Reflection

I have finished the design for my car. I am really happy with it and just hope it goes fast. I have made it a little smaller than my previous designs so as to decrease it's mass. I kept the triangle thing (which I still don't know the proper name of) on the front of the car as I believe that this feature will help make my car faster. I also like the idea as no one else is doing it. I have started to cut the cardboard body out in the workshop. I was a little nervous when using the Stanley Knife because last time I used one the experience wasn't very nice. I'm fine though, the chances of cutting myself again is very slim. Especially when I cut something now, I do it with EXTREME care.

Reflection

So far in class, I have sketched two designs for my electric motor car which would be able to go as fast as possible. It needs to be light so as not to cause friction on the track, but not to light that it will flip over. The first car that I designed has a triangle shaped part at the front of it which is a feature that is suppose to make the car go faster. There is a specific name for it but I forgot what it is called. One of the previous cars had it, but all I did to my design was made it bigger. I think it will really help my car go faster. I have also decided that I am probably going to use Coreflute material (cardboard used for retail signs) for the base of the car as it is strong, yet very light. I might design a few more things and sketch them at actually size with measurements before I go into the work shop and start making it.

Reflection

For the first lesson of Term 3, we had a look at what our upcoming assignment is. The objective of the assignment is to make a small electrically motorised vehicle to your own design and try and make is go as fast as possible down a 5.2 metre track. You make it by researching, testing and using engineering methods to make your car go the fastest. I'm really exited to start this project and to see if I can handle the engineering part as I'm not very good at Maths. But for now, we have been finishing off our previous assignment which is due next Tuesday. My torch design is coming along well, although I feel I'm a little behind. I had some trouble trying to make the barrel as every time I tried to reflect the sketch I had made it wouldn't let me for some unknown reason. But with a little help from Mr Ward it finally reflected. I think my design is pretty good and I exited to see how the finishing project with look on ProDesktop.

Reflection

What we have been doing in class for the past few lessons now has been creating the assigned products from the test book on ProDesktop. So far I have finished all but the last one. The first two exercises were the 'Toy Block' and the 'Toy Block extension'. They were both reasonably easy to make and the instructions were very simple to follow. The next exercises were the 'Simple Calculator Design', 'Clock face project', 'Cart Wheel' and finally, the 'iPhone Design'. The first three were a little harder than the Toy block but still pretty simple to do, however, the iPhone design was both somewhat difficult, but also a lot of fun. Using ProDesktop, we had to try and replicate our (or someone else's) iPhones. I did encounter some problems while doing this task but was able to resolve them quickly. The iPhone replicating task was definitely my favourite. The next two tasks were the 'Energy Drink Bottle' and the 'Aluminium Motor Cycle Wheel'. The first one was still challenging as the techniques having to be used gradually got harder and the instructions more indistinct, but was still less challenging than the second task. The Aluminium Wheel was extremely difficult as there were pretty much no instructions at all on how to make it, only some very unclear pictures, which were very complicated and (to me) did not make any sense. Thankfully, Mr Ward decided that the class should not have to do this exercise, and therefore I didn't get to finish it. The next exercise I now have to do is the 'Ball Point Pen', but I'm not sure if I'm going to have enough time to finish it as these are all due Friday. Hopefully, I'll have some time to get it done and handed in on the due date.

Reflection

Our new topic in DT is Pro Desktop which was something most of the class had already done in year nine. While the new people who hadn't used Pro Desktop before got a tutorial from Mr Ward, the rest of us went straight to work with the activities in the Pro Desktop handbook. Luckily, I found the activities quite easy and did not have any trouble with them and didn't need to ask any questions throughout the two lessons. We had to make a Toy Block with letters on the faces of the block with and without a dint on each of the faces, and I am now onto making a Sony camera design that is a little more challenging but still very interesting and fun to make. Overall, I'm really enjoying using Pro Desktop and look forward to making more things in the program.

Oral Review

I believe that Rosy and I did a good job on our oral as we are happy with the speech we wrote, both tried to speak clearly and we had a decent PowerPoint that matched our speech. Some improvements that I believe we could have improved on is that we could of had more slides on our PowerPoint so that the audience had more to look at and maybe have gotten more information on our resort. We also felt that the speech might have gone a little overtime. My personal performance I think was pretty good but I did stumble on a few words. I also talked rather fast. However, we had a great response from the class as people were involved in what we were saying and asked a few questions at the end.

I thought Ally and Bridget's presentation was really good as they had an interesting and informative speech with a PowerPoint that included really cool and interesting pictures of their resort

Our Finished Product - Pictures

 An overview of our finished model

 Close up of the waterfall and waterwheel

Whole view of the lake and waterfall with the houses to the side