My two year journey at Glenbrae School and posting on this blog has been a blast! If by chance anyone sees this post I truly appreciate all the comments I've received on this blog, they've helped me grow to understand and value the time and effort that you've all put into publishing your comments on my blog. Looking back I'm proud of the progress I put in to keeping this blog alive for the past two years and for completing all 141 blog posts! ♡
Uinita OUT
Wellington City Council stated that they had received reports of children constantly injuring themselves on the slide. In March, it was said that a child had broken a leg while using the slide, with another similar injury in July. A large upgrade of the playground is due to begin next year and will come with a new slide. The Wellington City Council said that the new playground would include a new slide just as big and just as much fun. Though the new design will have a twist in the middle designed to slow down the speed of the slide.
Just yesterday most of my classmates and I experienced something both dreadful and exciting. An hour drive is what it took to get to our destination, Helensville, Tennis Courts. The purpose of this trip was unknown, all I knew was the teachers who accompanied us wanted us to let loose and most of all have fun! Skipping the long ride, this is how it all started.
As we arrived at our destination we got changed into the appropriate clothes for this event, got registered and made our way into the Tennis Courts. While we were waiting for the deadline, 10am we prepared ourselves and warmed up. As it was almost time the mud run got delayed for 10 min's for we had to wait for another school to arrive. In those 10min's we gathered, sang & boogied to the music they turned up.
The final school arrived and the music dimmed down, it was time! As we lined up behind the start line I found myself timid, tense as the people up ahead started running the track. Before it all got down to this Victoria F, Pitara & I vowed that we'd stay together and help each other in need, which calmed me down knowing I wouldn't be alone.
The mud run commenced and as we vowed we all stuck together! Many slips & many falls later I glanced behind me and I found ourselves coming last, we didn't mind, we just wanted to get this run over and done with. I could almost smell the showers close by, finally we finished the event!
Long story short, never again!
Today we did Gymnastics with our instructor Zayde. Basically we followed her instructions, for example we did specific gymnastic exercises and once we got in pairs and tried different moves together. This whole lesson was really fun!
Task: Create a step-by-step diagram showing the stages in the process of building a house.
Task: What are the tools an architect uses when designing a building or a part of a building? Be sure to make sure you have compiled a full list and described what each tool is used for.
When designing a building an architect should have access to the tools / equipment listed below:
- Scale Ruler. The reason they’d need a scale ruler is to make sure whatever they’re building has exact & accurate measurements otherwise their project would be at risk. Knowing that measurements are important when building a home I’ll be listing more equipment that relates to measurement when building a house.
- T-Square. This item also relates to measuring which is why this is also important. As said in articles there will be times when this item will become the most convenient tool in the job.
- Compass. A compass is very useful when building a home because it helps create a circle which is in fact helpful when determining distance between two points. It doesn’t sound like much but as an architect you’d find yourself using this item often.
- Drafting board. Every architect would need to draw to be able to express their plans when building a house and for that reason being, getting a drafting board is essential when becoming an architect.
- Lining Pens. When planning a home you wouldn’t use a regular pen, in architecture you’ll need a pen such as a lining pen. A lining pen is needed when being an architect for it creates fine lines, for when drawing apparently it feels so natural it runs smoothly and you can create more detailed lines in small areas.
- Tracing paper. This item is also effective when an architect would need to write/draw out their plans. Because an architect needs to be precise with what they're going to build they’ll constantly need to make plans to gather their thoughts and for that tracing paper is effective.
- Precision Cutting Knives. These knives are used to design a model, once the plans have been fully drawn out the model will need to be made. To make the model you’ll need to carve them out yourself out of material, for example wood. When making the model out of wood that's when you'll need really sharp cutting knives to use with precision. Relating to the model the cutting knives can create detailed fine lines which is very helpful when building the actual home.
- Laptop. This can make testing out certain designs a lot easier than it would be using only paper and your own knowledge of mathematics. This is going to allow you to do your work more effectively and can potentially save you a lot of time.
