Wednesday, May 24, 2017

e9 Semester 2 Final

     During this last quarter of e9, we have been working on a project with a group of four people that may not have been in our original class. Our groups were created based on our personality tests that we took at the end of third quarter. On the first day we were told to brainstorm a problem that we have or see in our world, or seek similarities among our different personalities that we could build a project off of. From there we made a team/company name and a product that we were going to spend the next four weeks making graphics, animations, a commercial, and a website for. Our product was the Tele-Pack, a backpack that is enhanced with teleportation. The Tele-Pack is both voice activated and works with your phone. We thought that the Tele-Pack would be the perfect solution to students' aching backs and air pollution by other transportation machines. Below I have included the material included on our website:

Our company logo:




Our product logo:




Our ad:




Our coupon:




Our web banner:


Our 2-D company animation:
                                     



Our 3-D product animation/demonstration:
            



Our commercial:
            

     The main challenge in this project was our personality differences. Some of us were more outgoing than others so we had to make way for each other to be able to receive input from all of us. However, I liked this challenge. It gave me an opportunity to collaborate with all different people and see how the different personality types can benefit and counter each other at times. I learned that this is an important thing to remember even outside of this class, you may not always agree with everyone, but that is because everyone is different in their own way. Sometimes you will have to work harder to get along but once you get through the hard part of getting to know each other, things might not be as bad. I also got a little stressed when we started getting to the last few days and still had work to do. I took too much on to my plate when what I really needed was help. Then, we talked as a team and spread out the work evenly between us an everything turned out fine.
     During this project, we all gave each other feedback on our work. I learned that we needed to speak up and show more confidence. We also found some flaws in our website that we promptly fixed and resulted in a really successful presentation.
     My overall opinion of this projects that it was a great learning experience but also a lot of fun. I learned teamwork values that I will continue to apply to my life. I really enjoyed using all of the computer skills we learned this year to make one big project it was very rewarding to finally see it all at once during our presentation and see what others thought of our product.
     We made pretty good use of our time during class on this project. In the beginning, we decided as a team that we would still continue working even if we were missing a team member or two. We agreed that if we didn't get everything done in class that day that we would schedule a before of after school time to come in and finish up. This plan worked well and we only had to come in early to tweak small things on the last few days. On days where we finished early, we checked and double-checked that everything on the website was working smoothly and that we had all of our requirements.
     My strength as an e-Communication student is that I am open to ideas. I really like to collaborate with others to see how their mind works compared to mine and how we can incorporate our ideas together to make something truly creative. It is fun for me to try multiple approaches to a concept and select from the group which one fits all the needs. I strive to give everyone an equal chance while working in a project. I really want to hear what everyone has to say, I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable around me, just to feel like they can share their deepest, richest ideas. That is how I contribute to making a team what it is. An area where I need to improve is being more vocal. While my teammates give their input, I need to give mine back. However, while I do this I have to remind myself not to overpower the others. During this project I improved on this by remembering that my team members wouldn't judge me because they wanted to hear my thoughts as much as I wanted to hear theirs.
     This semester I loved seeing what the other teams in first hour e9 came up with and how they wanted to change the world. I especially liked seeing how everyone grew together and became friends over this whole year. The only part I would change is just getting a few more minutes to practice our presentation individually in our teams so we really know what everyone is sharing. My goal for next year is to produce even better work, and strive to make more friends and stronger relationships.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Animation Rotation

     Graphic Design has ended and we have moved on to animation. In animation we were assigned to make a 3D animation, a 2D animation, and start the product website. After collaborating on what to do, we decided that the 3D animation would be a of demonstration showing how the Tele-Pack works. Our 2D animation is a little different, instead of making it full-length, we made a short animation of our team name: FLYLO. We thought that we could insert this at the beginning or end of our commercial from the upcoming video rotation. Below I have added some screenshots of the website-in-progress and our animations.


