Final Blog Post

• We are getting closer and closer to the end. Everyone is talking about summer already and how we only have a few days left (just finals). I feel very accomplished after finishing our project. It's great to see people making use of the tables in 'Akahi and actually getting good feedback. I really enjoyed this project and like how we have made a small effect on our school. We have opened doors and opportunities for other ideas to be brought up within 'Akahi. I hope that our tables remain a good idea, and maybe one day all of the tables will be replaced. I'm glad I was in this group because I have made new friends. If it hadn't been for this project, I don't think I would have talked Austin, Joe, and Shelly too much. They were great people to have in a group and I feel that we have all worked good together. Things that went well were our ideas and our implementation. Our idea with the tables was a success. We also completed our oral presentation and met the time requirement. I felt that as a group, we did a good job presenting. One thing that didn't go as planned was our deployment day. We were supposed to set up our tables on the day that our deployment was due, but Mr. Morris told us we couldn't. The boarders were having a dinner with Dr. Chun that night, and 'Akahi needed the round tables. I learned to communicate more effectively within a group, and learned that when you work in a group, it's not just about one person doing all of the work. Everyone has to work together and pull their weight. I don't think there needs to be any changes to make this a better activity. As we worked on this project, I felt that we were doing a little science. Our project was mainly related to the scientific method. Our idea to improve the efficiency in 'Akahi was sort of related to inverse relations. Overall I am glad I was in Mr. Blake's class. He has been a great teacher and I loved the fourth quarter's project. It has showed me that physics is everywhere and related to almost everything.
  

Final Blogpost!

The school year is basically over with finals left.  I am so proud to have been in this class because I've made some very good friends and learned so many new things that will carry on with me to next year's AP Physics B class.  I feel that this project has really helped me grow as a person.  I think that this project will really help better our school for more years to come if this continues.  Things that went well was that my group members all helped to pull their weight and we found each others strengths throughout this project to help make it better.  I feel that if we were to start this project sooner we could accomplish a little more.  Some things that went wrong was that some of our calculations were messed up and we couldn't add plenty of extra seats but we did add more so I guess we did accomplish some things.  I learned that our school isn't perfect, nor can we make it perfect, but we can try our best to keep it well "structured".  I think aside from making this project longer, we should actually be able to choose our groups because even if you pair us up and force us to do the project, unless we completely like the members of our group, we won't accomplish as much as if we were with friends.  I believe that science is life, and we are living, therefore we are doing science.  But more importantly, this project basically told us to think outside the box and come up with a creative and reasonable solution.  Science is about finding different ways to look and solve a problem.  And this project definitely did that.

Final Blogpost :)

Wow, it's the final post. This quarter has definitely flew by. Overall, I think this project was pretty great because it gave us a lot of freedom to pinpoint a problem at our school and conduct a thorough experiment in an attempt to fix it. It was a lot of work at times, but it was without a doubt worth trying to give back to our school in some small way. One thing that didn't go as well as we would've liked was how we were unable to deploy on our designated day, but it was ultimately out of our hands because it had to do with the Dr. Chun's dinner with the boarders. Also, at times, it was hard to coordinate with our group, since we're all so busy, but in the end we all contributed a lot and were able to work together effectively. I think something that went well was how we were pretty much on time for most of the project, and I believe the findings from our project are significant now and possibly for future projects. I learned that there will always be problems out in the world, but there will also always be possibilities to fix them. How effective those solutions are depends on dedication and the desire to improve. I also learned that there's a lot possible with cooperation. I think that this project is a really great activity, and my only suggestion would be to make it an actual class for students that could focus all of their attention on improving the school, since students are the ones who can see problems that other people wouldn't have been able to identify. On another note, Mr. Blake always says that physics is all around us, which we learned in the last three quarters by doing weekly blogposts relating things in our lives to physics principles. Throughout the process of our project, I noticed a few things that could possibly be related to physics, such as inverse relationships. Also, the entire project was pretty much a scientific experiment. At the presentations on Friday, I saw how many other groups related their projects to physics well, and I realized that some projects related more to physics than others. Although our project could be connected to physics in some respects, it wasn't as related to physics as other groups' projects were. 

