The 24-Hourglass

This project is the last one for my Light and Sound Math/Science course. For this project we studied clocks and I don't mean a traditional clock. We studied clocks from all over the world and from all different time periods. The purpose of this Action Project was to take the knowledge that we acquired about clocks and use that to redesign our own clocks and make an animated video explaining how it works and why we did what we did. I learned a lot about clocks and I actually did not realize just how many clocks there are in the world. I was also surprised to find that you can even make a clock with no modern materials at all. I am very proud of my design because I feel that I put a lot of thought into it and I feel that if I were to actually create my clock it might actually work. One thing that was rather difficult about this project was making the video. The reason I feel that it was so difficult is because I did not have anything to record with initially and drawing the same object over and over is very tedious and tiring. Please enjoy my Action Project and video below!



My time-telling device will be rectangular with little sheets of metal inside of it and in between of the sheets will be sand. The sheets of metal will be attached to a gear that will pull a sheet out every hour which will let go of the sand and will fill up the hourglass until you get 24 hours. To reset it there will be slots that you will be able to put the sheets in after you flip the glass. My time-telling device works in hours and each metal sheet is about 5 cm apart and is filled completely with sand so when the sheet is fully pulled out it will fill up a tick mark and let you know that it has been a full hour. The way it implements sound is the way the gear ticks every time that it rotates and I also plan to have a small plastic edge to the end of the sheet so when it comes out of the hourglass it will scrape against the edge of the glass and make a distinct sound that alerts you that the sheet is fully out.

My device is an effective way of telling time because it doesn't work like a normal hour glass; it tells you 24 hours and it will also tell you a percentage of an hour by showing how much sand has filled up the tick mark when you check; if it is halfway to the tick mark than it is obviously 30 minutes but unfortunately it can not tell you exact time. In addition it only needs to be reset once a day unlike an hourglass that would need to be reset every hour.

The math that goes into my device is simple. The glass itself is rectangular and is 6 inches tall and 4 inches wide each way. Another math concepts that my device demonstrates is radius and circumference. The way it demonstrates those concepts is with the gear that controls the device. The radius of my gear is going to be .5 inches which mean i would have to do 2x3.14x.5 which will give me a circumference of 3.14.

Citations
T & K Young. "Hourglass History." Web log post. Hourglass. T & K Young., 2000-2014. Web. 20 Mar. 2015. <http://www.tkyoung.com/history.html>.

Don't Legalize Just Accept

This project is for my Argument class for our last Action Project. The purpose of this project was to pick a law or rule to write about and then you have to pick your position on that argument and find a opposing side to contradict your argument. After you pick a side and find an opponent you have to figure out where both arguments meet in the middle and what similarities they have. I learned about the graffiti removal projects we have in Chicago and also what they are still trying to make the graffiti law tighter and cut down on graffiti more. I am proud of my thesis because graffiti is something I am passionate about and I feel that it is one of the only topics I can write about and not have roadblocks.


Thesis
If graffiti is up, the city of Chicago should not remove it. It is art, and although classified as illegal, once up, should be displayed for all to see. I feel that graffiti should not be legal but it should be respected when it is up because someone went through a lot of struggle to get their art out into a world that wouldn't usually care about anything that they do. I feel like it should be respected just like art in a gallery because you do not see me going into a gallery and painting over someone else's artwork.

• The graffiti removal projects budget in Chicago has more than doubled from 4 million to 9 million since 1993
• The Chicago public school system is running a deficit of 370 million dollars
• The Chicago police department is chronically understaffed

Antithesis

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel would have a rather different argument. You can tell that Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants graffiti to be cut down more and more until he gets it under control. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Department of Streets and Sanitation (DSS) announced that they will be putting out 2 new chemical graffiti removal trucks and they say that it will remove 10-15 percent more graffiti. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and raised the fines for graffiti from $750 to $1,500 and $2,500 for repeat offenders.

Synthesis
Both Mayor Emanuel and I agree on at least one point: that graffiti is illegal. This might sound strange coming from me, a practitioner of this art form. As a practitioner of this art form I feel that graffiti would not be as interesting if it was made legal because you probably would not have the same adrenaline rush. Rahm Emanuel believes that it should be illegal because it makes the city look ugly. Even though we don't have the same reasoning it all comes to the conclusion that it should be illegal and it is vandalism regardless of my love for it.

After researching Mayor Emanuel's arguments I would like to ask:

• With all of the other important issues this city needs to be investing money in (see my evidence above), why focus on graffiti removal?
• A question I feel that Rahm Emanuel would have for me is: What about businesses and private owners that do not want this “art” on their buildings?

Dialect 

Works Cited
Zekas, Joe. "Gang Graffiti on the Edens." YoChicago RSS. Joe Zekas, 07. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://yochicago.com/gang-graffiti-on-the-edens/5889/>.

Admin. "Graffiti Removal Business." The Business HQ. N.p., 04 Mar. 2015. Web. 21 Mar. 2015. <http://thebusinesshq.com/graffiti-removal-business/>.

Rethink Trespassing

This action project is for my 2 action project of my argument class. In this project we were asked to choose one rule in the code of conduct to reinvent and make it our own and write a argument based on your opinion. I learned a lot about how arguments can be formally organized and how you can make a concrete argument. I am proud of my paper and i would like to see my rule passed and actually incorporated in the GCE code of conduct. Please read my argument and leave a comment and tell me if you think that my rule should be passed. Thank you and ENJOY!