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Reference: Architect Tools
Today in Kiwican we learnt many things, our theme was integrity, we focused on the topic of emotions. Following on we played games/activities based on emotions & feelings.
We froliced in a the first two games where we mostly needed to buddy up and act out emotions assigned to us. A personal highlight of the lesson was when we played an activity called ''don't play with my emotions'' The aim of the game was to get in groups of five and act out a skit based on the emotion we were assigned to make a skit about. My group's skit was based on loneliness and in my opinion I think we did swell ! Apart from all the activities we played, I enjoyed the whole topic, especially all the stories that were told about how people expressed their feelings and the outcome of commiting to act out of their emotions.
Imagine you are Richie Rich from the movie, write a narrative where the setting is your mansion.
(outside/front yard):
As I shut my eyes on a cold and eerie night, I drifted off into my thoughts of something staggering, wild & unbelievable. A mansion, the mansion was at least 80,000 acres big.
The front yard had a sensible measurement, such as 40 meters wide. Instead of real grass the front yard had fake rows of grass which pricked my feet as I strolled across the field of grass. There were double driveways which would merge around the fountain with my name encrusted on the fountain's rear. After seeing these insane details, out of my curiosity I wandered deeper into the back of the mansion.
(backyard):
As I arrived in the backyard there was a stream filled with eels & fish. The stream led me to a koi pond, I shed a tear out of jealousy and walked my way into a tree scattered place, like a forest. The forest was scattered with animals of all sizes.
I strudded a few meters down a steep hill and I encountered a tunnel. I threw a rock down the tunnel and it took roughly 5 seconds for it to hit the ground. Without thinking I slid down the tunnel and walked for a few minutes to find myself inside a luxurious building. It took awhile for me to come to my senses, I was inside the mansion!
(inside):
I trudged out of the tunnel's end and walked further inside the building. As I walked past a big white door, I ended up in the main room/living room at least I thought it was. There were very old artifacts, they looked incredible. Out of amazement I fainted, it turned pitch black. I don’t know how long I was unconscious for but shockingly, I awoke to the same dream. I knew for a fact that this was a dream because in reality I live in a small, single story house.
Back to the mansion, I took a left turn into a room which looked like a kitchen. At this point I didn’t know what to think because the kitchen in the mansion was as big as my whole house! I couldn’t believe my eyes, I ran up the stairs, with a glimpse looking up I saw a chandelier, it looked so elegant I wanted to cry.
I went further up the stairs which led me to a room, I glanced a look at the room door and told myself ‘’you're getting way too curious just turn back and try to wake yourself up’’ I don’t know what It was about the room but my body ached to get inside the room but my brain was telling me not to. I tried to turn back but I just couldn’t.
I ran into the room and the door shut behind me. As I opened my eyes I saw another label with my name encrusted on the headboard of a oh so modern and tidy bed. I don’t know what was up with this dream but it was both insane & irresistible knowing I wanted to see more. Knowing all these details I needed to know more. I wanted to get every single detail of this house while I still remembered this dream to search up if this was a mansion in the real world or if it was just my imagination. I left the room stinging to know more. As I walked down one of the hallways upstairs I found another room which I couldn’t resist.
I saw a golden aura which felt like it was pushing me to enter that room. This time I had to resist, as I walked a few steps away from the door I took a wink. As I popped one of my eyes open I was at the same door I tried to resist. Since this was my dream I couldn’t stop thinking about the door. At this point I thoroughly gave up, I latched my hands around the door handle and pushed the room door open. I couldn’t believe my eyes, they must be playing tricks on me. Inside that room was an indoor pool, It had L.E.D lights placed inside the pool, the pool was as long as a giraffe’s neck!
All these details were making me sick, as soon as I dipped a toe, no not even that, the tip of my toenail in the pool I awoke in my shriveled up bed. It creaked as I walked up and out of my bed. I opened the door and I was in the mansion from my dream!
