Tech

This week at Tech the year 8 group was working on their projects, some of the things we're making are cars, tow trucks and boxes. I'm making a bird house. I needed to cut a joint in a wooden plank, chisel out the rest of the wood, glue another piece on, glue another bit onto that after it'd finished drying and glue the sides on. While I was waiting for the glue to dry, I started sanding the hole in the front. I now only need to drill a hole in the front to stick a small wooden pole in.

Tech

This week at tech was our last, and for it we needed to finish off our movies. Our teacher, Miss Munoz was giving out prizes for the best movie and, my group (Aung Naing, Nevaeh and myself) won the first place prize. Our movie is basically just a showcase of what you could make your robots do. Thank you to Miss Munoz for teaching us.

Tech

This week at tech my group was trying to make their robots follow lines and instructions, we needed to make our robots spin in a circle when they got to a shape, make a song when they reached another and stop when it got to the X. Our word for this week was BINARY, BINARY is the code that robots or mechanical lifeforms use to decide whether or not they do something.

Tech

Last week at tech my group was learning about algorithms, tinkering and creating. Algorithms are rules or steps that our robots needed to follow, we needed to tinker with the code to achieve the objective and we needed to create the different things that we wanted our robots to do. Our challenges that week were to make our robots move in a square and a circle, I finished both quickly and then spent the rest of my time making the robot move smoothly. The program that we used to code our robots is called mblock.

Tech At Tamaki College

Today in tech my group were using makeblock robots to do complete coding tasks, we needed to make music, control our robot using the arrow keys and make it flash red and blue lights. I finished the tasks faster than the others since I've coded with robots before. The code given in the book for making music resembled the Happy birthday song and since I was finished first I was able to move onto the other tasks earlier.

Tech At Tamaki College

This week of tech was the last one of our rotation, next week we'll be moving on to a different technology. At the beginning of the session most of us were finished with painting and either helped others or started to draw a cubism portrait whilst I worked on an outline for my clock. To draw the outline I needed to scrape off all of the excess paint and carefully go over the edges. Thank you to Mrs Ferguson for teaching us during this rotation, I really enjoyed making my clock.

Tech At Tamaki College

Today at tech my group was finishing off the painting of our clocks and adding the clock pieces. I've finished painting and adding the clock machine parts so I only need to touch up the edges and put the numbers on. After Tech was finished the year 8's stayed behind and were taught about some of the subjects that they do in college like maths and science. For maths we were drawing a picture using code and in science we were experimenting with dry ice. Thank you to the teachers who showed us how to do things, I enjoyed the challenge and am looking forward to college next year.

Technology Lesson 1

Today was the first day in Tech at Tamaki college, this term Year 8 Group A are going to be making clocks in graphics. Our first task was to find and name all kinds of different clocks or things that can record time. Some of the things I found were sun dials, hour glasses, alarms clocks and clock towers.

Tech Reflection

This week at tech the year 7 group were finishing their 3D phone stand designs, I finished mine which are a mouse and a piece of cheese. We used a website called Tinkercad. For my mouse I used a hole shape to create a space in the front of it where someone could put their phone, and for my piece of cheese I used another hole shape to create another space in front of it. Since most people have finished their designs I'm hoping that next week we'll be able to start 3D printing.

Tech Reflection: 3D Models

This week for tech we were planning and then designing our phone stands, I chose my phone stand to be a mouse with a gap in the front of its face so that you could just place your phone there and it'd stay there until someone or something knocks it off. The design isn't finished yet but by next week it should be. 

Digitech

This week during digitech the year 7 group was just continuing on with their animated stories or games since our teacher, Miss Anderson wasn't there because she was presenting at a digital showcase. My animated story is about this girl who steals a book from a wizard and is then chased by him and his familiar. That is the only piece of work that I need to finish since I've done everything else.

Tech Reflection

This week during Digital Tech the year 7 group was learning more about coding. At the beginning Ms Anderson showed us an animated video on Scratch, after that we needed to make our own account using the first part of our email as the username and then put Ms Anderson's Tamaki College email as the account email. After that we were shared a slideshow which we needed to first make a copy of and then fill out with screenshots of us creating the Scratch project using the steps already written in the slideshow. Julian and I finished ours early so we were asked to add two more backgrounds into our animated video. 

Tech Reflection

Today during tech since I'd finished my creation the last week I was just finishing off my workbook, as well as changing it to be better detailed so that I could get better marks for my report. At first I needed to change the aspects of the workbook, next I changed the tools/techniques and after that I finished off the part where I wrote what I would do differently if I could. This was the second to last week of tech, so next week if I want to make a box to hold my creation then I'll need to hurry up because it takes 30 minutes to dry the glue.

Tech Reflection

This week in tech for pewter casting the only task was to finish off sanding the castings, I started off the class using the 400 grit but when it ended I'd made it to 1200 grit. To sand the designs properly we needed to rub the sanding paper onto the edges and the sides a lot to make them feel soft, for every stage of sanding before you could advance into the next one you needed to show your work to Mr Grundy so that he could check it. If he thought that you'd done a good enough job he'd give you a better piece of sanding paper, and then the sequence would repeat. The final stage of sanding is the 1200 grit piece with water, after that a liquid is wiped onto the design which makes it look shiny.

Tech Reflection

Today at tech we were tracing our designs on a wooden square, cutting the traced design out and filling it with pewter. I wasn't able to cut mine out but I have finished tracing, the reason that it took so log is because so many people wanted theirs checked and my name was pretty far down in the list. When Mr Grundy gave us all a demonstration on how to use the the cutter everyone had to stay a metre away just in case someone tripped or something, we also had to stay behind some yellow and black tape on the floor when he was pouring the pewter into the moulds.

Tech Reflection

This term at tech the year 7 group are doing pewter casting, to start we had to create a plan. In the plan we had to fill out a list of 3-4 family members or people that we could give the finished pewter to, we also had to write own four things that are related to them to help us decide on what we should make for them. Our teacher, Mr Grundy also showed us a machine that we would use to cut the shape of our silhouettes, there are special keys to start the machine so that nobody cuts themselves on the blade (The blade goes up and down 50 times a second). He also showed us melted pewter and finished pewter pendants, as well as a tutorial video.