wax for the grip on the board. We did a few drills on how to properly surf and dived straight into it, they helped steady the board, correct our stance and were really nice to us.

At the end of Bike, Board and Boat I was able to surf, I admit it wasn’t the best, but I only had 4 lessons each about 45 minutes long and this was my first time ever trying to surf. In no way was I anywhere near the best in my class but I’m glad I took this opportunity to surf at Leighton Beach in East Fremantle. Learning to surf wasn’t easy, I could have a good wave, get all lined up and go and fall over in less than 3 seconds and that’s what most of the time happened but it was worth it. I kept getting up after wave, after wave and sometimes I’d be able to get a good surf in, ride all the way into the beach laughing my head off that I could finally do it.

I’m glad to say that if I can get a wave and a lot of good luck I can get a decent surf in, I think for now I’m going to keep trying until I can properly do it without relying on too much luck. I’m glad I went and would like to keep continuing this new hobby.

Illuminate festival Art Project

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To celebrate our Cohort moving out of transition and into year nine we participated in the Illuminate Festival. It was a collaboration of all Project X classes (dance, drama, music, media, and visual arts) to showcase our talents to our parents and teachers, each class had to present something during the festival.
The Garden of Earthly Delights

I was a part of the visual Arts class, we made a hybrid mythical creature-themed pinata over the course of a semester however to make the process quicker we made them in Pairs. This project was inspired by Roberto Benavidez pinata sculptures he makes, and he was inspired by the painting “The Garden Of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch which depicted lots of hybrid mythical creatures

The Design Process

We spent a period collecting photos of different mythical hybrid creatures together to use as our inspiration for the pinata. We each drew 4 hybrid mythical animal designs using a few of our selected photos, the drawings were only a draft and didn’t have to be completely finished as that would waste time. After another hour we came together in pairs to come up with a final

design, when we were happy with the final design we worked by ourselves again to decide on two different color palettes and we then collaborated together to decide on a final color scheme to go with the final design. When we were happy with everything we submitted an outline of our design to laser cut out of A2-sized cardboard to use as the sides of our Pinata.

The next part of the pinata-making process was the most tedious and boring bit. We had to tape the cardboard outlines to the outside of the cardboard strips to create a 3d silhouette from the side view. This part took a long time because of the design’s corners and tight curves, the cardboard you tape between the two pieces of cardboard has to be perfectly straight and in line with the outline when you tape it, overall it took about eight periods to do. We taped a small strip of rope on the top of the pinata’s head so we could carry it and cut a flap at the bottom of the pinata so we could store and hide the batteries for all of the lightings.

The final part came and it was really fun, we got to glue all the tiny pieces of paper onto the framework of the pinata, it was fun to do since it was a relaxing and slow process where we got to work in our pairs, there were different ways to cut the paper, choices on how to glue it on and then deciding what the best way to join the colours together. Then we go to paint the strip of cardboard holding the two sides together, we got to choose from neon pink, green, yellow, gold, silver, and blue, and we decided on the gold as the other colours didn’t match our colour palette. We

hot-glued a string of pom poms all the way around the outlines of the cardboard by adding dots of hot glue spaced around the edge of the cardboard and attaching the pom poms to it. To stop the lights from coming off we wrapped the string around two pom poms and glued the string under the third pom pom, this became a bit annoying since the string of lights we were using was 10 metres long and you couldn’t cut any access off otherwise all the lights stopped working. After the lights were done we were finally finished making the Pinata, we called her “Luna the Floofball”.