How Houses Are Designed And Built?
How are houses designed and built, you say? Based on my research, designing a house can be a bit tricky, so I've heard . If you’d want your house to be as accurate as possible, you could make a 3D model design of the house you're willing to build. Building a house also sounds tricky, for example, you’d have to follow the build code, pay a considerable amount of money to be able to pay your Architects, Carpenters, Urban and Regional Planners, Electricians etc, etc. Anyhow let's start off with Designing a house!
Designing a house.
As I mentioned before this process sounded tricky based on my research, but let's get started shall we? When designing a house it's important to have a floor plan. A floor plan is a 2D version of a house, minus the roof with a bird’s eye view.
The reason why this is so important when designing a house is because if you were designing a house you’d need to plan out how many rooms are there gonna be, how many bathrooms, is there going to be a basement, where are the rooms going to be located inside the house? and so on. When you have a floor plan it's easier to see the draft of your room/s and figure out approximately how big the house is going to be. Once the floor plan is finished then you could start by figuring out what type of materials you’re going to use for your house and you’d have to get it ready.
Also keeping in mind floor plans don’t have enough detail in what the builders have to construct, meaning floor plans are useful but blueprints have better use when constructing a house for it’s more inclusive when providing information for the specific builders you’ve hired. Now that this is said and done let's move on to building a house.
Building a house.
Building a house is a long process which is why it is the 2nd process I’ll be explaining. First and foremost you’d have to prepare your construction site. Once that’s done, then you can pour the foundation. The foundation is basically the outline of your house on concrete.
Further on you can make your rough framing. Framing is the wood layer that holds up the house. Usually you could see the framing in action when you're out and about in the car.
Following on you’d need to install pipes, wires, sewer lines, vents & water supply lines. Once the shell is done the roofing & siding can be installed. All that was said above is compulsory for it is all part of the building code & will be expected in the inspection. At this phase the drywall would be delivered to the site!
Furthermore the drywall should be hung and taped, usually when the drywall is placed then the homeowner starts to visualize where their furniture is going to be placed & visualizing where certain things are going to layed out.
When finished, further on in the house building process the driveway would be placed. Since we’ve come this far, the mechanical related objects will be placed such as toilets, light switches, outlets, sinks, faucets etc. Finally the final walk through will be made, the finishing touches will be done!
My Source: Guide To Building A Home.
Talofa Lava, just yesterday after school Mason,Victoria M,Gideon,Jasel, Mrs Tofa, Miss Woodhall and I came from our school to Stonefields School. The whole purpose of this was to teach some teachers how to use a website we've been using for the past few weeks to make a floorplan of their own. (yes, yes how the tables have turned, we're teaching the teachers) After our introduction Mrs Tofa & Miss Woodhall explained what we've been learning since term 2 started. Once they were finished we all (the students) explained what we'd learnt using the website, I wrote something like: ''using this website I learnt to be precise with each object I place in the floorplancreator, I also learnt to have accurate exact measurements when placing an object''
After Mason did an Demonstration on how to use floorplancreator.net.
Overall I enjoyed going around working with the teachers, helping them if they had any difficulties using the website, getting to know their different unique ideas and getting to know themselves.
Mālō e lelei, for our first lesson in tech we started of by coding a dice on the Microbit labeled as Graphical Dice. Below is a screencastify of the simulated Dice in action.
Talofa lava, during maths today we worked on a challenging maths problem (personal opinion). Below is the problem.
With the brain of my peers I finally understood the problem. Here was their working out:
1/8 + 1/8 = 2/8
2/8 - simplify
2 ÷ 2 = 1
8 ÷ 2 = 4
________
= 1/4
Meaning I could use the 1/8th cup to measure the cocoa powder.
Bula Vinaka, Today in Tech we coded a flashing heart using python. Python is a coding language. Here is my code for a flashing heart on a Microbit!
