This project was focused on the most interesting subject, Love. If you want to learn more here's a link to our project description:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TP4AnWw6B_PvSuvLk8HRIUI18yXjKMXuTUjY7jnlSAk/edit?usp=sharing
This whole project was such a ride. It was a really fun and interesting project that it increased my curiousness on love. It was wonderful to collaborate with my group members Pablo Toledo and Preston Seymour. We came up with really amazing ideas to design our lanterns. We created a plan to divide the work in the group so each of us could work with what we were most comfortable. In terms of collaboration I think we all did well, we were able to finish the work on time and it was fun to work with such energetic and fun people who were willing to work in this project. I think being surrounded with positive team mates helped me in various ways because sometimes I get really stressed and start thinking that we might not get the work done on time and yet I still got a bit stressed on this project. I think that planning is something I could improve for the next project so it helps me avoid stress but overall we managed to finish everything and we got the amazing opportunity to make beautiful work!
In respect to Humanities we got to learn more about love. In this class we got to read Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and this really brought up the topic on what love is to different age groups. We didn't only finally address our opinion on love but got to learn how different people with different experiences on it portray love labeling their age with such responses. Also how love can be found on the people we never expected to like Romeo and Juliet. I think that the most interesting thing about Humanities was interviewing, in my opinion. I got to discuss with the members about what questions about love we wanted to ask. I got to learn how to actually plan and organize an interview, I specially learned to empathize in an interview that we should prepare questions that will share stories. We got the chance to interview a Senior Resident from Brookdale, an Adult Couple, and a 3rd grader. It was so interesting to hear such different but in a way similar responses from all of them, it wasn't just an interview but a lesson to us humans. It really made me more curious about love that I probably have so many questions after all the questions that I had already asked. In these interviews we were asked to talk for an hour but our interviews were too interesting that we went over the required time. I love talking to people and how they have such unique and different perspectives than each of us. Yet, it all came down to one same answer that love will always be there in different ways but it will always embrace itself throughout our life, and that's beautiful. Talking about beauty we learned about how beauty also influences on how we think about love. In anthropology we had some lessons on love. We talked about beauty and arranged marriages. We learned, or at least I learned, that arranged marriages can also take away our experience on love or maybe we can learn to love through an arranged marriage. Also, that maybe we might think that beauty to us is found on a person that we want to fall in love with or maybe we might think that we can find beauty after we fall in love with someone. That also empathy is something important to have in a conversation, and throughout this project I learned how to empathize. Love is such an interesting topic, I just know that love sees farther than we ever could.
Regards to Physics, I learned very confusing yet interesting things. We learned about Electricity. We learned about circuits and how they work and how to calculate them too. It was confusing at first but then it made sense, which was an advantage for me. I think that it was very important to learn the data behind just the visualization. We learned about Ohm's Law, Coulomb's Law and Power. This were so helpful to understand how electricity works. In Physics we learned about different circuits, open and closed circuits, parallel circuits, etc. This information really helped us to construct our circuits for the lanterns. We learned that we need conductors (metals) in order to transfer the electrons. We did many experiments that helped us finalize our product. Having knowledge about the circuits helped us throughout the project specially in Engineering.
Talking about Engineering, we had so many new experiences. Engineering wasn't as easy as I expected but it also wasn't hard. In this class I learned to work in the laser cutting files and got to use new tools. I took my team and I told them to sit down and brainstorm some ideas. That was really helpful because it really helped us come up with an idea on how we wanted to build the lantern and how we wanted the it to look like. We still had our conflicts though, when we first laser cut the files two of the panels weren't how we wanted them to look like so we had to re do them all over again. It wasn't easy to start all over because I was watching all the other teams already making or finishing their first lanterns when we hadn't started the first one. It was frustrating and also sometimes I had difficulty to get the other members to work but every time I approached them they understood that they had to work and told me to not worry, it really helped me. With all the information we got in physics we started making circuits in Engineering and we first had to practice but then later we saw that we had to start creating a plan to settle an idea of how we should form the circuit. Luckily, I had the team mates ready to start planning and were really skilled. They were comfortable with the task so I didn't have to worry about it. Making the puzzle piece was really fun I got to take action on this along with one of the members. We created a music note for the puzzle piece, and one new tool I learned how to use was the scroll saw that really helped us make the art piece. Knowing that sometimes I had to have patience and that I should also consider things really helped me throughout the project. Knowing how to empathize and how to make beautiful work really influenced our group to create a great job.
At the time of exhibition it's were it got interesting. Me and Pablo got to make a performance. Our group had to perform in front of the Brookdale senior residents and at Charity Wings. I played the piano and Pablo played the percussion box. It was really fun and it was such a beautiful feeling to see all the seniors enjoy all the performances and enjoyed to see the lanterns all the groups had made for them. I was really proud of the final product, the lanterns and the puzzle piece looked amazing and it was worth working for. I think that it was such an amazing experience to also perform in front of all the people at Charity Wings and we got to talk to other people about the project. I think that we did a pretty good job and it came out better than I expected. I would give myself an A because I worked really hard and I always encouraged my partners to share ideas and to participate and I am sure of my collaboration. I got to also show my knowledge on the socratic seminar we had in class. I think that also having to lead the one on one talks with the members showed how our communication really worked. I felt most comfortable writing the information for the interviews, artist statement, painting and planning, I really hope that the members really noticed my hard work. Overall, this project was really exciting and enjoyable. I think that love really impacts our lives in such amazing ways!
Here's a link to our Artist Statement if you want to check it out:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d5c6BOffdnLgQ9MhoOe8S9FRsXsGT8rBWqdC3ir232g/edit?usp=sharing
Here are some pictures taken throughout the project: