Water Usage in my Home

Dylan Baker on

What we are doing well:

Outside: We have a variety of native plants that use very little amounts of water, the grass is watered as little as possible, just enough for it to be green. The soil around plants is filled with water capturing clay beads, this drastically improves water capture rate and helps water usage. We do not use retic in the wet season and in the dry season we strictly follow the rule of reticulation use. The pool in the back yard only ever needs to be topped up once a year, usually in the middle to the end of the dry season, this is because of evaporation that our pool cover cannot stop. We use the pool cover as much as possible. Inside: All the utilities that we have inside are relatively up to date, (2016), and have from 4 to 5-star water ratings. We use them in the day and try to lower the setting in terms of water and energy consumption. Our daily habits consist of making sure that we don’t make unwanted water, that means, we do not make glasses of water and leave them. We try to minimise water waste, anything that we don’t drink or use will usually end up in the plants.

What we are improving on.

The first thing that I though of was out shower times, we limited our shower times from 25+ minutes to under 10 minutes. This was out biggest use of water, as it has to run for 4 people. The second thing was, we bought a new pool cover, the old cover was broken and had holes in it, so the water would escape. Now after a month of having the new cover, we noticed that the water levels are staying the same, so we do not have to refill the pool.

The fridge that we use is a SAMSUNG Twin Cooled fridge. This provides us with all the colling that we need, so we do not have another fridge. This fridge is rated at The Samsung (SRF5700SD) has a 329L fridge capacity and 159L freezer capacity. Energy star rating of 4. Uses 230 to 240 voltage.


To the left is our dryer, it has a fairly low energy star rating, but dryers are notorious for this as they use electrical heating elements to dry the clothes.
To the right is the washing machine it has a energy rating of 4. This gets used once a day in the day time, this is to moderate our water and power use. Daytime for the solar panels, and one time a day for the water.  

This shower is used for about 40 minutes of constant runtime per day. The shower outputs 1.8 gpm (gallon per minute) at 140 psi.

This toilette uses 4.5 litres per full flush, and 3 per half flush. It is very new and in turn is made to be water wise.

[HEALTH] Road safety advertisement

Dylan Baker on

Year 10 Health Education

Assignment

Keys for Life

Road Safety Campaign   

Planning a Road Safety Campaign

Road Safety Issue
Distracted driving – 25% of all car accidents are related to improper use of mobile phone. These accidents occur in city and suburban areas primarily, average age of drivers using phones on car between 18-24 this accounts for 94% of the phone related incidents.
Sources of Information
It is from a government website with many resources that went into these figures, that have been collected over large times. (1-2 years) Website: https://www.bitre.gov.au/statistics/safety
Aim of the Campaign  
A large portion of the mobile phone related incidents to be reduced due to driver awareness.
Key Information
Keep your eyes on the road and do not be tempted to look at your phone or other devices when driving, or even at a red light. Many accidents are caused by driver negligence, and driver negligence is caused by distraction.
The Safety Message or Slogan of the Campaign  
Put on do not disturb, so you do not end up on the curb (car accident)  
Medium to be Used
Radio advertisement, something that people would be in their cars whilst listening to this, it appeals towards the drivers more than an advert on a phone its self.
Communication Approach
Something different from average advertisements, where it is realistic and portrays the reality of car accidents. Using either a dark gloomy mood setting background where it is different from your average advert where everything is too bright and friendly.  

After making the advertisement.

What were the biggest things you learnt while completing this task?  It is not easy to try to paint a picture and change the mood of the audience with only using sounds, as you do not have the same level of control over people’s thoughts. Although, I perceived this as a challenge, and after some thought, I already had some ideas on how to make this more emotionally effective, yet after listening to what I made over and over, it lost its touch for me, so I asked others what I could do to improve, then I built off of that.
What one piece of advice would you pass on to young drivers above all else? Why?  You only have one life and one body, your phone is something that is designed to hold information on it, you do not have to look at your phone all the time if you are driving. But if you must, then only do so when you are out of the way from all other traffic and are at a complete stop. Not when you are in motion or at a red light.
Write down a pledge that you will commit to when you start driving. Why did you pick these things to commit to? How will you stick to these commitments?  I pledge to never touch my phone when I am driving, no matter the cause or how long I would look at it. Seconds in a car can change someone for a lifetime, it is not worth the risk and endangerment of myself and the people around me just for me to look at my phone. To stick to these commitments, I will either put my phone into a bag or in the centre console, so I cannot visually reach it, but I will also have the phone’s notification settings turned off or to buzz so I will not be tempted to see what happened. Either I will miss the notification completely, or would think that it is too much effort to get my phone and not worth it to get it.

