Final Blog BRAH

On friday night we had our presentation. Our group had been going over what slides we were doing and what we were going to talk about before we had to present. Our group had to be ready because we were going second out of everyone. When we presented we had initials on each slide for who was speaking for that slide so that no one would get confused. While presenting, the time seemed to go by extremely quick. When I first looked at my watch, we were only at six minutes, and the next time i looked, we were at eleven and we still had a few slides to go. Our final time was around 15 minutes, but its ok because the information that was given out during the presentation was phenomenal.  I was proud of my group and I think we all did a very well job during the entire process of the project. Our hard work in the classroom as well as the manual labor that our group exemplified has really paid off. I've grown to become not only partners with my group members, but friends as well. I am happy with our group and the work we have done. I hope our project idea of the river lives on as promised. So long Physics!

Presentation Brah

On friday night, we will have our presentations for physics. My group reviewed a little for the presentation, but we did not have a script because we all knew which slides we had to talk about and what to talk about on each slide because we practiced before we had our presentation. Our group was second so we had to try and get a great start. Each of us had about three or four slides to talk about. I hope that our group does good on our presentation. Also our group is still working on our final paper that is due for class. Each of us contributed to the paper. We met all the requirements that were given for the final paper according to Ho'oulu ia Kamehameha. I hope we do good on the presentation!

The end of it all...

Even though this is a very happy moment because this is our last blogpost, it is also a very sad moment because that means my time of being a senior at Kamehameha is coming to an end. Well, enough with the waterworks, this project as a whole has taught me a lot of things about myself that I never knew and about my teammates as well. We did a lot together as a group; starve together, bleed together, sweat together and the most important, almost died together. Even though there were some close calls, it was really fun because we got to adventure into the valley where hardly anyone is allowed to enter. A lot of things went right with our project. We found a lot of support from teachers and administrators that helped to make our project what it was. It also helped us prolong our project for the future generations to continue and that is what would make me feel like we accomplished our project, if the future generations continued what we started. We did our blogposts, our mid-term peer reviews, and papers on time for the most part and that was due to leadership between all of us. What did not go so right was the fact that even though we all had a side of leadership, we had sides of us that we did not know before like laziness. This was a minor flaw within the whole project but it was there. We did not plan on being left without water and food when we ventured into the valley, that was a miscalculation on our part thinking that we could travel 5 to 6 miles through a forest and slippery rocks with a minimal amount of supply. Although we almost died because of this, it taught us a lot because we know now that in order to reach the back of the valley, proper planning has to be done to survive the treacherous trip. What I would like to see changed is not specifically based on the project guidelines itself, but on the people's ideas. I would like to see some uniqueness in their projects and not some boring thing that everyone thinks of, but to think outside of the box that hides us from seeing what really needs to be done. I believe that we were doing science because it dealt with water flow and how there wasn't a sufficient amount of pressure and gravity to push the water down the length of the stream. Overall, this project was a fun learning experience, we got to be with the 'āina and it taught us a lot about ourselves.

Final Blogpost :'(

Well unfortunately this will be my last blog post for this year. Our final project for physics was one of the most interesting and hands on projects that I have ever had. I extremely enjoyed this project and all that it came with. This project is exactly what this school needs, for it gives positive feedback and change to our ever occurring and evolving problems as the years go on. Especially since the students use the facilities and equipment most, it is logical that we are the ones to solve them to make life a little more easier, simpler or more convenient. I feel that many thinks went well for our group. From the start our group was given great ideas and advice for topics to support in our project. Every time we had an interview or meeting with a teacher we ended up with much more information than we expected to get. Although our hikes were not so fortunate in progress so we had to do what we could. Our original plan was to reach the origin of the stream in the back of the mountain, we soon realized this was impossible with the time we had. So our next goal was to clean out the dams and blockades that we encounter to lessen the constriction of water flow. Unfortunately we were unable to accomplish this for many of the blockades required high performance tools and a lot of man power to accomplish. I learned many things from this project, which included teamwork, organization, communication, and hard work. I learned a lot about the stream too, everything that happened whether bad or good, gave us information about the stream itself and we further learned about it. I feel that nothing for this project should be changed, for everything is pretty good. The only thing I felt that I was displeased with in the beginning was the decision of who our group members were; at first with no control I was very angry. But as time went on it was actually a good thing that happened. I felt like I was solving a physical problem around our school that helped the school, faculty and students. The science part hit me every so often, and I couldn’t believe that by doing this project I was incorporating all the aspects of physics that I had learned over the school year. Overall I really like this project and will greatly miss this class. 

Leading up to the presentation

The week leading up to the presentation was a long one but showed how strong our group was as a whole. We persevered even through the headaches we caused each other. The keynote at first was very wordy and this had to change because we did not want to bore the entire audience before we even spoke. Mr. Blake also did not want the keynote to be wordy because he wanted to see what we actually knew and if we could actually speak about it without that much words being presented on the screen. I would say that having few words worked in our favor because we could talk more freely about our project as we did our presentation. Overall, the week leading up to the presentation brought our group closer together.

