Tech Fair.

Hello, my name is Azaan and I am a student of Technology. As one, it is mandatory for me and my classmates to take part in an event called the: Tech Fair.


Unit: Tech Fair Project.
Global context: Scientific and technical innovation.
Statement of Inquiry: Developments in technology could be seen as blessing or a curse depending on the impact it has on an individual or society.
Inquiry Question: How can we use Technology to help develop our ideas to create a masterpiece for the ‘Tech Fair’?
ATL: Thinking skills and research skills

The tech fair is like an exhibition where students must make their own piece of work that is either a hardware or a software.

So me and Yahya have decided to contribute and now have started with our ideas. The following paragraph(s) will have our information given to you so that you may know the answer to some that were asked by our teacher.

What was the product or software developed and how does it work?

The product/software is a DELIVERY DRONE and it works to transport things from one place to another. 

Who developed it?

Me and Yahya (a nice and intelligent classmate) will be developing the drone.

A paragraph on what was developed and how does the product benefit the society. 

Me and Yahya will by developing a Delivery Drone and this drone (should)will be able to deliver certain items. This is going benefit the society because it will deliver that package certain places and make transportation very easy.   

Reflection – On how your research went. What were the keywords that you used in the search engine to get your results. Did you get your results in the first attempt? What were the problems that you faced when searching and how did you refine your search to get the desired result?

Honestly, I really didn't really do much research and on my product. I thought of doing Wall-E but, when I teamed up with Yahya, we decided to do a delivery drone. I did do some surfing to check the pros and cons for a delivery drone because it was required for a PowerPoint Presentation. Under the information will be the PowerPoint slides. Here is the info:

Pros:

·  It is fast and does not have any restrictions to move around. (Dead end, traffic, etc).

·  You don’t need to start it at any point, just put it down and let it fly to its destination.

·  Speed, Flexibility and Ease of Delivery.

Cons:

·  Cost is so much more than some other types of transportation.

·  If one wants to deliver something very heavy, the drone wouldn’t be able to do so and might even break under the weight.

·  The heavier the item, the more energy which also (sort of) point mentioned above. 

Me and Yahya even looked at some drone videos. They looked very nice but it looked very hard to build. Here are some I am looking at right now, I will display one video and the rest as the references.

Here is this video's Reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTFLdy7-iYc

Here some of the references:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on4DRTUvst0 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CYT4PFV_Hs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5iLq_lJeUU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXo_d6tNWuY

(The last one is my favorite!)

Hello everyone, I am back and starting from now on... I am going to be writing around 200-250 words every week in the Tech Fair Unit.  So I shall start from the end of this week... and so on.

23/1/2016 (The oldest).

I had been alerted that there will a Tech Fair, at the end of the first term and the IT teacher had told that the Tech Fair would started in Term 2. (A little note: This reflection of 200 words is being written around 3 weeks of the Tech Fair of the Tech Fair). 

The holidays went fast and schooled was reopened for Term 2. The first thing, as a class and individually, was to think of a few ideas for the Tech Fair. This was easy as I already had a very quick idea for what to do. To make Wall-E. Even the IT teacher was happy with my idea and that it would surely allow me to win the Tech Fair. 

The next lesson, I had to pick a partner or I could have worked alone. I picked a partner as I thought it would be easier and as it is my first year of doing the tech fair. So I chose Yahya as my partner.

I and he have been working on the product but, after a long discussion, we decided that our product should be a Delivery Drone! I and he have a lot of progress and we are really getting into the Tech Fair. But we still haven’t got into the designing of the Drone but instead: The announcing of it, the planning of it and more.      

24/1/2016.

I had to peer evaluate Yahya for his blog, and so I did. I also had to evaluate myself. The something applied to Yahya. So the first picture you will see below is the self evaluation. The next one is the Peer Evaluation that was sent from and done by Yahya. 

9/2/2016.

Hello everyone who is seeing my process in the Tech Fair. I am very sorry that I have not typed anything since... I am not counting the amount of days I didn't blog. But now I am here! So now I am in the process of making the delivery Drone! Sadly, Yahya is not here today and so I can not do much without him. But I do have the materials I had to bring from the list which are: A glue gun, a few base plates from Lego, a belt, a selfie stick holder piece and a headlamp. I hope to keep up with my blogging! 