Presenting the Pinatas

It was the most stressful yet rewarding part of the semester, behind backstage everyone was nervous and anxious. When we walked onstage with the pinata we held them in the light and then in the darkness with the pinata lights on. I get stage fright easily so I calmed down when the lights were turned off because it meant we didn’t have to see their faces watching us, It was so rewarding when the room went dark and you could hear all the ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’. When we finished our presentation we split into two groups each taking half of the crowd. For the rest of the day, we walked around barefoot showing the parents around

My designs of a Mythical Hybrid Creature

The Quality of Collaboration

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Collaboration is where a group of people collectively work together to finish a task while doing it diligently, communicating well together, and discussing issues that come up. I have demonstrated this well as in one of our assessments it was necessary to communicate and collaborate, we had to work in groups of 3 to 4 to make a five-minute video about an issue whether it be like

NEWS (something major or important) or Current Affairs (something local and not as important). This shows I have good collaboration skills as we had to work together with only ¾ of a term to make the video, we didn’t have room for much mucking around or not pulling our own weight which I didn’t. producing the video for our assessment meant we each had the responsibility to bring in our own props and costume on time and with no reminders needed, discussions happening about what we should change in the script or any plot holes or issues in it needing to be clarified, contributing our effort into getting the acting done well. Collaboration is a simple but essential quality to have no matter if it is a small task like making a video or in a more drastic situation where it could mean we get a certain job or not as constantly working well with others is an essential quality.

Health; Alcohol Expo

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What is the Alcohol Expo?

For health, in term 3 we focused on alcohol, its effects,, and the problems it causes, at the end of the research we had to complete an assessment on the topic of alcohol. I was in a group with Stacie, Ella, and Holly. We had to design an inclusive game where they would learn about alcohol, we chose to do a game were there were three cups with numbers 1, 2, and 3 respectively in front of the cups. We asked eight questions, for participating you get a prize (a lolly) but if you get 5 or more questions right you would get another prize (a lolly). At the back in the middle board explained the rules of our game and how to play, on either side of it were 2 posters with all the information needed for our game.

What did I learn?

While researching about Alcohol and preparing for the expo we have to present at I learnt that different age groups have different Binge-drinking levels, there are thousands of reasons on why people tend to drink alcohol and that and at least one in three Australian adults drink enough alcohol to put them at risk of disease or injury. 2.8 million people die yearly because of alcohol. Another thing I learnt was that different types of Alcohol have different strengths therefore making them have a different standard amount of drinks to other types of alcohol.

My advice

If I would give someone advice if they started drinking alcohol, it would be; “before you leave or start drinking tell someone responsible you trust (have to be older than 21) that you will be going drinking, where you go and what time you expect to be back. I would recommend to go to someone who is responsible but will let you drink the alcohol without fussing more than you’d like but also make sure that they know how much you should be allowed to have and will stop you from going over your limit. Make sure that the person you tell will go with you and stay with you, they don’t have to be sitting right next to you but at least be in the same room as you.” I wouldn’t tell them not to go because when they get older and no one is there to stop them they will most likely go, get too drunk and get in some sort of trouble, it’s better to go with them when they ask or give them a compromise so they don’t endanger themselves if it’s preventable.

What I’d do if I started to drink

If I ever decide to have alcohol or go drinking I pledge that the first time I will only have one standard drink and stop however if I get to nauseous or refuse to leave I will have a trustworthy friend there to help me leave with no issues or problems. Too insure this I would at the very minimum tell three people I trust about me wanting to go drinking however they would have had to experience alcohol before and have good self control so they don’t accidently get drunk with me. I also pledge that if I ever develop a  habit of drinking too much that I end up drunk I would take someone with me every time I go so that I don’t end up in any possible danger. I would ensure I do this by getting the same person to watch me when I start drinking, tell them how much I plan to drink and have them tell me at which point I get drunk so I can avoid it. I would tell multiple people I trust that If I develop a habit of drinking too much consistently or drink an unwise amount of alcohol regularly to tell my parents and people I know who could help me stop before it becomes too much of a problem to handle. I chose these specific commitments because I will eventually try alcohol when I’m more older and have better self control and when I try alcohol I will need people to make sure I’m okay and not get out of hand (encase, I don’t think I will but you never know, Alcohol can change someone and it’s not wise to be unprepared).