Radio advertisement:

Please note: This is not actually authorised by the Aus Govt. Cb

[SCIENCE] Year 9 Engineering Project: Earthquake Resistant Buildings

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In year 9 I worked with my peers to create an earthquake resistant tower/building, this tower was to be made entirely from spaghetti, and that can withstand a major earthquake. We needed to design, build, and test a small-scale model that meets the following criteria:

1 Is quick and easy to assemble

2 Has a minimum height of 60 cm

3 Has a maximum base of 30 cm x 30 cm

4 Remains standing after an earthquake, as simulated by shaking a table for 10 seconds

5 Is constructed from the materials supplied by your teacher

6 Costs less than $60 to build, given the material costs listed below

7 The model cannot be attached to the table in any way.

The materials that we were allowed to use and their prices:

1 Spaghetti ($1 per 10 cm)

2 Blu Tack ($1 per gram)

3 Ruler

Capabilities and how I demonstrated them:

I demonstrated Organisation by at the start of the week when this task was started, I planned a get-to-gather with the group. Intentionally to set us up for the whole task via being able to attempt to build various types of buildings without a money limit, this proved extremely effective in the long run, we were always very far ahead from the class and were finishing side tasks when they were being allocated to us. I was also the person who setup all of the [MS] Whiteboards, and PowerPoints.

I demonstrated Problem Solving by being able to work around multiple problems, one of these problems were, Issues with building stability and design, there are many ways that we can build buildings to help counteract an earthquake, some of these things that we can build are:
a) Bottom heavy, keep most of the weight on the ground, this reduces swaying and load on support beams.
b) Connections to the ground are very important, we need to maximise the amount of connections to the ground.
c) The building needs to be flexible, if the building is rigid and moves all on it’s own and cannot copy the ‘flow’ of the earthquake then after a while the building will gain enough momentum to break crucial parts of the structure. This problem one of the more major parts of this project that absolutely trumped the speed of progress, but after a couple of dedicated hours I was able to completely revamp the whole design, as seen below in ‘Plan 3 [EP] Final’ in comparison to ‘Plan 1 [DB]’.

I demonstrated Effective Communication by always keeping in touch with my colleges, particularly whenever I would have a difficulty or a question that I couldn’t fix/find-out on my own. There were also times where the occurrence of miscommunication would change results and alter the ways that the group would input their answers to the stile sheet. This was most prominent when one person would be away at something else and not in the classroom for the tests. To combat this, I would regularly send emails to the group members explaining in depth what happened on the day that they were gone, and what we did. This turned out very helpful, as miscommunication would rapidly decrease, becoming near non-existent.

Conclusion

To conclude this project our team finished the design of the building that was able to withstand more than a magnitude 10 earthquake, it was not falling over or getting to the point where it was going to break, no matter how hard the table was shook the building wouldn’t topple over or even break on the towering part. We thought this would be the first part of the building to break but in reality, it was stronger than the base. In fact, I believe that it was the best building in the whole class, other building would break or most commonly not reach the height requirement. This project entailed many risks and difficulties, but ultimately, we were able to make a building that met all of the requirements and was able to withstand the earthquake, meaning that we successfully completed this project. We also learnt a lot about improving our capabilities and gaining extra knowledge in this area of engineering.

Raw Stile Worksheet with my answers:

SCIENCE-Year-9-Engineering-Project-Earthquake-Resistant-Buildings-Download

Group Photo

Left: Jack Goddard (jack.goddard@allsaints.wa.edu.au)

Mid: Me, Dylan Baker.