14/2/2016 (Valentine's Day). 

Today, I had been requested from the IT teacher (and the real one was here today (Ms. Veena)) to write a reflection that is not less than 200 words, today. So here it is:

Me and Yahya have not started building it but it will be done TODAY! :) So I hope that within these 11 days (since the project is due on the 25/2/2016) that we build it and that we have a model ready and flying in the high blue sky. I am getting really nervous but inshallah we will have something to display. As I write this reflection, my heart is pounding and I am just thinking of a drone flying when we demonstrate it. 

Yahya has brought the materials required and so have I. There are lots of factors that me and Yahya have to consider but, those factors (inshallah) will be surpass and put into. I am seeing the creations of other people and seeing that people are really thinking hard and I don't think we will be in the final 3 or even win! :(.

Me and Yahya are using lots of hardware such as: Wiring, Wood, headlamp, Lego pieces (speaking of Lego pieces, that is another thing that we are adding to our list.),  camera holder piece and more. Sadly, we are using only 1 type of software to replace sensors and that's: A Canon Camera App. This adds to more to my tension because my father said to me, "Hardware can't work without software and Software can't work without Hardware,".   

As you can see, I am getting really nervous and tensed. Hopefully, by the end of this Tech Fair event, I hope to be happy and know that we have done our best.

22-23/2/2016. 

      Hello everyone. Me and Yahya, have already, decided to change our Tech Fair Product! We felt that it was too hard and so, we decided to something else that was suggest by Ms. Veena.

 She suggested that we use the schools Lego and also program it to move and drive around. It took me a long time for me to decide whether or not that I want to change my whole project again when there was only 8 days left till they were going to go to assessing and check through. Yahya was happy with the Idea and was persuading me to do that (since was his idea and plan to change it). Finally I decided to rebuild it. 

A friend of mine decided to help me and Yahya out and we are now really close to completing the Product. There is a problem: The programming is a big process and is, believe it or not, is still going through because we need a CD that contains the Lego Mindstorm NXT 2.0 software inside it. (Lego Mindstorm NXT 2.0 is the software that we are using to program that Product). So far everything is going well and me and him have been giving up a lot of our time in our Lunch Breaks! 

I hope that we make it into the top 16. (The teacher decides the 4 best from our class, and I assume that is the same thing for the other classes (and there are 4 classes in every year.)). With supreme luck, I hope we even win this competition. This is going to be a close call and I hope this works out in the end. Also bear in mind the product itself is getting marked and those marks are going to my report! 

I hope to always update my blog and hope that, whoever is reading this, will help me in this big process and Unit!

1/3/2016.

Happy March. And the happiest day for me!!! Ms. Veena and I finally programmed the model for the Tech Fair. Yahya was able to finish the model's looks. This is a huge relief because, we went through lots and lots of problems and agony. Even Ms. Veena had to struggle with us!

 Today we were supposed to be presenting our work to Ms. Veena and the class. Since some people also didn't present during today's lesson, we had more time to work on the Project. 

Now finally, it works! Yahya was not there to witness its first steps sadly but I will hopefully be able to tell him the story. It was moving backwards and I was a little bit surprised, but I was too happy to want to question its movement. 

Ms. Veena gave 2 suggestions which were:

·  Make the program more complex.

·  To replace the/ add a touch sensor so that, once it hits an object it will reverse and then avoid the object.

The model looks amazing and it even works. I hope this brings us to the Final 16. But there is a very low chance, from my point of view, to win the in the actual Tech Fair and win the prizes.   

This is how the NXT Software looks like once you open up a program.

2/3/2016.

Hello everyone, as you know, I have different product for the Tech Fair. This also means that this will require its own PowerPoint. This time, I have made the PowerPoint (the Quad-copter version was made by Yahya.) and here they are snipped by using Snipping Tool. 

3/3/2016

Remember how you I told you that, on the 1/3/2016, people from other pairs and groups had to present their projects to the rest of the class. So the rest of the class had to take notes and decide whether or not, that certain group goes to the Tech Fair or not.

As you should know as well, is that me and Yahya were very busy working on the project so, I did all the note taking while Yahya was building the our project. So, under pressure, I typed on Word and straight, here, on my Blog. So I have snipped the Notes so that it is easy for you to see who presented and what they questions and answers are.

Christopher and Bhavya and their invention, “Blinky”, robot that runs on Solar Power came up first I think. Their robot was good but in the end, I was not satisfied.

Blinky had eyes of which were purchased and stuck to the body, which was a can, this makes the robot look a little bad (personally.). The legs were very poorly made and were not exactly well designed or produced. Plus, I couldn’t see any software work in the model.

But the way it worked was very good as it used "Green," power. Their robot, Blinky, started a walking as soon as it touched the floor. When they were giving a small recap, I heard that their work can contain food. This made me happier about their work. I liked how Blinky had a transparent compartment that contained (I think) double A batteries and that the batteries were connected using wires.

Sadly, in the end of their presentation, I decided that Christopher, Bhavya and Blinky shouldn’t go to the Tech Fair.

Blinky has a lot of room for improvement. Blinky could be a lot well designed, and can also try to contain proper, and little bit of better software usage. The main problem with Blinky is that he is too basic and should tuned to look and work better. 

I loved Yousief's the most. It is 100% beneficial to society. It is also quite portable. His model which allowed an A/C that works any time and beneficial to those who are less fortunate. 

I am not too sure how Yousief constructed his model/project. I remember that he used a big, green box and inside that, it contained an ice pack. He also said something about cutting wires for the box to work. But I'm not too sure how he made it work on a USB. 

I wish I made something like that because:

1. He built by himself, so it mustn't have been so difficult.

2. It is super beneficial to society and I don't how this isn't.

If I had to rate Yousief's out of 10 (From all the information I know!) then I would give him a perfect 10/10!

Personally, I don’t think there is anything I need to say in terms of improvement! GREAT JOB TO YOUSIEF! 

I love how he made 2 items for 1 Tech Fair. Adding to that, I love how both of them are good and perfectly created. The drone was built of different, built-in items put together. The Air Refresher is good is terms of fragrance. He used little like-balls that were really slippery and smelt good. He put all in a jar and it started to make a good smell.  

Let’s start with the drone. The drone required certain, pre-made pieces to make the final thing. The drone really flies and can to an incredible high altitude. It’s remote controlled as well which, every drone requires. Timur has done a great job creating it and making it in the end.

Is that all, no! Sadly, again, I don’t exactly know how it was built as, everyone was crowding and by the time I could come to the front… he had already finished.  I know what the materials used were, but not how he used his materials. He used: A big box; lots and lots of squishy, fragrance and small balls and, a fan connected to the box.

Combining the 2 projects, and adding to that, in 1 tech fair is so amazing well done that he definitely deserves to go to the Tech Fair.   

The triple purpose car had well... 3 ways to work. 

1. A normal car.

2. A drone.

3. Remote Controlled. 

The car is really long and it's blue as well. They used Lego, and since Lego is light, it can be very portable and can also be very fast (due to Physics.) 

The problem with their project was that, it uses a lot of battery. In fact, when they were presenting, the car wasn't fully charged.

 Plus, since their car is really long, that would mean that it is pretty fragile. Actually, for storage, our project and their project were both using the same cupboard. So, as you know I had to lose my break times for this, when I would work after school and during the breaks, I would have to very carefully remove the Triple-Purpose car THEN, I could remove our model and put their project back. 

I was really happy with work and not at the same time. 

They created something I thought wouldn't exist for a long time. Well, now that "long time" is here. They created a car, which can climb on walls. 

They control it using a remote control, they attached it a camera. Whatever the camera see, can be seen on a watch.  The car uses vacuum cleaners suck up the air and stick to the wall… or something like that. This means that I don’t exactly know how the vacuums work though.

They, also, created a really nice game as well where, the car has to go through the obstacles and reach the finish line in the end.

There is a problem with it though, which is: They made the challenge on poster paper, so that makes the area small. Plus, the obstacles might a little bit too big.

1 problem they had in their presentation was that, when I asked them a question, they suddenly remembered that they had a watch to look at.

They bought a kit to make everything actually (besides the game of course.)! So maybe they could’ve broken it down so that, everything was created due to the kit. So, for example: Maybe the car could’ve been bought from a different place. Basically, so that there are a few things that are not from the kit.  

Rakan was the first person to go. He created a game called, “Tanks!”

