SAMOHI 12TH GRADE ENGINEERING
Blog Entry #1 Wednesday, August 24
Welcome to my first Blog Post of the 2022-2023 calendar year. This past summer I spent a majority of my time taking two six week Santa Monica College online courses. I can proudly state that the pain of enduring a weekly six hour school regiment has paid off. Now I no longer have to take AP Economics And Government here at SAMO. At the end of the summer I went on a little mountain biking adventure at both Big Bear and Mammoth Mountain bike parks. Throughout the summer I spent many days battling a cold, which may or may not have been covid.
This year I am most excited for the Capstone Project. I cant wait to bring to life my ideas that have lived in my head for years. I think the most important part of the project is to be original and innovate. I know my ideas will change I can just hope that an accumulation of ideas will make one great idea.
Nonetheless, I am excited for this year and all the opportunities that senior year offers. I cant wait for the boys soccer season to resume given our strengths this year as a team. For the first time in my three years at SAMO I am satisfied with every class that I have chosen to take thus far. This is just the start of the year, so let's see what the future holds!!!
Blog Entry #2 Monday, September 26
At the beginning of the year we covered a unit on the importance of "ethics in engineering." We watched and analyzed the movie "Monsters Inc;" long story short, the head of the company completed various illegal acts to further benefit his company. There are many lessons that I learned from the movie that I can now apply to next semesters Capstone Project. Firstly, I learned that it is critical to be honest and transparent with who ever you work with. It is vital for everyone to be on the same page for a successful project. Secondly, I learned that testing and critical thinking is important. Seen in the movie the monsters only source of energy was sourced from fear, but it turned out that laughter had an even greater effect. What I've learned from this is that some outside of the box thinking can take a project a long way. Lastly, I learned that hearing everyones opinion is essential. "Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover," little do you know anyone in your group can have a project altering decision for better or worse. Therefore, listening and evaluating my circumstances is one of the most important lessons I learned from the movie that I can now apply to my Capstone Project.
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As of September the 6th 2022, my life largely revolves around soccer, even more than it usually does. I have game after game every weekend for Club Soccer, and now am starting high school soccer for SAMO once again. Although, school can often be a challenge on top of sports and other extracurricular activities, I have learned to manage my time quite well helping me balance out my free time form my school work time. My main goal in life right now is right some of the best essays I have ever written to increase my chances of getting into my top colleges. Likewise, I have to prepare for my SAT test. This is my last chance to improve my so undesired score. I have prepared a considerable amount more for this SAT, and feel prepared for any question that comes my way. Just writing these tasks at hand makes my head hurt. The best way I know to alleviate all the stress in my life is to go fro a bike ride. Nothing compares to the feeling of flying down a mountain faster than my mom would like with my favorite tunes playing in my ears. During these rides, all of my difficulties seem to fall and disappear; that's something I have never experienced with anything else in life before.
Blog Entry #3 Friday, December 2
I could never have imagined how much I would learn and grow from the JPL project. I learned so many valuable individual and group skills that I will happily apply to the capstone project. Some things that went well was are relentlessness as a group to countinously improve and innovate our design. We started building on day one and stoped building on the last day before the competition. This is just one example that showed how invested our group was in our design and how eager we were to succeed in the competition. Another reality that I learned from the JPL project was how competative we are as a class. Our competativeness worked to each groups favor as it made each group try to improve their design and test to be better than eachother.
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I think our groups as a whole worked very cohesivly to make aa solid JPL contenting design. Although we did not complete building the design on time I think our innovative and intricate design was deffinitly something we should be proud of. However, I think we could have worked harder during the duration of the project and maybe we could have had a smoother and more polished final product. At times we were distracted by our phones and it took away from one our momentum and two our actually production output that we had. In future groups I want a team that is present and works on the project during the appropriate class time.
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If I had one piece of advice that I could give myself for the year long capstone project it would be don't rush things do them correctly. I think during this JPL project I got caught up in doing things fast instead of doing things well. One example is measuring precisely every piece of wood. My group including myself rushed many critical steps rush as drilling without measuring just so we had the product, instead of taking a bit more time and effort to correctly and accurately drill the same hole. Because at the end of the day you need your project as close. to perfect as possible.
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Blog Entry #4 Thursday, Januaray 12th
The end of high school as I know it is quite the daunting fact. However, with the start of the second semester and new year I most importantly look forward to hearing from colleges that I have applied to. I for one am scared to see what and where I end up going to college, but I will try and embrace the new challenges and cultures that come along with it.
The capstone project is something my group and I have been looking forward to since the start of the class. I have always dreamed of pursuing a project that will not only become my senior. year project, but will hopefully also have a future and impact beyond high school. Our idea and problem proposal is 3d printing shoes for people in need. As of right now we are trying to work out the costs for this project long term to see if we should move forward with the idea.
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The difference between products that are made for profit and products that are made for benefit is quite simple. Products made for profit prioritize money as their main goal and focus more on the busieness side than anything. However, products made to benefit are specifically made and researched in order to make the best products and the lowest cost to best benefit the set goal in mind. It is a much more selfless project than, projects made for profit.
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There are many pros and cons to each project type when deciding on yours. Projects made for profit can make someone financially stable off of one idea. Nonetheless, a con can be seen as they are being greedy and selfish for making their project profit based. Projects made to benefit also have their pros and cons. They can in many cases waste your time and money if it is invested incorectly or the project fails. A major pro about making your project to benefit others is that it gives you a greater sense of gratitude for what you have done. Also, as a non-profit (assuming) it can help you with your tax returns. For myself, I believe a balance of both profit and benefit is necessary to keep our project realistic.
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Blog Entry #5 Friday, March 3rd.
As of right. now I am pretty set on Biology as my major. However, I have applied to some schools as bio-engineering for my major which sounds interesting. I want to go down the Biology path to hopefully pursue medical school. This is my plan as of right now. I have always like helping people in any way possible and the fact that I can do this on a bigger scale is really cool to me. Furthermore, I have many interests in the medical field, I am really interested in surgery. I think either an orthopedic surgeon or a neurosurgeon is what I want to pursue. If I end up becoming a doctor of any sort I don't want to settle for the easier path, rather I want the harder and more gratifying route.
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Dr. Henry Brem is a neurosurgeon and neurologist. He is currently the Director of the Department of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Brem has a high level of education, having earned his undergraduate degree from The George Washington University and his medical degree from the Yale School of Medicine. He also completed his residency in neurosurgery at the same institution. Before becoming a renowned neurosurgeon, Dr. Brem completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This experience allowed him to gain valuable research skills and knowledge that he has been able to apply in his clinical work. In five words, Dr. Henry Brem can be described as accomplished, experienced, knowledgeable, innovative, and dedicated. I chose to research Dr. Brem because of his notable contributions in the field of neurosurgery. He has been instrumental in developing new treatments for brain tumors and has also made significant advancements in the field of drug delivery to the brain. One thing that I like about Dr. Brem's career path is his commitment to both clinical work and research. His work has resulted in a better understanding of brain tumors and has led to the development of more effective treatments. On the other hand, his dedication to his work may have come at the expense of his personal life, as neurosurgery is a demanding profession that requires long hours and a lot of commitment.
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