Now I bet you're wondering about the picture I chose for this post. Well, it's an image depicting the members of my group, Sean, Joe, and Austin, on one of the first days we worked together, during our interview with Mr. Morris. I feel that we've grown a lot since then, both as students and as a group. We worked well together, and I can honestly say that I've had such a good time being around them. They're all really talented, and I feel privileged to have been able to work with them. Out of all the things I've gained from this project, I'm especially appreciative to have gotten to become friends with the guys in the picture above. 

Final Blogpost !

As we inch closer and closer to the end, Senioritis is kicking in. Although the stress from finals is overwhelming, I am glad we were able to end this year with this project. Overall, I really enjoyed the Ho’oulu ia Kamehameha Project. This project did not only change the problems within school, but it changed myself as a person.  Within a couple of days, all the seniors will embark on a new journey called life. This project taught me how I can solve a problem through science. In the real world, I will need these essential traits to become successful. I am very fortunate to have worked with Austin, Shelly, and Sean. They have been great members because they each contributed in their own special way.

The only thing that didn’t go as planned was changing the tables. As stated in our presentation, Mr. Morris unexpectedly explained that Dr. Chun had a dinner with the borders that night. Fortunately, we were able to work around this issue and eventually we were able to solve it. Other than that, everything that we did go as planned.

Overall, I learned that the students, especially the seniors, need to give back to those who have given to us. By giving back to our school, we are showing respect for the administrators, our teachers, our classmates, and Pauahi. Again, I am so glad we were able to complete this project. I feel that this project was perfect in every way and every step in its process was necessary. Each step was necessary because in a way, it was like the steps of a science experiment. We had to find a problem, make a hypothesis, test our hypothesis, collect data, infer the data, and then make conclusions. And that's exactly what we did.  Overall, This project is way better than doing a final. Thank you Mr. Blake!

Daily Blog #40

We are finally approaching the last week of school! Last week, we presented our Ho’oulu ia Kamehameha project to our classmates. After learning from each group, I realized that all the physics students are very intelligent. I was aware of some of the group’s projects, for example the bag hooks and saving the electricity. But the rest of the projects were fantastic.  I was amazed to see how each group decided to attack their problem at Kamehameha. Most of the groups were able to impact the School in a very small, subtle way. For example, the daily lunch posted on Konia Field, the Paki Bench, and the “Be bright, turn out the Light” posters around upper campus.

I am very pleased to have worked with my group members. I was lucky to work with them because each member participated in one way or another. Although we have totally different personalities, we were able to mend together. I feel great to have helped Kamehameha before I graduate. 

Daily Blog #39

Today we met in Konia 108-109 to prepare for our speech tonight. We had to make sure our slide show was in order and ready to present. After school ended, our group met in Mr. Blake's classroom and rehearsed a little and worked out a few flaws. We stayed in there for about an hour, practicing and preparing ourselves. We then dispersed and went to take showers and do the other things to make sure we looked good. I felt that we did a good job with our speech. The only thing that we were really missing was our citations which we noticed as the other groups presented. During our speech, my phone vibrated in my pocket and when I checked it later, it was my mom sending me a picture. This picture was taken of her computer screen as she was watching our presentation online.

Daily Blog #38

Today, our group turned in a draft of our written report, which basically explains our entire project. We spent about half of class finishing the draft, and the other half we continued to work on our oral presentation/slideshow. The picture above depicts the script we've created, since our presentation is tomorrow. We still need to do a few run throughs to see how it flows and to make sure we're speaking from between 9 to 12 minutes. We're practicing in class tomorrow, and I think we're going to try and meet up after school as well, before the presentation. We definitely want to do our best tomorrow.

Daily Blog #37

Hey we are just one day away from submitting our final report and just two from our final presentation. I am really looking forward for Friday as we discuss and present our final products and projects. I hope it turns out well. We are going to see if we are able to keep the tables in Akahi for the remainder of the year and maybe even until next school year. If everything goes well we might be able to switch out more tables for the rectangular ones and there will be enough room for an extra lunch line. Anyways, wish us luck on our final presentation.

Daily Blog #36

The above picture depicts 'Akahi, which is where our group has been focusing on for this project. We needed a picture of the dining hall for our slideshow, so I took this one today. In class, we mostly worked on our powerpoint presentation, which will be shown during our oral presentation on Friday. Luckily, Joe uploaded it to Google Docs so we could all work on it at the same time. We are also trying to work on what exactly we're going to be saying during each slide so we can get a better idea of how our presentation will flow. We want to practice our oral presentation sometime before Friday as well, since it counts as our final exam grade.