Right: Riley Snook (riley.snook@allsaints.wa.edu.au)

[LOCK] Outdoor-ED Camp Reflection

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In this camping experience, our LOCK class went to Honey Moon Pool near Collie. The total camp duration was 3 days (Monday -> Wednesday)

In the rock climbing and abseiling part of this camp, we did this on a wall of a quarry, this made the climbing harder and the abseiling easier, because the wall was relatively flat. This was an amazing thing to do, the wall was about 15-20 meters high. Climbing was extremely hard for everyone because the wall was dug into, meaning that there are no ‘natural’ crack, bumps and crevices.

The bush cooking part of LOCK was done at school and at the camp. In school we would use fire pits and need to make the fire to cook our food, we would cook Mexican styled food and Italian, this helped us a lot in the future. On the camp we cooked the food that we have all ready trained to cook, this was burritos and wraps.

Leave No Trace is a fundamental part of camping, this ensures that you leave the camp better than how you found it. This includes, Plan a head and prepare, Know the regulations and special concerns of the area you will visit. Walk and cam​p on durable surfaces, Durable camping surfaces include established campsites, tent platforms, rock, gravel and sand, basically pre-made camping sites if available. Dispose of waste properly, What you pack in, You take out. Leave what you find, Leave rocks, plants and other natural objects as you find them. Minimise campfire impacts, for example, use a gas stove instead of wood. Respect wildlife, Store food and rubbish securely to prevent wildlife finding it. Be considerate of your hosts and other visitors, Mainly respect Aboriginal culture and the country, also people who are around you.

SELF EVALUATION

This is rated from 5 (excellent) to 1 (poor) characterising my performance on camp.

SUBJECT12345Explanation
Attitude   X Overall conditions were not the best but kept looking at the good things that were happening.
Camp craft     Was not done in the camp.
Ability to work with others   X Teamwork was a necessity in this camping experience, without it we would have not been able to accomplish parts of the activities
Leadership  X  There were times when leadership was needed and I would rise to the plate but not all of the time.
Personal Equipment: care and management    XDue to recent camps earlier in the year I already knew what to do and how to keep my personal items as clean as possible
Food: preparation and cleanliness    XI maintained an exemplary level of cleanliness and completed making our food in excellent time. This was due to the past couple of ‘out of school’ camps that I have attended.
Cooking    XI was able to complete all of the cooking requirements, it is my surname.
Personal Hygiene    XI was able to make sure that I would always wash my hands and changed my clothes every day.
Minimal Impact Practices   X At the end of camp when we did our clean up there were traces of microplastic (small pieces of plastic)
Ability to follow instructions    XI was able to complete and listen to all instructions given by teammates and teachers.
Safety & Judgement   X There were times when I would not fully make a risk judgement check on parts of the camp that may contain risks.
Volunteering  X  There were a lot of people who would ‘jump to the gun’ when volunteering requests come up, but I did not do as much as I wanted.
Ability to care for and support others.    XThere was a time in the camp on the first night where one of my colleagues did not have a suitable pillow to use, knowing that someone would loose or forget something like this, I packed an extra pillow that I was able to give to him.
Ability to act independently   X This was a team building camp and it would have been impossible to do without the help of other people.

After the camp, our LOCK group had a ‘Master Chef’ cook off, we made eggs, bacon, and toast. Others made bacon, and wraps. We also cooked a fish in our fire to eat later, this is how it turned out!

[ENG] Eportfolio Capability Improvement Task

Dylan Baker on

When I was on my Year 9 Camp in Kalbarri, the capability that I improved on the most was teamwork. For the 6 days that we had in this camp, there were going to be quite a few problems that we will have to face and try to overcome. One of the first main problems was, packing all of the necessary amounts of food, clothing, and tools. This was a tedious task to complete, as for it would change the whole dynamics of the trip, but after communicating with my colleagues we found the perfect way to spread the shared equipment evenly acrost the group. This was very helpful because not one person would have an extra 8 Kgs added to the weight of their bag due to having all of the equipment, also increasing efficiency when building the tent and other various tasks.

