S,R,V DLO Burj Khalifa Tower

INTRO:

This terms task was to create a DLO (Digital Learning Object) about an event in history or an era. We were formed into groups of three. My group consisted of Shoal, Rita and I. The event in history we decided to do was to create the Burj Khalifa tower which is known as the tallest tower in the world. Personally I thought that this was a great idea to do, not only because its the tallest tower in the world, but because I knew nothing about it and because everyone was doing there DLO about people. Our plan was to create a paper mache of the tower but that changed due to lack of time. So we thought the best way to show everyone the Burj Khalifa Tower was to do a timelapse of us making and painting it.

PMI:

Positives- Our end result for our tower movie is finished! I am really proud of it. Our purpose was to inform people about the Burj Khalifa tower and I think we achieved that really well. The positive things I think happened, was that we got lots of help from different teachers. They shared with us their ideas and it helped us a lot. We also worked together. Then our voice over. It had lots of expression, it was clear, and it had no silly noises in the background.

Negatives- Some things I think our group needs to work on is time management. If we had started sooner and if we didn’t play around, we could have finished earlier. We also should’ve downloaded the photos we took on the camera straight away because the next day when we went to check them out, we found out that they all been deleted by accident. We then had to change our idea.

Interesting- My most interesting part of our project was doing an animation with photos for our introduction. It looked really cool and I think it hooks our audience in. I also was interested with our facts and information about the tower. Thanks to Rita she found out lots of information about the Burj Khalifa tower and we all learnt more about it.  

FACTS:

The construction of it’s work started on the 21st of September 2004 and exterior was finished on the 1st of October 2009, but it only officially opened on the 4th of January 2010. The project of the Burj Khalifa tower was estimated to have costed just about over 1.5 billion US dollars. So much money was spent on this project, and it was all worth it because now there are several different compartments in this tower, earning more money then as to how much it costed to build it. The Burj Khalifa tower is well known around the whole world for it’s height obviously and it’s sight. The tower is a beautiful structure and my group and I have surely tried to capture it’s essence. We hope that this was an informative piece about The Burj Khalifa Tower.

CONCLUSION:

Making our DLO was a lot of fun yet extremely hard. We had to change our ideas three times just because of silly mistakes. Making the tower was lots of fun. It seemed easy to do but believe it or not the tower was really complicated to make. It had different shades of grey and it was curved. I’m just happy we finished our project with a decent movie.

Shoal, Viv, Rita from Team 5 PES on Vimeo.

Diamond Age (Where all the 3D Printing happens!)

Three lucky students from our school (Pt England) were fortunate enough to travel down to Henderson, to a place called Diamond Age. This place wasn't just an ordinary place. This place known as Diamond Age creates 3D models. That's not all though. It also creates parts to create another Rep Rap.

Mrs Nua, Makayla, Shoal and I walked into the building with no expectations. My first step into the building created goosebumps on my arm. I was so excited yet cold as the cold air blew on my face. I looked around and saw Miria. Miria is helping us get a 3D printer in our school. Anyway, next to her was a man with long grey hair and denim jeans. His name was Vik and he was our tour guide.

Vik showed us the process of making parts for a Rep Rap. Then he showed us what I like to call TOYS! But he likes to call them 3D models.  Vik was so kind and generous that he let us choose one to take back to school. I got a plastic tennis ball. Shoal got a plastic slingshot and Makayla got a plastic lemon squeezer. All these toys were made from the Rep Rap that Vik made.

Our workshop with Vik was so fun. I wanted to stay there for the whole day but we couldn't. My highlight on the workshop was definitely checking out the toys. The fact that that small machine called the Rep Rap created those things just blew me away. I hope we get the chance to go there but with the whole crew. I know that they would be blown away too. Diamond Age (Where all the 3D Printing happens!)

 

Term 3 Highlights!!!

Term 3 is almost over and its time to reflect. Its been a great term and so far it has been my favourite. Here are my top 3 highlights of this term...

Netball, Netball, Netball. This year’s season was one of my favourite years because we had great team members. We all worked together in every game and we ended up coming 3rd in our pool.  But, it wasn't just the team members that made the team feel like a team. It was our manager Ms Squires and our two coaches Millie and Timmi. They were so strict on us but it was all worth it. To celebrate the success in all our netball teams we had a shared lunch. Everyone that was involved with netball this year came. We also had a short prize giving as well. I would like to thank Ms Squires, Millie and Timmi.

This term we are having a production which is called ‘Sixty The Quest’. It is to celebrate our schools 60th anniversary. My friends and I have started up a dance group that hopefully will be performing in the production. Practising the dance with my friends has actually been a highlight for me. I really like dancing and the fact that I am in three dance groups that are performing in the production, makes me feel excited. I can’t wait to share my talent.

We had a year 7&8 girls basketball team go to the Eastern Zone and came 1st overall. Miss Va'afusuaga took 10 girls including myself to the ASB Stadium in Selwyn College. We played 6 very tough games against all the schools in our area. I think the hardest game was against Parnell. I'm just happy that we are going to Auckland Champs.

Well, this term is almost over. I have had so many highlights but those are my top 3. Production is coming very soon and I am really nervous. Term 4 here we come!

Basketball Team!!

Manaiakalani Student Leadership Conference

It was an ordinary Friday at school. I arrived at 8:10, as usual. I was helping out with assembly, as usual. But something different that was happening today was the Manaiakalani Student Leadership Conference held at Tamaki College. All of the schools in the Manaiakalani programme had to choose a few students to attend this. I was part of the lucky group of students to represent our school, Pt England. The 6 students were Shoal, Makayla, Crusader, Gabriel, Kendrix and myself. Unfortunately, Kendrix couldn't make it so we decided to get my good friend Huelo-Ata to replace him.

The conference was really fun. It was about designing our future and part of the reason why us kids were going, was because it was OUR FUTURE. It wasn't just all fun, there were some parts that were inspiring. For example; Andrew Patterson's presentation that was about chasing our dreams inspired many people. Even ME! Here is a short reflection on the day.

My favourite part of the conference was the Samsung Scavenger Hunt with Telecom. Although our table didn't win, I still had fun playing with the smartphones. I think we could of won if we worked together.
Anyway, my second highlight was listening to Andrew Patterson speak and share his message with us. To chase our dream. One of the things in his presentation that was really interesting was seeing pictures of one of the Google Campuses  I found out that if you worked there you could get free stuff. Anyway, Andrew Patterson also showed us a video on TED Talks. It was a 12 year old boy named Thomas Suarez. Thomas is an app developer. The reason why he showed us this was because he was trying to tell us that we can chase our dream no matter the age. Here is the video of Thomas on TED Talks CLICK!

I can't wait to see what the future is going to look like. I hope the Manaiakalani programme has gotten enough information from us to help them with it. Thank You to everyone who organised the event!