The specific rule I’d like to amend in the GCE Code of Conduct is the one about trespassing that states: “Students, patrons, and school personnel are expected to have appropriate authorization to be on school property.” although this rule is short is is very clear and to the point. No matter how short and to the point this rule it it does not change the fact that this rule is very unjust because the GCE staff does not enforce it properly and they are very biased as to who they let in. For example, alumni are allowed back into the school to play basketball and they let some students friends come in to play basketball. But when I tried to bring one of my friends in for the same reason, all of a sudden the staff decided to enforce the rule and tell him that he cannot come in because it would be a liability if he got hurt. When I asked why the rule was being applied in this case, staff told me they couldn't cover my friend if he injured himself and when asked why they were applying this rule now instead of when other outsiders came in and they did not answer me they basically just told me "that's just how it is, it not our property so we can not be responsible for someone that does not go to our school." The way GCE staff selectively applies this rule is clearly biased, just like a landlord banning pets from his apartment building but has a dog.

I can type paragraphs about how this argument is unjust and biased but, this rule written as a formal argument would look like this...

P1: GCE’s campus is actually owned by the Menomonee club.

P2: Visitors and school personnel need appropriate authorization to enter GCE’s campus.

C: A visitor with incorrect authorization will be asked to leave the premises.

This rule is obviously flawed and according to the staff/ code of conduct it must be enforced "properly" and must not be broken but I feel that the rule should not apply for after school clubs that involve sports or activities such as volleyball or basketball, especially if it is not a team sport, but played for fun because it will make it more interesting if there are more people, anyways. Also, since GCE wants more people to know about and see the school why not have outsiders come in and play sports or talk with friends at GCE and see how the school is.

In my opinion I feel that my way of approaching trespassing is superior and should be put into affect in the future. As a way to break down my reasoning I have created a formal argument below.

P1: GCE wants to generate more interest in our school.

P2: Current students may know potential GCE recruits.

P3: Current students should be allowed to bring visitors to campus.

C: If you are visiting GCE “through” a current student, then you are not trespassing

I feel like life at GCE will be better because you will have more people interested in coming to GCE and we will end up having more kids due to the students bringing their friends in. Also, we will give other students a better sense or other students life by seeing the people they hang out with. Also, it would make clubs more interesting because outsiders will be able to come and spice up the games or activities that we do. Not only will it make our school better but it also helps us become global citizens and that is one of GCE's goals. I feel that my amendment demonstrates true citizenship because GCE as it is now is basically a bubble. We come to school and see/talk to the same 43 people that we see everyday. And, I feel that that my amendment will give us a better sense of the real world because you will always meet new people in the world not see the same people everyday. Therefore, I feel that it will build up your people skills because you will meet and talk to new people all the time. I did not want my amendment to be only my opinion so i went and asked a fellow student what they though of my redesigned rule on trespassing and they told me "I agree that it is reasonable because since our school aims to further educational and social life as one, we should be allowed to bring in people who could work and benefit with whatever we are doing after school."(JM)

Lastly i would like to present you with three facts to support my amendment and if you are reading this blog please leave a comment and tell me whether or not my rule is better than the original one

1. the original rule is biased because they would let other students friends and alumni in but when i tried to bring my friend they all of the sudden wanted to enforce the rule  
2. GCE wants more people to know about GCE and more people to understand what GCE is trying to do so if outsiders come in then they will most likely learn more about GCE
3. GCE loves to promote the idea of diversity in school and outside of school so by letting outsiders come in you are learning about them and the different parts of Chicago they come from

REMZ GUITAR

This project is all about sound and the different elements of sound. We linked that to guitars as a way to show the different elements of sound. We ended up making our own guitars out of various objects and tested the frequency, volume, amplitude etc. I made my guitar out of a small found box, a very long toilet paper tube, 2 pieces of wood for the bridge, and 2 pieces of wire for the strings and held it all together with hot glue and duct tape. I learned a lot this unit such as the difference between AM and FM and how radios work and how the sound is transmitted. I also learned about frequency, amplitude, volume, wavelength and how to calculate them. One of the things i'm proud of is my actual guitar, Initially I thought my guitar would be bad because its homemade and i'm not a professional guitar maker but i'm actually happy with the outcome.

BKJ, GUITAR (2015)

My guitar makes sound by plucking the string which causes vibrations to bounce around the inside of the sound hole which then reflects outward and produces a certain pitch and volume. In this unit we learned about frequency which is basically the pitch of the sound, a higher frequency is also a higher pitch and a lower frequency is a lower pitch. my guitar sounds more along the lines of a lower pitch which means that it has low frequency. We also learned about amplitude and that is basically the volume of the sound. The strings on my guitar are not very tight or strong so they produce a low volume sound which means that the amplitude would be very low.

The Doppler effect is sound waves being pushed together as an object moves forward and left behind as the object moves forward. My guitar does not demonstrate the Doppler effect unless I am moving while playing the guitar otherwise the sound waves are being distributed equally.

One thing that may effect the sound the guitar strings make is the length and thickness so for the purposes of this project we were asked to calculate the string length and the string thickness my string is 17.5 inches long and .36mm thick. We were also asked to calculate the volume of the guitar body and I found that my guitar body was 63.98 inches cubed. lastly we were asked to calculate the frequency and the wavelength and I found that my frequency is: A# 466.16 Hz and the wavelength is: 74.01 cm. The frequency of my octave is: 932.32 Hz and my wavelength is: 37.005 cm.

BKJ, ACTUAL GUITAR (2015)

If I could do it all over again I would probably take more time at home to build so I can use a bigger box and also I would use wood for the neck instead of a cardboard tube. I would also probably use real guitar strings because I have seen that they produce better sound after seeing other classmates projects. If I had extra time at the end I would probably paint the guitar because it looks very plain since its all the same color