Another main problem was, creating the teams to do certain things. We needed to make teams that would do certain roles, for example we had a team for, Cooking, QoL (Quality of Life), Camp setup and pack up, Overviews. Each role would have approximately 4 people in them. The problem that we encountered in this was giving and nominating people to do these roles. Some people did not want to do QoL, but really wanted to do cooking. So, what we devised using teamwork, is to give everyone the role at least one in the entirety of the camp. This means that everyone would get a fair turn on each role but would not be set to one task for the whole camp. This also gives people the chance to gain experience in each area, greatly improving their knowledge on how to camp. I can easily say that this was definitely an advantage as for it did help me to improve my way of living in.

[DNT] LED Trophy | Material Technology

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Material Technology Project Term 1 + 2

Material Technology is a class where we make cool gadgets, we make these by using a vast inventory of machines and tools. The aim of this class is to understand what tools and machinery do, also how to operate them. We have this class 4 times a week, so there is a lot of potential to get things done. We worked on a main project for the first term and a half, I finished the course early which meant that I would have nothing to do for 4 periods a week, so if there was anything else to do or if anyone needed any help then I would help them. I also did a mini project that took 1 week to complete.

The main project that the class did was making an LED acrylic trophy. Making this was a challenge because most of us have never used this type of machinery. Also, the way that we had to plan out the whole task step by step with every single detail of what we were going to do. The LED Trophy took most of Semester 1 to make, this was because we needed to learn how to operate the machines and what to do for the project.

The main capability that was used in this project was creativity. This project required creativity in numerous areas, for the whole design of the trophy we needed to think of cool designs that will be visually appealing. We also had to find ways to make the most of the small space that we had onboard the trophy. The design process also needed a bit of creativity but also problem solving, as there were many instances where two sizes would not align, or angles were not adding up correctly.

This is a view of some of the other LED Trophy’s.

[HASS]The Andrew Mallard Case

Dylan Baker on
Falling: The Andrew Mallard story - Earshot - ABC Radio National

Introduction

The Andrew Millard Case was not supported by the principles of justice. There were many principles of justice that were brutally broken, some of them were ‘Fair Treatment by Police’, ‘Fair Trial’, ‘Innocent Before Proven Guilty’ and ‘Equality Before the Law’. Because of these principles of justice being practically ignored, Mr Millard was sent to prison for a life sentence, but eventually after 12 years in prison Mr. Millard could appeal. The new information that Mr. Millard’s defence team and the ACCC found was shocking. They found that the police tampered witness statements, edited, and changed valuable information, withheld vital information from Mr. Millard’s Defence Team and did not create a suitable environment for Mr. Millard.

2019 WA Police Excellence Awards Nominees Announced | Western Australia Police Force

Fair Treatment by Police

Fair treatment by police. At the start all the way to the end of this ordeal the police did not help Andrew Millard at all. When Mr. Millard was interrogated, the police did not take into fact that he needed a special environment to suit his needs. Mr. Millard also thought that he was ‘helping’ the police, by describing what could have happened. But the police ‘back-stabbed’ him and tricked him into allegedly ‘confessing’ to the murder. Mr Millard was not treated by the police with Fair treatment. Some ways to ensure the safety of people like Andrew Millard would be, to always check individuals before questioning about PTSD, anxiety, dyslexia, autism, or even depression (basically the police should check to see if there is any mental issues or problems that would affect the interrogation) so the police can create a more suitable area for the individual. This would look like changing interrogation rooms to suit the person’s needs, e.g., for anxiety, a calmed room with less stressful conditions that might cause the suspect to get overwhelmed and not be able to give proper answers or even not be able to answer at all. Mr. Millard was not treated by the police with fair treatment.

Fair Trial

Mr. Millard was also not treated to a fair trial, at all. There was a lot of corruption and tampering in the case, when Mr. Millard was being interrogated and processed the police tampered and changed vital information about the case, they even edited witness statements. When someone gets interrogated and processes through this system, it is believed and expected that it should be the safest and most non-corrupted environment, but when the police did numerous incorrect and illegal things to the case, for example when they withheld vital information from Mr. Millard, it seems that there was no one to notice what was going on. Mr. Millard was not given the Fair trial that the justice system promises, as the Fair trial principle was not supported. There are many different things that could change to help this problem in the system, some of these are, having managers and overseers in the high-level court cases. These managers will see if anyone in the police system is getting bribed, blackmailed or even if they are trying to cut corners and ‘solve’ a case without going through every bit of evidence thoroughly. The managers themselves will go through many tests to determine if they are adequately prepared for the job and to report anything going wrong no matter what is going on. This will ensure the security and the safety of the police and the alleged criminals.