2D Animation:

3D Animation:


Screenshots From Our Website-In-Progress:





     The end of this year is coming up fast but we are still working hard and I am very happy with what we have accomplished now that I am looking back. I am still considering changing the color scheme of some of our graphics to make the website stand out. We are also looking into adding some sound into the 3D animation. I can't wait to see how our video rotation and presentation will go!

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Graphic Design Rotation

This last quarter is off to an eventful start. I am starting off in Mrs. Smith's graphic design class and we have been given five tasks to create in Adobe Illustrator.
~product logo
~company logo
~website banner
~advertisement
~coupon
After a week and a few days of collaborating and hard work at the computers, we have accomplished our five goals:













Overall I am satisfied with our results. We worked to make our logos reflect a theme. Our product logo font was made to look futuristic and reflect our slogan of "Going Beyond" using the arrow in the T. The company logo was made to look professional with the cursive-like font. I think it says that our company and product are reliable. Finally, our website banner, advertisement, and coupon combined these ideas and looked very nice. We have to finish some last bits on our advertisements, but other than that, the last thing we might look at is the background colors. I am really excited to move on and see what our team will create in the animation rotation.










Sunday, April 2, 2017

Mini Presentation Blog

     Now that we are back from sprig break, we have begun our final unit in e9.  All of the students in the program were shuffled an then put into groups of four based on our personality types. My group is Nathan, Mason, and Kevin. Our assignment is to create a product and apply our knowledge from graphic design, video, and animation to make logos and advertisements that will make people want to buy our product.
     Every day in class we use the five guarantees; technical skills, communication, leadership, collaboration, and project management to effectively work together as a team and create our company and product. After a week and a half of working, we decided that our company name would be FLYLO with the slogan, "Go beyond". We all agreed that is matched our product: the teleporting backpack (TelePack).
     The TelePack is a product made for people around 13-25 years of age. It includes an app on your phone with a GPS that can sync to the backpack, telling where and when to go. Another option is a voice activation so you can tell the TelePack where to go. We thought that our product would help students save time and prevent backaches from all the books. It will also bring the possibility of traveling and vacationing to the ease of pressing a button.
     Today in class we had a mini presentation of what we had developed so far. We instantly received feedback and got to discuss our strengths and weaknesses as a class and a group. Our group did well receiving a 9/10 score we only missed half a point on explaining why our logo was perfect to represent our project and our slogan.

CSS and CARP Website Design

Overview:

     This week, we finished our house in Sketchup and started another web design project. The purpose of this project was to show how using the principles of CARP could make our websites better. 

Relating to CARP

Contrast

In this project we used contrast in our text fonts and colors. The title fonts were bigger and had more serifs than the poem's fonts. There were also slight contrasts between the colors of the title text, poem text, and page text. The colors were were all different shades of brown and black which created more contrast. We also made the first paragraph of the poem in italics to add a bit of style.

Alignment

Alignment is very important in a website, it is the rule of keeping different texts lined up with each other to produce a cleaner look that is visually appealing and easy to read.   It looks silly to have important text floating in the middle of a page, away from everything else. All of the text should be aligned either to the left or the right under the title.

Repetition

The repetition in this project is found in the colors between the dog and the webpage. We used the eyedropper tool to select colors from the dog and apply it to the texts and backgrounds. Even though they weren't the same color every time, it was easy to see a rising theme knowing that the colors came from somewhere.

Proximity

Proximity is used to group related ideas together, in this project we grouped the poem and the dog close together because they shared the same idea.

What I Learned: 

During this project I learned how to apply the rules of CARP to a website, we renewed our knowledge in Adobe Dreamweaver and made two websites showing what a great difference CARP can make in our work. One trick we learned to use that we didn't last time we used Dreamweaver was editing the code to input text fonts that weren't available in design mode. I will remember to apple the rules next quarter and throughout the rest of my time in the E-Communication program.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

My House Animation

Summary:

A few weeks ago, we were introduced to a program called Sketchup, a 3D modeling application. First we learned out to make a simple chair using video tutorials. Then we moved on to learn how to make a doghouse which would help us prepare for this next big project, building a full size human house. We visited http://houseplans.housingzone.com/ to find houses we liked. We downloaded a picture and the floor plan of our chosen house and began to recreate in in Sketchup.

