My Making Process
I like to dive in the deep end and start working on my projects. There is little research before attempting my project, but most of the first tries are attempts to get my feet wet. The best way to describe this process is learning by doing, and my favorite way to describe it is calling it the "Splash and Dash" attempt because I want to see what happens and what are my initials thoughts. The problem with this method is that it is not efficient since I am doing it without much background to make sure I eventually succeed. I prefer to trial by error and learn along the way, but that is not realistic. The issue comes from that I don't have unlimited resources and unlimited time to work on the project. I understand that, so whenever I can do that, I will make by trial and error, then go back to figure out what I did to get to that point.
So the majority of the time I create by doing research, planning, then executing it. I understand that this is a more efficient way of creating, but sometimes when I research, it makes me lose interest in the project. It still takes time, but more efficient use of time. I like to have some results, and to me, a plan sometime doesn't feel like results. That said, this something I am trying to do every time because I know the benefits from it.
Both processes involve me to reflect and think about what I am doing. That is how I learn, but sometimes it takes me a while to think about what happen and listen to feedback. But afterward, I will always start planning ahead and editting my plan and approach to how I want to accomplish my goals.
Projects!!!
Feed Your Mind
Dice Tower!
Feed Your Mind is a blog about food, health, and education, but one that I want people to comment on and have a conversation about the post. I hope to engage others in thinking about topics that might promote learning tools for students. When I write this post, I try to back it up with scientific evidence from research articles but also make it relevant to modern problems. The posts are usually topics that I have a conversation with or something that I have explored in my education classes.
Update: I have not kept up with this project because I got lost in the research, and how to formulate my thoughts. I want to try starting this back up over the summer.
This was the first project that I did as a Maker. I decided to focus on creating something that my friend would like to have in his collection. It was probably the one that I had the biggest learning curve with because I was learning how to make a box on CorelDraw, and learning how to work a laser cutter at MakeATX with MathHappens. Majority of my time was spent trying to figure out how to use CorelDraw, and designing the box by hand and trying to convert it to CorelDraw.
When doing this project, I started to realize that I can use math to create this!!! This was my moment that I made a realization about the power of triangles. I started to use triangles and its properties to help build my tower and the slants inside.
The first attempt at creating the dice tower was all right, and I made the decision to adjust the heights of the slants because it kept getting stuck. Now that I have seen other dice towers, I want to redesign it without the slants.
Me trying to assemble what I created.
String art
So I saw this will I was helping out with Makerfaire. My first thought was conics cause I saw a quadratic as one of the images. It got me thinking about how I can use the circle to make an ellipse and hyperbola. I accidentally got to that point, but then I went home and started to do it in a scientific way. I first folded some wax paper to get the conics, then try to follow the lines to make a conic shape. This didn't go well because I didn't consider that I only have a limited number of wholes for my string to go through, but I have an infinite number of lines that could fold on the paper. My next attempt I am going to draw a circle based on the circle of the wooden frame and include the wholes from the frame so I can have a point of reference to where to stitch the string.
I wanted to do this to show off the point of a focus and directix to students. It would be a cool representation and different from the typical wax paper way of discovering the purpose of the focus. I hope to find a pattern on how to stick it so I can get both an ellipse and a hyperbola.
It was hard to see all of the folded lines.
I couldn't see all the lines, so this was my attempt to follow some pattern,
Making Tofu
This project is in the planning stage:
I love food, and I love to eat tofu once and a while. I saw a video of how tofu was made and thought I could do that. Looking it up I realize that it is very similar to making cheese, but with soy milk. I made two decision one to make homemade soy milk. and to make my own tofu press. I understand the basic of the of making soy milk and cheese and the reasoning behind each step. The raw soy milk has to be boiled for a couple of minutes so it becomes editable. Then to curdle the soy milk by adding a chemical that clumps the protein together, before straining and pressing it.
I'm decided to make the tofu press because I saw what it looked like, and decided that I could do that with a laser cutter or some other cutting tool. I know that I should probably add some finish to it, but I need to research how to finish and polish off wooden so I can use it in cooking applications.
Tessellating Pentagons
Working with MathHappens, one of the projects that I took on was to create all 15 tessellating pentagons. Regular pentagons don't tessellate, so there are these proportions that help create these tessellations. The project was something that MathHappen created before but only through a CoralDraw. That is how first approached this project. The first one I attempted to make was the 15th tessellation because that one had many details about how to create it. I tried to develop it on CoralDraw first and succeeded, but then realize that there was a more efficient way to create them. I started to use GeoGebra. This was a perfect tool because it allows easy adjustments to values and something that I could save and use later on CorelDraw. I have created 13 out of the 15. A lot of the design for this was guessing and checking what values worked and meet the requirements. Then it changed to having set values for some of the parts and developing something that worked with those values. The next math trick I used was to use the principle of squeeze theorem to figure out the exact value to make the tessellation. I would input value and then decided if I need to decrease it or increase it depending on the situation. There are some angle values that are to the ten thousandth place. The next tool I used was the circle tool from GeoGebra. That allowed me to have constant length but allowed me to adjust my angles. I haven't designed many of them on CorelDraw yet, but working other coworkers, they have created some cool designs with the tessellation.
Stamp and programming
At one of the maker events, I got to make a stamp, and make a scratch program. What I liked about this project was the fact that it was a little bit different from my usual areas, because it involved more arts and craft. I got to learn how to use carving tools, Audacity to edit audio clips, and how to convert Youtube videos to MP3 files. I learned many tools from this project, and it was a great one that challenged me to be creative on how to interpret the goal. "Create an audio track talking about someone who influences the STEM field." My girlfriend and I choose to focus on Jackie Chan because he is an animal rights activities, but a philanthropist about making sure children have a chance for education. We both are big fans of Jackie, and I wanted to do something we both liked. We decided to make our stamp a panda because Jackie loves pandas. The whole activity was great, and I learned a lot from the project. Sadly I could not save my scratch file to share.
Our attempts to draw a panda
The stamp and what it looked like on a piece of paper.
My White Whale- Wanting to redesign an exhibit
This project is still in progress and one that I want to finish. I saw this in New Orleans, and realize how this WW2 device work. Working with MathHappen, got me to realize I could recreate this or add some simple things to make this a more interactive and math informative display.
My goal is to recreate this display and add my own elements to it. One of the elements I wanted to add is some figuring that could be held or adjusted so guess could see the increments of distance increase as the angle increased. The second element is a small display explaining the math behind it, and the physic behind mirrors that make this work. I've talked this out with a fellow maker, and we still aren't sure what would be the best way to display the physic part of it, there was talk about using a laser pointer, but I felt that if the laser pointer was opened then children will point at each other eyes. So the way I want to display the physic is up for decision, but I have a general idea of displaying the math. It will happen by having different triangles and explanation of how to calculate a side length given an angle and another side length.
My current game plan is:
1. To finish out a proof of concept to confirm my math and recreate the display.
2. Find a way to explain the physic aspect of the display.
3. Scale up the display from a proof of concept.
4. Write a proposal asking to add these elements to the museum so that the display could be more interactive.