Boomerang

We made a boomerang to represent aboriginal culture. Mine symbolized unity and the wildlife with the paintings on it. The purpose of this activity was for us to learn more about the aboriginals and how they used the boomerang. It, after all, was a crucial part of how they hunted.

Making Sherbet

Making Sherbet

Aim: To make Sherbet with dry ingredients.

Equipment required: A small bag to contain the Sherbet, a tablespoon, a teaspoon, raro, icing sugar, baking soda, citric acid and tartaric acid.



Method: 

1.  Gather all your ingredients.
2. Get your plastic bag and then pour in a tablespoon of raro and icing sugar.
3. Pour a teaspoon of baking soda, citric acid and tartaric acid.
4. Seal the bag and begin to shake it for a minute or two until it looks like it is properly mixed.
5. Taste it then repeat (if you wish). To not eat too much of it in a day otherwise you will get Diarrhea. If it tastes a bit to bitter add more acid and if it tastes to sour add some more baking soda.

The science behind what happens

You will notice that once water makes contact with the mixture it begins to foam. This is a chemical reaction where the saliva from your mouth, in this case, causes the citric acid crystals to dissolve. Meanwhile, the citric acid is also reacting with the bicarbonate of soda (baking soda). This is because when an acid reacts with water the protons dissociate and spread out in the water these protons are H+ (Hydrogen) ions. Once this is done the acid will decompose because of it's losing of protons. The base (bicarbonate of soda) will then begin to take in these H+ ions. This reaction produces carbon dioxide which makes a fizzy feeling on your tongue. This reaction can be written as NaHCO3 (aq) + C6H8O7 -------> 3CO2 + 3H2O + C6H5O7Na3. 

What you just read was a chemical formula using each chemicals symbol instead of its name. Writing it this way instead of saying Water + Citric acid ----> (whatever the products would be) is shorter yet more detailed than what was shown just before. These are written to show what reactants are reacting together to make the products. The (aq) next to NaHCO (bicarbonate of soda) means that the substance will dissolve in water during the experiment. This symbol is only present in a formula if the solution is Aqueous. This means that the solvent (the substance dissolving the other chemicals) is water instead of another liquid.

Sphero EDU work

Sphero EDU work

                                         
For DTE this term we have started programming through basic javascript and block code with Sphero's edu app. The Sphero's are round circular balls that we enjoy playing with quite a lot. What you can do with them is definitely limited but there is still much creativity available such as using block or line code with variables to create a hot potato game with an object that would usually just be used for rolling around the place. Our assessment for this topic was to create additions to a game we have created through the basic block and javascript tutorials or make our own game.

My first plan was to do the Hot Potato game and change it to have periodic things that make it harder to catch or throw. I experimented around on javascript with the options available as well as on block code but unfortunately, I could not find a fun and interactive way to make multiple challenging "events" happen. Once I failed to implement my first idea I switched ideas around and instead tried to make a game like hot potatoe exept sometimes you would have to roll or answer a question instead of throwing it. This idea required quite a few variables making it much more of a challenge. However, I encountered a problem with getting the sphero to properly sense when it is being thrown. You do have an option that allows it to do this however I could not get it accurate enough to work at least 70% of the time.

I eventually had to scrap the rolling idea and instead make it either ask a question or be thrown. I had the timer variable set up and working and a system that would randomly select either a throw or a question. However, I was running out of time with about only 1 hour left and because of this, I could not finish this game I was planning. The things I still had to do but could not finish included setting up variables that chose random questions and (if possible) one that would get rid of a question from being able to be asked after being asked once. When a question would be chosen you would have x seconds depending on the round to answer it. There, of course, was no way for me to get the Sphero to recognize if you had gotten it right or wrong so it would be down to if the opponent listened well enough since the Sphero would answer itself after time ran out.

This period of time playing around and programming the Sphero have definitely been fun and interesting. I have experience with programming in Warcraft 3 which uses a unique code called JASS as well as gui for some stuff. Javascript I had not really experience with until now, it has definitely been good so far and I have started to learn some of the basics of this javascript. My only regret is not figuring out what I would do with the sphero and trying to think too outside the box. I should have done something smaller in scale yet I did not want to do something so "easy" yet I found out later on that these out of the box ideas were mostly impossible. The sphero is definitely a great thing for beginners in coding and can be a lot of fun.

Immigrating from Britain to New Zealand (story)

Immigrating from Britain to New Zealand

For Social Studies we have been looking at immigration. Specifically immigration from Britain to New Zealand. For part of our work, we have had to create a story of someone during these times immigrating to New Zealand. I personally wasn't too inspired with this story so it could have been much better but enjoy.