His game is a 1 vs. 1 player game that’s has 1 map, but the scenery gets different. By different, I mean that the map gets darker. I think there are about 6 rounds. There are different structures such as: Rocks, Big houses and trees. 

Even before the day we were supposed to present, everyone in the class wanted to play on his Tanks game. Shortly after that, while Yahya and I were working on the Quad-Copter, I saw that there was a grid on his game and he was able to move his game around. So I would imagine that he was working and developing the game.

The softwares were really good so was the animation. But, to spruce the game up a little bit more, maybe he should add power-ups and and also put different types of maps. 

They had an amazing idea for the Tech Fair. To add to that, Alex and Khanda don't really work together, in fact, I think this is the first time they are working together. 

Even so, they were able to work together very well and create something, I thought no student could make: A Projector! 

The Projector actually works. It's 100% beneficial, like Yousief's, and it's something anyone can make.   

What was very unique and suprising was that, Jonas himself said that he didn't want to go into the Tech Fair, instead of trying to persuade and mention the good things about his project; everyone else was doing that, including Yahya and I. 

Karim and Adam Iich. 

Karim and Adam have created a Robot Ball called Sphero.

What I like about their creation is that, Sphero contains lots and lots of features. It has a camera, it has complicated wiring and you came download lots of apps. The project is resistant to falls ONLY if the ball that surrounds it, is attached. Plus, the Project can move anywhere by using an App for the Sphero. 

They used lots of kits but the wiring had to be self-done; instead of using lots of kits, try to use fewer kits to make spend less money. 

The project doesn't exactly have a good look for it only looks like wiring and motors so, I recommend that they attach a shell on it and paint and decorate it. It isn’t very good in the end because, there were a little of problems when they were presenting.

Personally, I don't feel Karim and Adam shouldn't go to the Tech Fair because, all in all, it doesn't have a good presentation and still looks like it is still in progress. 

We used sticky notes to notify whether or not a certain group goes to the Tech Fair or not. So basically, we are given 2 types of sticky notes, the lighter color and the darker color. If you write the people of the group's name on the LIGHTER sticky note, that means that you want them to GO to the Tech Fair. On the other hand, if you write their name on the DARKER sticky note, then you DON'T want them to go the Tech Fair. In the end, you must have decided on everyone's projects. 

Hopefully Yahya and I will have more majority of Lighter colored sticky notes than Darker colored sticky notes. 

Thank you for reading this recent post and hope you wish us luck.  

7/3/2016.

Hello. Yesterday, Yahya and I presented in front of the class showing our model and the NXT 2.0 Program.

We started off by showing the Program and the model to the whole class. This was done because the teacher, Ms. Veena, told us to go around the class, displaying it. After that, we presented and explained our program and model. We also presented the PowerPoint Presentation above. Ms. Veena asked us a lot of questions and also my classmates asked Yahya and I a lot of them as well. We were able to answer their questions in an adequate way. This means that it was below average! :(.  To make matters worse, when I had to mark and take notes on others work, I kept saying that THEY should be going to the Tech Fair! To summarize, I want people to go to the Tech Fair when I really and desperately want to go to the Tech Fair. THIS will devastatingly hurt my chances of going to the Tech Fair.  

I think that we will not make it to the Tech Fair as, I received a lot of discrimination and too much feedback regarding the model. The only that can save us is the model because it looked really good.  

:(.


10/4/2016.

Fresh well come back to school after the 2 week Spring Break! Since the school always starts on a Sunday, IT is also on a Sunday.

Well this is it. My final reflection on the Tech Fair.

Sadly, I don't know if I followed all the Criteria because, I don't remember all the criteria s and what they want.

I feel that are time management skills were not very well used. I say this because of the pressure Yahya and I had to go through. It might also be because of the switch from making a Quad copter to a NXT Car. 

I feel that I learnt a lot on Lego Engineering regarding to IT. One thing I learnt that is that the program is not very hard to operate once you start using it. The program is very flexible and quite easy to use. When the Tech Fair Unit ended, I asked Ms. Veena if people can make a living out of Lego Engineering. And guess what she replied, “Yes.”

Yahya and I were the creators of the Wheelie Cyclone. (Our model.) Yahya dealt mostly with the Hardware and I was responsible of the Software.