Daily Blog #35

This is a picture of our status of our slideshow presentation. We are going to complete it during class tomorrow. 

As the due days continue to get closer and closer we are inching closer to the ending of the school year. Currently for physics, we are in the process of constructing a slideshow presentation of our Ho’oulu ia Kamehameha project. So far, our project has been going good. We have been able to introduce a change within Kamehameha that helps with space efficiency. We are also getting data that will help us see how much of a change there has been. Our group has been tentative with completing blog posts and with our final report. We have split up the final report for each of the group members. We are looking forward to speaking this Friday in front of our classmates, teacher, and administrators. 

Daily Blog #34

This past week, our group has gotten a lot done. We have replaced 10 circular tables with 12 rectangular tables, thus adding 16 additional seats to the dining hall. We have also turned all of our data from the pre-survey into graphs so that it is more easily understood. We also continued to work on our final report. Austin also time-lapsed the video of Akahi with the new tables. We will be playing this video as well as the one from before we deployed our project in our presentation. One thing we need to do this week is talk about the oral presentation. We need to figure out who is saying what so that we are organized. I feel that we have accomplished a lot so far as a group and worked well with our project.

Daily Blog #33

Hey guys so today we worked on our final report draft.  The project is finally starting to conclude, and we are putting the finishing touches to our inventions.  Looking back on this, I think that we did a pretty well working project.  Of course there wasn't that many physics principles highlighted within our project, we've grown a great appreciation for both the school and the staff.  We couldn't accomplish a lot of what we did without the help of Mr. Morris and the Akahi staff, as well as Mr. Blake and the full cooperation of the students.  We hope that our presentations go well next Friday and we get enough feedback for the dining hall to keep the rectangular tables.

Daily Blog #32

Today, my group collaborated about the upcoming events for this project. We are doing work everyday to help relieve stress in a few weeks. We are collecting more data and incorporating it in our presentations. Next week, we are looking to collect data of the overall ambiance in ‘Akahi. By now, the rectangular tables have been in affect for three days. We will leave the tables out for a week or so and then change them back to the round tables. We are going to ask the people who sit on the tables if they like or dislike the new tables. Also, we have found out that a group form period 4 is doing a change within ‘Akahi. They are putting hooks on the back the chairs for student’s bags and laptops. We are hoping that these two changes will have a positive affect within ‘Akahi.

Daily Blog #31

So the first draft of our written report is due tomorrow. We have a Google docs for it so that we can all work on it. Luckily, writing it is not that bad since we're "experts" on our own project. It's basically an overall report of everything we've done this quarter, which seems like kind of a lot. We've also been trying to work on our oral presentation, since it's coming up really fast--next Friday. The presentation is also our final exam, so we need to be sure that we're well prepared.

Daily Blog #30

Yesterday, as we mentioned in our previous blogposts, we went down to Akahi to set up our tables. It was good to see the reaction from people as they saw that their original tables were gone. Tomorrow in class, we will be going over our data we have gotten from our pre-survey. We will also need to put out our post-survey and ask people to take it. We will probably be posting it on our facebook pages again because it seemed the most effective. Hopefully we will get as great of a response as our pre-survey. I spoke with a few of my friends, and they didnʻt mind the rectangular tables. They thought it was an okay idea.

Daily Blog #29

Today, we deployed our project for the first time. We walked down to the dining hall and began to remove the circular tables and in a specific area. We took out 10 of the circular tables and added in 12 rectangular ones, thus adding 16 more seats, like Austin mentioned in the previous blogpost. After the area was cleared, Sean and Joe began to bring in the new tables and arrange them. Austin and I helped to open and arrange them, and we also wiped them down. After placing the chairs around the new tables, we taped our informational papers to each new table and to the window near the entrance. Besides the two extra tables, were also able to create extra space in the dining hall, as depicted by the above picture. Again, we placed a flip video camera in the corner of Akahi, this time, with a note explaining that the recording is for a physics project and to "please do not touch." Overall, today was a successful deploy day because we got a lot done. Hopefully we will start to see some results.