Journal Log 56, 20 weeks since I lost her

Once again I walk to this empty, tiny house, with just me left in it. I barely have any money to scrape by and at this rate, I’m going to die from working at that factory. It was fine when my family was still alive… but…. I need to start a new life but how to? I guess the only thing I can think of is to head to a new country. Spain? No. France? No. I don’t think I can go to any European country, they are all basically the same. Perhaps New Zealand. They advertise it as a fresh start and from what I’ve heard from the posters and photos… Yes, New Zealand sounds perfect. You can live your own free life, plenty of food and many safe jobs, it’s perfect. I can take a loan from someone and then board the ship and escape this cursed country. A new life… I wonder how it would go.
1 week later
“500, that’s my final offer.” “Fine 500 it is.” I shake hands with the loaner as he hands over the $500. He expects me to give him $2000 overtime by the end of this year, yet unknown to him is that I don’t plan to return. With this money, I can get into the rich section of the boat and have a pleasant trip to NZ. Do I feel bad? No. “If you don’t bring this money back you know the consequences!” His warning suddenly jolts me back to reality as his dark green eyes seem like they peer into my soul. No one has ever crossed these people before…. Well someone might off but now they would be in prison. The police aren’t exactly the most uncorrupt people.

“%^#&!” It’s almost time for the boat to leave. If I don’t get to it now………. I sprint out of the building but all I see is tons of traffic. There's not enough time to drive in this traffic so I sprint to the harbour desperately trying to reach the boat before it leaves. After 10 minutes of running, I see it, it’s like seeing heaven. “Leaving in 1 minute get your tickets and get onboard now!” I start sprinting but he seems to not notice me. He begins to pull the plank connecting the ship to the harbour. “Wait, please!” He turns around to notice me.

Part 2 the trip

It’s been 1 week since that exhilarating day and…. I must say it’s great here. My life is so much better on this boat, no job and no terrible household. The food is great, yesterday I got to try some seasoned lamb for the first time in my life. The constant rocking is a bit of a downside but thanks heavens I’m not in steerage. The conditions down there are dreadful. But it would be worth it. We are getting a new life soon, a new start, I can only imagine.

It’s now been about 2 months in. I’m dreadfully thirsty as much of our water has gone stale, the crew hurriedly attempt to boil the seawater to make it drinkable but I fear the worst. Being in first class as given me almost top priority but still seeing the horrors of people thrown overbored because of sickness or that water. It’s ironic how we are surrounded by water yet our most scarce resource is water. But I’m hopeful like always, we are almost there and the crew is stabilizing the conditions onboard.
Part 3

These violent storms shake me to the bones, I thought New Zealand would be a land of beauty yet all I see are rocks and storms. *Apparently we have been blown off course. The ships wood groans under pressure as it hits a rock*. What the hell was that? “Get out, go go go!” “What the hell are those? Open fire!” I hear the sound of muskets firing as people run off the deck either jumping onto land and running or desperately swimming away. I have to get out of here now! I open the door but all I see is bloodstained wood with some… brown coloured men? I’ve heard of these people called the Maori, but it was said they were in a way tame from their previous savage life by the British, yet here I stand with the Maori and British going after each other's throats. The captain of the ship scrambles up onto the deck desperately trying to hold off the advancing attack, yet to no avail as a spear strikes him in the thigh. Several people are being dragged away screaming I attempt to jump down but only get caught in a net used for fishing. Is this really how I go out?

I look up to see the last defender get thrown off the deck with a spear in his chest. The Maori warrior then eyes down me looking to see if I am alive when he realizes that I am he cuts the net and jumps down only to drag me away. I guess I did get a new life, instead of a poor factory worker I am now a Maori sacrifice. At least that seems like the type of thing they would do.


While many settlers did get to their destination (cities) there where quite a few cases of shipwrecks and Maori attacks. This unlucky ship suffered the same fate.

Fission vs Fusion. What is the difference?

Fission vs Fusion. What is the difference?

Nuclear fission and fusion are two different types of extremely powerful ways to produce energy using atoms. They both use different ways to create this energy and are in fact are almost if not 100% different from each other. In this blog post, I will talk about the differences between these two energy producers.

Fusion

Fusions meaning is two things coming together and combining, this is exactly what nuclear fusion is, two Isotopes combining (an Isotope is an atom that has a normal amount of protons but a different amount of neutrons.) Generally, the Isotopes are small, imbalanced, at an unstable temperature and in an extreme condition/being pressured. Fun fact about nuclear fusion is that it powers our sun. Our sun requires energy and gases to stay alive and burning and this energy comes from nuclear fusion. Many of the explosions on the sun are from the nuclear fusion reaction.

In the sun atoms of Tritium and Deuterium (they are both isotopes of Hydrogens, Hydrogen 3 being Tritium and Deuterium being Hydrogen 2.) When these two Hydrogen Isotopes combine they form a Helium nucleus. This process creates an extreme amount of energy (the amount of energy produced depends on the isotopes used but generally fusion produces more energy than fission.) The two Isotopes will form a more stable element (in this case Helium.) However, the stable element will not be able to contain all of the energy from the previous two isotopes combined. Because of this quite a lot of the energy in the previous two isotopes will be left behind then that leftover energy will be used for civilization. While the sun uses almost only Hydrogen to create Helium these are not the only elements used in nuclear Fusion.

The problem with Fusion currently is that scientists haven't found a way to control the energy that has been let use from the reaction. Because of this, they are yet to create a fusion reactor that can reach the full potential of fusion energy. The benefits of Fusion reaction are quite great, it produces little radiation compared to fission and generally much more energy.

Fission

The word Fission means "a splitting or breaking up into parts". Like it sounds it is the exact opposite of fusion. Fusion is two isotopes combining whereas Fission is when a big atom breaks apart.  An atom about to do fission is also quite unstable with it having an unormal amount of neutrons and a normal amount of protons.

The Atom when under this extreme pressure and conditions will break apart after being hit by a stray neutron. This reaction generates the energy used in a fission reactor. However, this reaction causes other chain reactions by sending out a Neutron which then smashes into other atoms making this reaction happen once again. In a Fission reactor, they use special rods to separate all of the Atoms and stopping a massive amount of Atoms all doing a fission reaction at once. If this happened all the energy released as well as nuclear waste would explode causing the generator to have a meltdown. That is a basic overview of what causes a generator to explode.

As well as energy and a Neutron nuclear fission will release two wasteful nuclear atoms. These atoms are generally useless and just take up space and damage people due to radiation. However, sometimes the waste produced has a bit of use. For example, long-lasting nuclear atoms generally emit a lot less radiation, these types of nuclear atoms can be used in reinforcing bullets and armour. The reason why this is safe and possible is that nuclear atoms have a half-life. This means that by the time the atom reaches halfway into its life it will off lost 50% of its energy due to Atom decay. For example, carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730. The good thing about long halve lives is that the longer their half-life is the less radiation they give out every second making long-lasting atomic atoms safer to be around than small life ones. However, of course, an extended period of time around these will cause reactions.

Nuclear Power 

All of this ties into the average citizen through nuclear power. Nuclear power is made through the energy produced by these reactions in a generator (or nuclear atoms decaying). Once that process is done the nuclear power is then distributed to the everyday citizens to power stuff such as your lights, chargers, devices connected by a cable and many other different things. Currently, nuclear fission is the most used way to create nuclear energy due to the fact that nuclear fusion is yet to be perfected.

Conclusion

As you can see these two different methods of energy production are indeed very different. Fusion definitely seems like the preferred way to create energy (once we finally accomplish using it in a generator safely). The reason for that is that Fission generally creates less energy and more nuclear waste due to it splitting into two nuclear atoms with generally no use.

How media shapes your gender and some previous DTE work

How media shapes your gender

Media is dangerous but amazing at the same time. It shapes how we see our world and how we are raised, it allows someone from Australia and someone in America to communicate as if they were right next to each other. It conveys messages, sometimes fake sometimes true. These messages can shape peoples beliefs and ideas, an example is how the general amount of media depicts Males and Females. This applies to all genders no matter what you identify as however it mostly affects the two sexes, this, of course, is Male and Female. A quick example is some of the more recent feminism. Feminism is what gave women equality in many of the country's we see today, however, quite a few people now have taken it into man shaming. This man shamming is created to make men feel bad about their gender, it stereotypes every single man born and paints them as evil oppressors that seek only to use people to get their own way. However this, of course, is not true, yes sure there are men that do that but there are also many women that do it as well. The point is that this media is designed to inflict harm to the male population and it does this by convincing women that men are bad causes these people to lash out at men. It also makes males that take in this media to look down on themselves and their gender, therefore, it shapes their views and how they are a person. 

For our project in DTE, we used the site Digital Bytes. On this site, we could choose a topic, then watch a video that generalises it and then looks at a question asked and answer it with our thoughts. Then we watched another video based on if we wanted to look at how women are affected by media or how men are. Then we answered some more questions with our thoughts. I chose the men side so I will cover that more than the Women side of this topic. However that is not to say that Women don't have it as bad as Men since in my opinion, both sides share the same amount of hardship from media shaping their gender, however, it happens to both of them with some differences and similarities.

