Digital Technologies - Insult-a-bot / Compliment bot

For the last few weeks in DTE, we were tasked to choose a project that had something to do with the skills we have learned throughout the year.

 
The members of my group were Cody, Saia, and Chris. After some planning, we decided to use our coding skills to make a robot that can complement/insult you based on which mode you choose.

We split up the work into two teams, Saia and Cody worked on making the box that contained the bot, and Chris and I worked on the code. 

At first, we wanted to upload code onto the Arduino and use motion-sensing but we eventually realized that would not work so we went with the coding on scratch with my Chromebook and used the makey makey as buttons.

Since only one person could work on the code I just worked on it and Chris helped out Saia and Cody.

I made a lot of errors with the code at first and broke it a lot but eventually got it to work. I do think it would of made it easier if I had someone else to help me code so next time I would probably code with something other than scratch that could have multiple people doing it at the same time.

I do think we could have been a bit more efficient without time but I do think we did somewhat accomplish what we wanted.

 

My Writing Portfolio

A Game of Cards Essay

In the short text “A game of cards” by Witi Ihimaera, the narrator speaks about his Nani Miro’s life and her final moments with her family. A memorable idea in this story was that you should live life being happy and enjoy your time while you are here. This was memorable to me because it shows that death doesn’t have to be sad, rivalry and friendships are not so different, and that life is going to be full of ups and downs.

One reason why the idea that you should live life being happy and enjoying your time was memorable to me was that it shows that death doesn’t have to be sad was memorable to me was because death is usually thought of as something to be sorrowful about and not something to be happy about. We see this in the text when all of Nani Miro’s family and friends go to her house as she lives her final moments and as she passes everyone is having a good time playing card games and even when Nani Miro passed she was happy, “She began to laugh. Her eyes streamed with tears. While she was laughing, she died.” This shows us that even though losing a loved one is indeed a sad event there are ways to make it less depressing and more about love and family. The message I take away from this is that we should always try to look on the bright side of life.

Another reason the idea that you should live life being happy and enjoying your time was memorable to me was because it shows rivalry and friendships are not so different as it is shown all throughout the text that Nani Miko and Mrs. Heta are always bickering and fighting yet seem to be best friends. We see this in the text when Nani Miro and Mrs. Heta are playing cards, “Eee! You cheat, Miro! I got two aces in my hand already!” but then moments later “Mrs. Heta took the cards from Nani’s hands and kissed her.”  This shows us that even though Nani Miro and Mrs. Heta are great rivals that they still have love for each other. The main message I take from this is that rivalry should always come hand in hand with friendship. 

The final reason that you should live life being happy and enjoying your time while you’re here was memorable to me was because it shows us that life is going to be full of ups and downs. We see this in the text when Nani Miro and the Narrator are speaking to each other, “A long hoarse sigh grew on her lips. Her eyelids fluttered, and she looked at me with blank eyes, and then tears began to roll down her cheeks.” but then moments later they began laughing with each other “She started to laugh and laugh and I was almost persuaded she was her own self.” This shows us that your view on life can change at a moment’s notice and that life’s ups and downs are what make life worth living. This reminds me of our world because everyday life is filled with ups and downs and that’s just something you have to deal with. 

 In Witi Ihimaera’s short story “A game of cards” he writes about Nani Miro’s life and her final moments with her family. The most memorable idea in this story is that you should live life being happy and enjoying your time while you’re here. This was memorable to me because it shows that death doesn’t have to be sad, rivalry and friendships are not so different, and that life is going to be full of ups and downs. This book is a great example of living life happy and to its fullest.

The Lake - Language Features

The Lake - Language Features

Listing - Using more detail to emphasize a point and can create an image in the reader's mind.

Example - "The wave shut me off from the world, from the birds in the sky, the children on the beach,

my mother on the shore. There was a moment of green silence. Then the wave gave me

back to the sky, the sand, the children yelling. I came out of the lake and the world was

waiting for me, having hardly moved since I went away."

My Passion Project

My Passion Project

Last week our Wananga classes started passion projects, which means we got to choose something that we are passionate about and work on it for the rest of the term. For my passion project, I am working in a group with Sonny and Kaedun and we decided to work on making and producing a song as it is something we are interested in.

Our goal is to make a hip-hop/rap song. At this point in time, we have just started making the beat and brainstorming what the song will be about.

Yellow Brick Road

   Pre-reading Questions

Author Witi Ihimaera is from Gisborne. Five of his books, The Whale Rider, Bulibasha: King of the Gypsies, Nights of the Gardens of Spain, White Lies, and Maori have been made into films. 

To me the Yellow Brick Road is like a road to glory, I have heard of the phrase from the Wizard of Oz movie. 

I predict this story will be about following the road to something great and the journey along the way.

Speeding Past School

Aim = See how many cars are speeding past school

Method =

1. Measure the distance between the power pole 🠞  power pole = 50m

2. Time how long it takes a car to travel this distance

   -"flag" person indicates when the car passed their pole

   - "timer" person starts when a car passed the flag pole and stops when the car passes their pole

   - "writer" person writes downtimes

3. Collect 10 times

4. Calculate speed in m/s 🠞 convert to km/hr

5. Are there any speeders?

Speed	Car 1	Car 2	Car 3	Car 4	Car 5	Car 6	Car 7	Car 8	Car 9	Car 10	Average
Time(s)	4.42	5.12	3.36	2.48	4.60	3.48	4.04	4.63	5.55	8.88	4.65
m/s	11.31	9.76	14.88	20.16	10.86	14.36	12.37	10.79	9.00	5.63	10.75
Km-hr	40.72	35.15	53.57	72.58	39.13	51.72	44.55	38.87	32.43	20.27	38.70

Creating our own short  film 

For the last few weeks, our class has been in small groups creating short films based on the ideas of The Merchant of Venice Court Scene.

Ours is based on two best friends (Xavier and John) that are going to counseling to fix their relationship, but it turns out that John has been cheating on his best friend with another person named Frank.

This is a retelling of the Merchant of Venice because we took the main principles of the court scene and transformed it into a modern setting.

The 2 additional film techniques we used were high angle and over the shoulder.

We chose a high angle to make John look weak and vulnerable and we chose over the shoulder to give the viewer some perspective.

Some challenges we encountered was that we didn't have that many days where our whole group was at school so it was hard to get our filming finished so next time we will make sure everybody comes. Another factor was that we couldn't find a good area to film because we needed a place that was empty and a place we could be loud in, we eventually settled with our classroom.

If we were to do this project differently I would plan out where we are going to film in advance and actually write a script as we did this whole film improv.