Hola! Today in Room 7 I created a floor plan of my house using the website: floorplancreator.net .
WALT: We are learning to create accurate floor plans for building a house.
Today we have started on our Project based learning beginning with Maths. First we started off with searching up a app called floorplancreator.com to this project.
What I learnt from doing this activity is before building a house you need a
Floor Plan - 2D
Game no.1
Splash was the first game we played, it's a bit like the game bang except we had to change our action from a gun to a ball of water to gesture when the caller calls out the name of the person beside you from the left and the right you’d have to say the exact words ‘‘splash’’ otherwise in delay you’d normally be out. Another instruction part of the game is that if the caller calls your name you’d have to duck so your peers next to you would have to splash each other. In reality our kiwican leader beat us being incredibly quick, also with our finalist hayden.
Game no.2
The second game Farm Animals, our team was off to a rusty start for we were constantly out first. Until the second to last game we came second to last but hey it's better than nothing. When the last round came we merged with an opposing team representing our original farm animal a dog. We lost.
In conclusion my favourite game was Splash because we were all participating and trying our best to hear the name and advance to the finals. The lesson was fun and we ended up with 45 points!
With a radiant day ahead of us, a trip to the sky tower was up ahead! Oh the views we saw, the heights we advanced to, a trip to remember.. Level after level, higher and higher like a crows nest we fled.
As two groups lined up we set off on our journey marching towards the escalator to find the inside of the edifice building. We stood and waited in many elevators to get to our many destinations when suddenly POP! Goes our eardrums for the air pressure gets the best of our ears. Exiting the elevator follows the sounds of relief, as our ears get the chance to recover only to be put back in an elevator once more.
Level 51, our first destination awaiting til our arrival. In short, there was thick glass made as flooring to be walked on, telescopes to look out of, buildings to be admired from afar and a breathtaking view for miles! Back to the objective of our outing was to see what, how, when and why structures were built and to that day we had tons of questions answered, meaning we had an idea of the topic we’d be learning for this term.
After going down a few floors we made it to the sky tower’s refuge. The place was like a donut, though we were the sprinkles walking around and observing our surroundings. In that location is where we got some of our questions answered.
Back up we went to the 60th floor, which is the highest we’d been. Enough to give you butterflies, you could lean on the lopsided glass, which made it easier to see below but still very nerve racking. Oh, once again when I said the view was ‘breathtaking’’ I meant it was truly captivating and charismatic for our project based learning !!
Task: List and describe three situations where relationships between people and animals have been, or are, important to human well-being.
Task: Prepare an A3 poster classifying the parts of the animal kingdom.
Task: Design you own imaginary creature and include a diagram. Label body parts and give information on habits, habitat, size and diet.
Task: Create a table that explains the differences between animals and plants.
Task: Find three contemporary music videos that feature animals. They could be animated or involving either real animals or humans dressed/performing as animals. For each video describe what the creators of the video are trying to achieve. Be sure to include links and/or put them on your web page.
Song #1: Katy Perry - Roar (Official)
Song #2: Carmen Twillie, Lebo M. - Circle Of Life (Official Video from "The Lion King")
Song #3: The Jungle Book | The Bare Necessities Song | Disney Junior UK
Task: Choosing one domestic insect or animal in paragraphs - fully explain how they are economically valuable to human society. It would be good to support your points with researched data.
Task: Create an A3 mini-poster on a character from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Include some background information on Kipling.
Personally I enjoyed watching the Jungle Book movie, along the way I developed a favourite character.
Hello! Today in our Technology class in Tamaki College we coded a Microbit to choose from 1-3 either rock, paper or scissors. It would randomly give me rock paper or scissors when I shook the Microbit.
Personal Opinion: I was rather intrigued when working with the Microbit, but yes overall it was fun!
Mālō e lelei and Tālofa nī. Below is a poem I wrote for the purpose of being proud of my skin color.
Give It A Read! :)
