Elil

Journal entries imported from the previous iteration of wisrd.org

ELIL

3-13-2020

Quarentine time. All of our learning will now have to be remote, and I will have to conduct the rest of the research virtually. This will be very interesting, and let’s hope that it still turns out well.

3-10-2020

While compiling what we have right now for the anthology, I realized that there still isn’t enough work in it regarding hydroponics. Their group is very impressive, as they have done a lot of research and work.

2-15-2020

Editing, editing, and more editing. That’s what I’ve been doing for the anthology.

2-5-2020

Today I had a meeting with Scott Johnson. He is the physics teacher and the head editor of our publications. I talked to him about contributing in two places to the anthology; one in the section where we talk about the creation of WISRD and the other in the section regarding our publications. He is a very good writer so I’m excited to see what he produces.

1-19-2020

Steveen is now working on progressing his own portion of his anthology to get it to his standards. His content is very strong, and he has so much experience at events that I think this shows his progression and the applicability of the work that he is doing.

1-10-2020

This week, I’ve spent a lot of time reading through other people’s journals to see how they can fit into the anthology. As a goal, I want to get all of the members of the hydroponics lab to contribute.

12-6-19

Update:

I have held off from finishing Toochi’s writing because I wanted to interview Steveen and write them together, so that I won’t have repetetive entries in the anthology. On Tuesday I interviewed Steveen, and I know have a substancial amount of information to write their sections that show their strengths in our contextual based model. The work that Steveen has done in promoting Panoptes is very impressive, and I will highlight it in the anthology.

11-15-19

Update:

My interview with Toochi went well. He was able to provide great insight into the panoptes project and his role in it. Also, he talked about how WISRD created an opportunity for him to truely flourish in the acedemic world since he was creating his own cirriculum. I am now working on translating the interview into a format that will be acceptable in the anthology.

11-2-19

Update:

I interviewed Jaimi, and we had an amazing discussion. Getting the administrative perspective will provide a lot of value to the Institute’s anthology. She brought up a good point that “Lifelong learning is predicated upon a contextual model,” and this is a concept that I will bring up in the anthology.

10-20-19

Update:

It has been hard for me to get seniors to participate in the anthology, so I’ve started interviewing them. This only takes 10-20 minutes, and I’m able to get more valuable information than if they just wrote it themselves. I plan on interviewing Toochi and Steven, along with Jaimi in order to get an administrative point of view.

10-4-19

Update:

The anthology is coming along very nicely.  I have been able to get most of the seniors to submit works for it.  As of right now, most of the submitions are in really good shape, but I still want more to provide more variaty in the anthology.  I will provide updates as it progressess.

Update:

This week I have really expanded my ability of curating writing.  I have gotten most of the seniors to write something for the anthology, and have helped with editing in order to create a good story line of the institute.  Even though the anthology is still all of their work, my job as the editor has been to go through the important information that allows the reader to get a full scope of WISRD on a level that is not possible by just reading the accomplishments of WISRD members.  The more work I have done in this editing, the more I have time to contemplate the use of content based learning.  I truely believe that this is the fututre of higher level acedemics, and I’m very proud to be a part of this in highschool.

9-27-19

Update:

This week has required me to do a lot of problem solving in my writing.  There is so much information in the narratives that I am editing, that it is so hard to string together the important information in a smooth way.  What I have been doing to solve this problem is to write summaries of each paragraph that others write, and find a good order for those paragraphs.  From there I go through and keep the relevant information, and get rid of the irrelevance.  I still need writing from others seniors, but after I get that I should be able to have an extremely solid first draft.

9-6-19

Update:

Right now in editing the anthology I have edited 2 of the submissions so that they are significantly shorter, and are very good representations of the institute model.  I have asked Myles, Molly, Remy, and Jack to write for the anthology and have created an outline for them.  I think after they have submitted their work the importance of contexual learning will really shine through in the anthology.

8-26-19

Update:

I’m back in WISRD.  Even though I haven’t been in the class for a year, I have been working on the anthology that we plan to publish in early 2020.  The anthology highlights 4 different students’ experience in WISRD’s contextual model.   I’m currently editing the anthology, and as of right now it is 21 pages of personal experience in the successes, and trials of learning in the contextual model.

5-10-18

Update:

I have created a rough design of the pulley system that we will be using on the hand.  The pulley will be a fixed pulley that is 3d printed by Grace.  Once we have every part printed we will be able to put the final hand together and then connect it to the emotiv.  We thought we had a way to connect the emotiv using bluetooth, but that method didn’t work so we have to come up with another method to use.

5-3-18

Update:

We are currently setting up a pulley system for the emotiv hand so that it will be easier for the fingers to move.  Our group has created a plan on what each of us neeed to get done.  Hopefully this tacktive makes our group more effeciant.

4-10-18

Update:

We have finally printed the hand and connected the Arduino to the hand.  Not all the software has been connected, but all the physical components are there.  We have tweeted about it and put it on Instagram.  We might need to get a micro Arduino and a micro servo.  This stage of the project is almost completed.

3-22-18

Update:

I have connected the bluetooth to the arduino, which is not connected to the sirvo.  With some basic programming we will be able to have fully connected the arduino to the Emotiv headset.

3-13-18

Update:

We are recreating an enable hand that would be able to be controlled by the emotiv headset.  This will be a huge step forward in what our group has done this year, and how far we have come.

3-8-18

Update:

Today I thought of a way that we could connect the 2 Arduino Unos wirelessly.  All we have to do is pre-program one of the Arduino so when it receives a signal from the other one, it will simply turn the battery on for as long as it’s told to.  Doing this will create a wireless connection between the emotiv and the Arduino.  Once we 3d print the rest of the hand that we need, we will have a mind controlled 3d printed enable hand.