So to start it off I watched the Gender and Media video. You can access it by clicking on this sentence. Next, I answered one of the questions given about the video. "What was the biggest takeaway from the video?" The biggest takeaway, in my opinion, is the fact that this is happening to this extent. That so much of our behaviour these days is from these gender stereotypes and that every day there are teens that are giving in to what the media says about them shaping their personality and thoughts of themselves. Girls are told that they should look good, this causes females to have so much more thoughts of their looks worrying if someone thinks they are ugly and this leads to many seeing themselves as ugly and in many cases getting into depressed moods. It's made even worse by people that have anxiety disorders or depression. Guys are taught that you should look for looks in a female, however, they are also taught to not show emotions such as depression and worry-fulness, that they are supposed to always be the strong person and dominant. However, one point I do disagree with in the videos is a bit of what they say. This subject is a bit of an older topic but it still shows just not in the exact way they say. Small things like Household violence cases favouring females and new stereotypes have arisen while some are no longer a thing. One point I really disagree with is them talking about movie and video game violence as a research project has proven it to not do that. 

The last activity was to look at what an ideal man is like to the media. An Ideal man shown in the media is strong, good looking and all of that stuff. However, in real life, you will find that this is barely anyone it is mostly celebrities that make out that they are like this as it helps them get more views and fans.


Here is some of my previous work around this topic.
 https://infograph.venngage.com/ps/isCds6Xe8Yo/being-cybersmart is an infographic about cyber smart
https://infograph.venngage.com/ps/rfVPTtNF57Q/how-to-customize-your-infographic-template is a infographic on ergonomics

Looking at bones and muscles as well as a bit about blood cells while using a cows leg

Looking at bones and muscles as well as a bit about blood cells

My class has just recently started the Medical Science part of the Scipad and with this is multiple experiments/investigations on dead animals or other things. The first one we had the luxury of doing was a cow leg. With this cow leg, our aim was to witness how muscles push. The thing with muscles is they will only ever push never pull which is why you have multiple muscles of the opposite sides in your body. Such as your arm and legs. For example when you put your arm in an L shape your tricep relaxes but your bicep contracts to push it out, the opposite happens when you bring your arm back down.

A bit about muscles

In the cow leg, you can see a bunch of flesh around the knee and the rest stripped this is because this was sent to butcher first, however, the main stuff we are looking at is there since people don't generally eat them. We used the top bone to control the muscles so for example when we pulled down the bone the bottom muscle near the knee would contract while the top one relaxes, you can see this in the small movement of the knee. There is also a white circle on it that would come in and go out depending on the movement of the leg, this is the knee cap. You can see this on the top right of the fleshy bit of the knee. On the opposite side of the knee cap, you can also find a small socket bit where some of the bone would come into when pulling the leg down.

Muscle Cramp

A muscle cramp is a common thing that affects people. It is caused by many different things. For example, overuse of the muscle, pregnancy because of losing of minerals in the body, exposure to cold temperature, diseases that affect muscles, positioning your legs in awkward ways, sitting for too long, standing still for too long, dehydration and certain medicines/drugs. As you can see muscle cramps can generally happen with underuse/overuse as well as a lack of water and minerals. When the muscle doesn't have what it depends on or not used in the right amount it will cramp.


A muscle cramp is when the muscle painfully contracts by itself, this causes pain in the body at the location and generally lasts several seconds to a few minutes. It only happens to muscles we can control so mostly legs and arms. Scientists have labelled cramps into different forms such as the true cramp. A true cramp is when a muscle of generally a group of muscles is triggered to cramp by the nerve system. These are the most common cramp triggered by stuff like massive injury, rest and dehydration and body fluid changes as well as low mineral count in your body. Tenaty is another type of cramp where all nerve systems are activated. This type of cramp will generally cause your muscles around the mouth to tingle and go numb, it can cause spasm in your hands and wrists. This is triggered by low blood calcium, low magnesium, muscle stimulation and hyperactivity. They sometimes can be extremely similar to true cramps because they have some of the same causes.