What I Learned:

I learned how to use the 3D modeling application, Sketchup, including move, rotate, scale, orbit, push-pull, offset, follow me and more tools. We also learned how to import extra details, add shadows, and use and edit textures. After we built, colored and decorated our houses we learned how to make scenes in Sketchup. You pull up the Scenes window and simply click Add Scene after you adjust to where you want the view to be focused.

How Did it Go? What I Would Change:

This project took quite a while to finish but it was quite simple to do. I really liked getting creative and trying to make our house model look real. If I were to do this project again I would spend more time editing textures and the landscape around the house. Next time I may even attempt to make my house two stories!

Saturday, February 11, 2017

My Personality Type

My Personality and People I Share it With:

     Yesterday we took a personality test (http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp) to see what kind of people we are and who we can work best with. After taking the Myers-Briggs personality test, I found out that I am an ESFJ. According to http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/the-16-mbti-types.htm, people with my personality are typically peacemakers, work with others well and consider their feelings. They work hard every day and are loyal. Then we explored some famous people who have the same personality type as us on http://www.celebritytypes.com/esfj.php. I share a similar personality with the Pope, Hugh Jackman, Whitney Houston, and more. Many of them seemed to be actors and singers.

Description Pictures:







My Thoughts:

     When I looked at the description of my personality on https://www.truity.com/view/types, I agreed with pretty much everything that was on there. I consider other people's feelings before my own, I see things in black and white (right and wrong), I stick to a regular schedule, and I believe that things will run more smoothly if people follow the same rules. The only part I didn't agree with was: "not shy about sharing their evaluations of others' behavior. 

     Now that I know more about my personality, I understand why I enjoy certain classes and sports, and get along with certain people better than others. Most of my friends are also outgoing and we agree on many things. I have always loved classes where me and my peers can all sit down and have a thorough conversation with each other and all understand exactly what each other is saying. It gives me a sense of unity, that everyone isn't as different as we might seem.

How This Applies/Applied to my Life:

     When working in a team, I usually try and help fit our needs to satisfy everyone, I don't want anyone to feel left out. I am not necessarily a leader in a team, unlike the descriptions, but I do step in sometimes to help get us back on track. On the other hand, when I am at home with my family I am a leader. I am the oldest child and I have been taught to be a role model for my sister. (I have been told that I get along better with my sister than any person ever seen.) I am not strict with her, unless it is required, but most of the time we just have fun. When the role I need to fill doesn't match up with my personality type, I usually let other people take over, I can sense when it is or isn't my turn and I act respectfully.

     In the past, some people have accused me of being too stuck to the rules and afraid to have a little fun. But they may not have understood that that is one of the traits of the people who have my personality. I don't usually have "issues" with anyone in my life, but I sometimes feel uncomfortable around people who are extremely introverted. I love to talk, and when it comes to introverted people, I see them as someone who needs help. I try and get them to loosen up and feel like they can talk to me and that they don't have to be shy. However, if the person just refuses every effort I make, it can be awkward.

Personality Activity:

     Later we did a personality activity where we looked at a variety of characteristics and marked which ones, in each row, were most and least like us with numbers (1-4). When we finished, we added up all the numbers in each column and circled the one that had the biggest sum. On the back of the activity paper there we animal names and descriptions tied to the columns. According to this, I am a Beaver:
-perfectionist
-creative
-problem solver
-doesn't like sudden change
My second match was a Golden Retriever:
-good at making friends
-loyal
-doesn't like big changes
-looks for security
-caring
-deep relationships
-wants love
-steady work pattern
In my opinion, these descriptions are more accurate than the first ones.


What I Have Learned:

     After doing this assignment, I realize that not everyone will always get along. That is just the way life is. However, no one will be lonely forever, there is always at least one person that they can relate with who can make them feel welcome.