3-5-18

Update:

We have finally done it!  We have turned on a motor using the emotiv headset. Connecting the Arduino UNO to the software of the emotiv, we have been able to trigger a motor, and cause it to turn on with brain waves, or facial expressions.  This is a huge step forward as the next step is just simply to connect the Arduino wirelessly.

2-13-18

Update:

We have figured out a way to wirelessly connect the emotive to Arduino.  After we connect it to the Arduino we will be able to turn the servo on. Once we connect the emotiv and write a small amount of programming we will be able to turn on and off a motor using only the emotive.

1-29-18

Update:

We have programmed the servo to do a sweeping motion, and we are working on a way to connect the emotiv to a hand.  The first step is to create that is to connect the emotiv to a motor which we still haven’t achieved.  We are in fact one step away from accomplishing that, and are very excited for it’s potential.

1-22-18

Update:

After the break, I got very sick, but my group made some impressive developments. Grace interviewed someone and asked some questions that might cause the person to become uncomfortable.  She measured their brain waves and came up with some interesting results.  We will be analyzing it more throughout this week.  Cole has still not completed the motor but is getting a lot closer.  Once he gets a software to work it should be a lot easier to control the motor with the emotiv headset.

1-18-18

Update:

Using the content based learning strategy, I have know taught myself how to do some basic coding and circuitry.  On days that cole or Grace are gone, I will be able to do all of the jobs that were done by them before.  I also sped up the process of soldering that arduino uno.

12-11-17

Weekly Update:

After testing both Reo and Jacob on their reactions there a few noticeable similarities in both of the subjects.  Both of them while on their phone and having to react to the ball had more of a difference in brain activity.  When they were on their phone their brain had almost barely any activity, but when they had to react it spiked for a few seconds.  When they were off of their phone through their brain was constantly active and the reaction from the ball was barely noticeable.  After we do more people we will create a video or presentation of all of the information.

11-27-17

Weekly Update:

I am in the process of reading a book called Focus written by Daniel Goleman that is about how important it is to be able to focus very well on one specific task, and the benefits of focusing and how it can attribute to the success in sports, education, and the arts.  I think that this book could lead to some projects with great benefits to see how well a task is performed with different levels of focus.  The book says that focus is the hidden driver of excellence and I want to see if this is always true.  I think the area of focus has a lot to offer WISRD and I look forward to see where it can take us.

11-16-17

Weekly Update:

This week we have been conduction our lab to try to see the reaction time of people when they are on their phone, vs when they are not.  We hit some setbacks in the lab because the connection between the computer and the epoc headset has not been good. The headset has been very hard to connect in the first place, and once it is connected it sometimes disconnects randomly.  I think that I have solved the error, and we are going to try to the run the lab again after Thanksgiving break.  The reason why we are waiting is because we don’t want there to be any errors caused by the technology.

11-7-17

Weekly Update:

Right now our group (Eli, Grace, and Cole) are working on a way to turn on a motor just by using your brain.  This takes remote controlled cars to a new level because the remote in this situation is someone’s brain!  We are using Arduino software, and the Epoc + to do this.  The EPOC will record the brain waves, and when programmed correctly the Arduino will allow the voltage from a battery to turn the motor on.  We are still in the beginning stages of this projects, but so far it is going very well.  We are breaking up different sections of the problem and are continualy working together towards a goal that we all want to accomplish.  And that is to turn on a motor.

10-3-17

Weekly Update:

Sorry for not journaling recently, I’ve been caught up in a Lab that Grace, Cole, and I are writing.  We are doing a reaction time lab to measure how quickly the brain reacts to something when a person is on and off of their phone.  This is somewhat of an introduction lab that will help us understand brain waves better, and this lab could put numbers behind how driving and using your phone distracts you, and may potentially slow your reaction time down.

9-14-17

Weekly Update:

This week my group has been working on creating a lab that we can monitor a change in brainwaves.  This lab will show us if different genres of music either slow down the brain reactions.  I am very excited to see the final results of this lab because the outcome of it, will help us create more brainwave labs in the future.  This is in a way our introduction into the world of brainwaves, and from this lab, we can dive deeper into more sophisticated and complex projects.

8-31-17

Weekly Update:

I  have decided that I’m actually going to focus on brainwaves, and more specifically the effects of music on students to school work.  You may think that this is something that has already been done, but what is different is we are also focusing on the emotions at hand during the experiment, and seeing how the emotions that are provoked through the music affect the work.  From there we can see how the work affects their emotions.  It is basically one big cycle.  I’m very excited to see where this experiment goes, and this seems to have a lot of potential.

8-21-17

Learning Outcome:

• This year I really want to focus on engineering a “Wave Pool”.  Essentially it recreates an ocean wave in a controlled environment that will always be the same wave.  That way the wave could break perfectly and be the same perfect wave every time.  This has exploded in the last few years in the world of surfing.  This is good for people who want to surf the same perfect wave all day, and they would be able to work on their surfing, instead of adjusting themselves to the wave.  This is also ideal for people who don’t live close to an ocean, and still want to surf.

• Also it sounds really great to be able to make a virtual reality of a building.  I’ve always been interested in architecture, but I feel like this would be taking it to a whole new level.  I don’t know too much about VR though, so I feel this would be a big struggle for me.

• I love to do any physical work.  Ever since I was young I liked to take things apart and put them back together.  Any project that I would be able to try something new and do any physical building I would like.  Obviously, I would like to make the wave pool the most, but I am open to trying something else.