Andrew Mallard killed 24 years after wrongful conviction.

Conclusion

The Andrew Millard case was not supported by the principles of justice. As evidenced by the high amounts of principles compromised when compared to the principles supported. Mr. Millard was not only disadvantaged but also taken advantaged of and lied to by the police. Due to this monstrosity Andrew Millard was incorrectly sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole, but due to him appealing, he was set free after spending 12 years in prison. Mr. Millard was not supported by the principles of justice.

Make Sure to comment your thoughts on this case. Thankyou!

[INNOVATE-ED] $20 Boss Innovate[ED] Reflection (2020)

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$20 Boss is a program held at All Saints, Where we take a loan from the school of 20 dollars (per person). Then we make groups of about 2-5 people, then they think of ideas for a product to sell in the ‘end of year markets’. I made a group with 4 other people, Aaron, Jing, Toby, Jet and I. Our product/service that we designed is a company called CUZTM, We buy water bottles from a store (e.g: Kmart $6.75), take off any stickers, spray paint them with a primer, then hydro dip the water bottles with a chosen set of colors. On the market day we sold each bottle for $12, gaining $5.25.

The Profits would be carefully divided and re-invested back into the business, meaning we could buy more water bottles and paint to gain more profit. At the end of the second market we made $108 in profit. This is a major difference to the other groups. There were only a couple of groups that made this much, Thus meaning that this is a sign that we are a more effective business. Thinking out side of the box.

Also another part of $20 Boss, is to build our ingenuity, creativity and problem solving skills. I have definitely build a stronger set of problem solving skills. In our business there was a lot of problems happening all of the time that needed fixing, and I have found better ways to solve these problems, meaning that i have learnt more which is the goal of this class.

[P] About Me

Dylan Baker on

My name is Dylan, I have been at All Saints College since Term 4 Year 7. I have a younger sister, Mother, Father, and a pet dog. I have quite a bit of free time, it usually spent playing video games, doing after school sports, helping around the house, and building mechanisms with wood, cardboard, and tape. When I build with cardboard, I can make amazing mechanisms that are, structurally sound and awesome aesthetically, I have indulged into many co-curricular activities at All Saint’s, some of these are, Robotics, Swimming, ACC Swimming (selected) and Rowing. I have tonnes of friends in this school and in all grades, all though I have many friends, I am always trying to expand the friendship circle. I was elected in 6th grade to be a peer mediator, who helps people when they would get an injury, or if they would be lost, stops or prevents fights from happening and mainly a source of comfort for the younger students. Now days I have still retained that ability, also that younger people still come to me for comfort.

My Strengths

I have many social strengths, and a lot of random other strengths. Probably my most valuable strengths are Creativity, Friendliness and Determination. Creativity has helped me a lot in life as I have solved many problems using this ability, at home I would create contraptions and small objects, also when I would build things I always search what I am working on to see if there is any weaknesses in the build and if there was then I would be able to solve it usually easily. Friendliness is another major strength that I have, evidenced by the number of friends that I have. But the friends that I have are reliable and are real friends. Because before I try to be friends with someone, I make a decision about how they are and act, If they are not nice or related to bad people (friends with or admire them) then I usually ty to stay away, Because if you gathered all of my friends, they are genuinely nice people and have the ability to elude temptation to do bad things. Another one of my strengths is determination, I can set my self to one task and do that task even though it might be hard.

My Future

I plan to make my future fulfilled with excitement and fun moments, also to work in a job that I love and enjoy doing. For example, Engineering (mechanical or structural) as I love to do this also as stated before, I am terrific at this subject and already have knowledge in this area. If I do not make it to being an engineer, I will revert to computer security companies, or the ASIO as I believe that I could support the nation in this area.

Dylan Baker