Daily Blog #28

Hey guys.  Today was the day! We finally installed the new tables.  Although it wasn't the exact plan we anticipated to fulfilling, we managed to pull it off.  We landed up added two more extra tables (thats 16 more seats) inside the dining hall.  Of course a lot of the students had to take some time to figure out what was going on.  Although the plan was fulfilled, we had a few discrepancies during the installation of the tables.  One of the biggest ones was the fire exit.  From the beginning, we knew that we were not able to block the doors, but today we were told that one of the tables were not allowed to be in the position it was in because it was "too close" to the door.  We thought there was a plethora of room but we managed to get around it by clearing out a huge amount of space next to it to make accessibility to the door easier.  Others included how many extra tables were could fit.  This is because we had more room than we anticipated, therefore, we wanted to add extra tables, but we didn't so that was kind of voided.  Other than that we had a lot of positive feedback from the students who ate on the tables.  We are hoping that this will be with the school for a long time.

Daily Blog #27

This past week, we were supposed to switch the tables in Akahi during 4th period on Thursday, when our entire group was present. However, as Joe explained in the previous blogpost, we met some challenges and couldn't do it that day. I e-mailed Mr. Morris to make sure that it was alright if we went in on Tuesday to switch the tables. The rest of Thursday, since we had some extra time, was dedicated to further planning (like for our oral presentation) and the creation of a short informational paper (depicted above) to be placed on the new tables. This was the first draft, and Mr. Blake printed out a bunch of copies for us and made the paper even nicer by switching the "Ho'oulu iā Kamehameha" with the picture on the website.

Daily Blog #26

This is a picture of our group after an unsuccessful prototype deployment. Unfortunately, we were not able to change the tables in ‘Akahi due a sudden change of plans. Mr. Morris gave us the “Ok” to change the tables, but as were about to replace the tables he remembered that ‘Akahi had to accommodate Dr. Chun and the Boarders for dinner. Fortunately, Mr. Blake was very understanding of our situation. We are planning to change the tables next week Tuesday during 4^th Period. We will record the students’ reactions with a flip camera. We are hoping to see what the overall affect the new tables will bring and hopefully it will affect ‘Akahi in a positive way. With the end of the school year just around the corner, we are all giving our very best towards this project.

Daily Blog #25

Hey sorry so this post is so late.  I thought I was doing today's blog but apparently I was supposed to do yesterdays.  Anyways, just pretend that today was actually yesterday and what you are about to read pertains to what we were supposed to do today.

So tomorrow (*wink wink) we are going to set up tables in Akahi to start our prototype.  We will be stacking chairs, folding tables and laying 12 rectangular tables out for our plan.  We are hoping that we will get some help with the tables, but that might be a little difficult because the Akahi staff will be busy due to lunch and there are no others that can assist us.  It shouldn't be that hard though.  We are only packing 9 tables and unfolding 12 tables.  The hard part is creating the layout of Akahi.  Other than that we should do this within the 80 minute period.

Daily Blog #24

Today, we didn't spend much time in class. One, because each period is only 30 minutes today, and two because lunch was Hawaiian food. Anyway, we created Google docs for our oral presentation and final report because we want to get started on that as soon as possible so that we aren't stressing too much later. On Thursday during fourth period, our group is going to meet at Akahi so that we can replace some of the circular tables with rectangular ones. Although Mr. Morris put in three rectangular tables a few weeks ago, this week will be our first "official" deployment of our project. We will continue to collect data (over 70 people have already taken our survey), and hopefully everything will go well.

Daily Blog #23

(this post is for yesterday, April 30)

Within a couple of days, our project will be implemented into the wild. Hopefully we can record valuable qualitative and quantitative data that will show the affect. There will be a significant change in ‘Akahi after we change the current circular tables to rectangular tables. My group has hypothesized that there many of the students who sit in the area will either continue to sit there or move somewhere else. By changing the tables we will help to ease congestion within ‘Akahi. Hopefully, if the new tables are more effective than the circular tables, Mr. Morris will change all the circular tables to rectangular tables. If so, there will be enough room in ‘Akahi to add another lunch line to help ease the congested lunch lines. But, we’re working at one step at a time. If all goes as planned, by next week we will have good data to compare with and we will see how the new tables affect ‘Akahi.