Presentations!!!!!!

So this shall be one of our last blogs for this class. L But this week we finished our project with our presentation to our classmates, parents and 10’s of people!!!! On Friday 18^th, everyone in Mr. Blake’s class had to stay after school from 5 to 9 pm in order to share all of our projects. I must say a lot of the other groups had some really good ideas to contribute for this project. I particularly liked a few of them, I noticed them around the campus and really found them useful. I feel that this project is just what our school needs for students for it gives us a chance to fix up our school, seeing as we are the ones using it everyday. I feel like our group did fairly well at our presentation. We tried to relay our information as best we good, attempted to stay in the time allotted, and tried to bring comical relief so that it wasn’t a  10 minute drag. I overall felt like we did good and I hope that our project can be carried on for the next years to come so that it may be able to be completed. 

Ends Meet

http://presentationwritingsecrets.com/2012/04/14/how-not-to-give-a-technical-presentation/
   
     This weekend, we took the time to make sure our documents were prepped and ready to go for next week, though we will continue editing and adding one more section. So far, we've compiled our data and put in our construction process, as well as the implementation. Now, as the school year comes to a close, we also have to work on our keynote for the presentation this Friday. The draft needs to be turned in by Tuesday, which has given us a good amount of time to work with, so we can turn in an excellent presentation. As things start to end for the year, we will continue to do our best and keep working hard.

Breaking Tides Brah

Our group went to the river over the weekend on sunday. We woke up early and got ready for the day because we knew that the day would be long because we were going to go all the way to the back to figure our our problem. We tried to go all the way back and we only got halfway. We realized it would be impossible to get there without probably camping overnight. Our next goal is to go to the lo'i patch down by main gate and dig a trench that would connect the river to the lo'i patch so that way incase the river is flowing, the water would go to the lo'i patch and we would solve one of our solutions on our list.

Final Documents Prep

            Today our group used our class time to work on our presentations and final document for our project. We went to Midkiff in order to get some help from Mama Fuj and friends that gave us information to help with the project. With the days ticking down quicker than any of us expected, we need to get all of our things ready. At the pace where we are now I feel that we are at a good point and should be on the right track for these last two documents. Our group has gone on several hikes and gathered many pictures and videos. Our data for water flow has been stalled due to the fact that there IS NO water. But I guess saying no flow is data for it means that there was insufficient amount of water to cause a flow. Soon all our blood, sweat and tears shall pay off as our project will hopefully change our school for the better. 

Preparations

This weekend was set aside for us to work more on refining our paper and planning a bit more ahead. We are scheduling a large hike for one of these weekends, which will take some organizing to get done. On the hike, we hope to accomplish much that will push our project forward. Namely, we'd like to shift some of the blockages and such in the stream, and also hike up to where the water is free-flowing. On Friday, Ms. Zisk also gave us some more useful information and documents that will be useful for our expedition. Until then, there's more work to be done!

Going Down Brah

Our group was supposed to go down to the bottom of the hill near main gate and enter the river from the bottom. Unfortunately Kumu Kawika was unable to take us down to main gate so we decided to do something else to make use of our time. Our group went up to the top of the hill near the girls dorms and entered the forest. From there we headed down the hill. Along the way it was kind of challenging going down because there would be big drops going down the hill and in many spots it was just dirt so it was very slippery. We were looking for openings that would get us close to the river. We went down a little far and every where we went we were unsuccessful in finding the river. We concluded form that experience that we should only enter from the bottom of the hill and go up from there.

getting support

So basically our group has a lot of support from the school. The workers at our school are helping us with  a lot of things such as getting us supplies and everything that we need to get done. They are allowing us to use any machine that we need to get the job done and I am greatly appreciative of their hospitality so is our group. We need to get stuff done and basically we are getting a lot of help from other people such as Mr. Cashman, who is a dorm advisor who is helping with the Punalu'u lo'i. We are ready for whatever comes our way because of the support we are getting from our whole school. This is what we need to be successful in our project.

Doctor Chun and the Wai

 
 http://www.webs.com/frozen.htm?uname=wolffanticy

Today was quite and interesting day. In the morning, before class, we had an assembly honoring Doctor Chun, our Headmaster who is retiring. He has been a great inspiration to all of us students and will be missed greatly. He actually relates to our project because in the past there was no garden at the base of our campus. He was crucial in supporting and garnering support for the creation of said garden. Later in the day we were able to talk to Mrs. Zisk again. We asked her about the stream and if she knew where the different wai (Such as the Auwai, and the Poʻowai) might be. She said that she will look into it and gave us names of a few people who most likely do. We have also planned  hikes for Thursday and Sunday, with the latter being a major undertaking. Hopefully we can get a lot done.