How do bones/joints work

How do bones work? Well, basically bones can't move so it needs some type of thing to give the force required to move it. If we didn't have muscles we would be lifeless, muscles open our mouths, our body depends on these muscles to survive. Muscles are connected to the bones through what's called a tendon. A tendon is a flexible stretchy piece of flesh in your body, it is needed to be this way since if it wasn't the tendon would just break when the muscle contracted. The tendon is required so that most muscles are kept in place and in some cases around your body they connect special muscles such as your eye to the rest of your body allowing you to use this body part. Now going back to just bones, to form stuff like your leg and arm two bones will connect and create a joint. Without joints, our skeletons would fall apart and without multiple bones, for stuff like the leg, we wouldn't have the flexibility we have.


If we had one bone in our leg we would not be able to move half of it while keeping the other halve the same. We can do this with our legs and arms because of our elbows/knees which are joints. Bones can't really move against each other as well which would cause them to break and wear away so the joints also provide a solution to that! First of all, ligaments connect the two bones, to stop the bones wearing away the ends of the bones have cartilage which reduces friction between the bones and acts as a shock absorbent. It is kept slippery and lubricated so it doesn't wear away as well by the synovial fluid which is produced by a synovial membrane. This is the structure of a joint and allows the movement and flexibility we have.

Osteoporosis

Ever wondered why old people have so brittle bones and commonly can break a bone just by falling? This is because the cartilage wears away possibly because of a lack of fluid or other reasons, because of this the bone then wear away with no cartilage to s/top them and eventually the bones get extremely weak causing this to happen. This problem can also occur in younger people because of the same reasons old people just have it more commonly because of living so long. Below is a video of us cutting through the bone.

Bone Growth

When you are born you have tiny bones, you don't have the type of bones you would have as an adult. Overtime bones will fuse together as well as growing. As you age cartilage grows bigger and that cartilage then forms into a bone with calcium, later on, this process is called ossification. During this process, hundreds of calcium layers and phosphate salts gather on the cartilage. After a while, this will cause the cartilage cells to die. Once this is done blood cells will grow into tiny pockets in this area, these blood cells will help by containing a unique cell called osteoblasts. Osteoblasts help carry additional calcium and produce a substance called collagen fibres. This fibre provides strength and cushioning, it is found all around our body with a lot in the skin and around tendons/joints.



These osteoblasts also produce cortical bones that will surround the cartilage. This bone is found throughout the body around organs it supports the whole body and is responsible for storing and releasing certain chemical elements. After a while, a cell called osteoclasts will end up in a developing bone. This cell will use an acid called Hydrolytic enzymes and other acids to dissolve a small bone part to make room for more bone marrow. This is repeated until most of the cartilage in your body has dissolved and all your bones have grown which generally happens around the age of 20. A topic relating to this is what happens when your bone breaks?


Well, how does a bone break anyway? A bone generally breaks when to much force is applied to it such as a heavy object falling onto your arm. This applies a lot of pressure onto your arm and if it is heavy enough and fell far enough your bone will most likely break. When a bone breaks it will attempt to heal itself for this to happen it must be positioned in a certain way, this is why you are given casts. The body will create blood clots around the broken bone and shortly after the bone will start to create small threads. These threads will eventually combine through the same method that a bone grows.

A bit about blood cells and bone marrow

Inside the bone you can find the bone marrow, there are two types of bone marrow. There are however two types of bone marrow and two stem cells. The Hemopoietic stem cell produces blood cells whereas the Stromal stem cell produces fat cartilage and bone. The two types of bone marrow are yellow while the other is red.


You start your life with only red bone marrow however you will gain yellow bone marrow based on fat. Although as you get older you WILL start to gain more yellow bone marrow. Red marrow focuses completely on blood cell production so in the case of massive blood lose the body will convert yellow marrow into red marrow to aid in stopping death. The red bone marrow will produce white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets. White blood cells are responsible for defending you from infection in your blood, they are produced in a higher concentration when someone is fighting off a disease/infection and are there killed off after defeating an infection. However white blood cells are at an extremely low quantity in our blood only being 1% of the cells located in our blood, however, of course, this % will slightly increase when an infection is located in you.


Platelets are tiny fragments in your blood that will create clots to help with bleeding however if they somehow clot in your blood and that clot travels to your heart you will have a heart attack, and if it goes to your brain you will have a stroke. These are both extremely dangerous conditions that can easily kill you. Platelets are less than 1% of the produced blood cells. Red blood cells contain chemicals that transport oxygen through your blood they make up 45% of the cells in your blood and are required so much because our blood needs to transport oxygen to give to our muscles and organs. Without this oxygen collected from the lung and then transported with the help of these red blood cells, we would end up dead as our muscles and organs require oxygen like our lungs do and there is no way to bring it around without the blood cells. Plasma is also part of the blood cell group it carries nutrients through the blood so it contributes majorly to the digestive system however bone marrow does not produce this.