VirtualShowcaseProcess - Tomas Jaramillo

My Process and Inquiry

Brainstroming P.P Topics

Idea Number 1 -

My initial idea was quite similar to the idea I ended up choosing. It was based solely off of mechanics. My idea was to use the car my grandfather inherited me, which is as seen in the picture, a 1976 Mercedes Benz 250. It is a pretty old car that has a lot of things that could be better. My idea was based off of the fact that I could use the car in the future when I get my liscence in February 2020. It could greatly benefit my transportation from point A to point B and could relieve my dependency on my parents to move around. It could also develop my mechanical abilities to be able to work and make the car better as it is quite defective. Mechanics runs in the family and it was a way to honor my late grandfather as he is the one who taught me the things I know.

Idea Number 2 -

This is in fact the idea I chose as my Personal Project. This project was always in my head but I had my doubts around it, it was the one I liked the most. After a lot of thinking I decided it because it was also based on mechanics and I could use the research for my own benefit. My 2009 Honda Crf150Rb is in critical condition and I haven't been able to ride it for around a year, leading me to trying to tear it down with research and building it up again, in the process learning each and every part of the motorcycle and knowing the role it plays in making the motorcycle function properly. There are hundreds of parts in a motorcycle and my goal is to be able to recognize the vast majority of them so in the future if I am riding and a malfunction presents itself I wont have to pay a big amount of money to a mechanic so he can fix the bike, instead I'll use what I learned to fix it.

Idea Number 3 -

My final idea of the brainstorm was to use the knowledge I aquired over the summer in a class I took for a month, to develop an app that could benefit high school students and the way they decide their future, focusing on something they truly like so it could benefit their adult life and how happy they are when work comes along. 50% of people from this generation and the past choose their careers separate from what they are good at and like. Not knowing the fact that they are going to have to do that in the future as a job. That is why most of them are unhappy when they reach the working stage of life. My idea was to use coding in a specific language to develop an app that gives you a series of questions that helps determine what you like and what career is the best suited for your knowledge and also giving you good options of where to study accordingly.

Reflection Upon My Decision -

At the end of the day and through a lot of thinking I realized that my Personal Project was going to be something that I had to remember along the line and something that would greatly benefit me in various ways. Although all of the options teach me something I found out that the one that I could use the most was the motorcycle. I ride motorcycles since I am 3 years old, I watched every race in Los Angeles for 5 years and couldn't miss any race that was televised and I thought about it every second of the day. I believe that restoring my motorcycle will come a long way with me and it will help support one of the greatest loves and pasions inside of me. I had to analyze if I was capable of completeing my goal for the deadline, which also had a great influence upon my decision. I believe that the car is like the motorcycle but a lot of more parts and quite more overwhelming regarding the aesthetics that come with the restoration. I also took into consideration the fact that since the car is old the availablity of knowledge is greatly reduced and along with that since the car is not functioning it needs new parts and old parts are difficult to get on todays market

Why I chose this topic.

Inquiry Questions -

- What laws and restrictions do I have in front of me regarding emissions?

- What things can I add to my motorcycle so it can improve its performance?

- What is missing in the motor and the general structure of the bike that limits its performance?

Criteria B

Criteria B was all about planning the process for my product, every single detail from a schedule of work, to how I was going to evaluate my process. By far it was one of the hardest criteria to develop, it required a lot of thinking and reflection skills, which I developed a lot.

Knowledge on Carburetors.

Here you can see a schedule that I made to be able to organize my work for the project. It highlights my day to day activities and the things that I had to do each day to be able to fulfill and finish my project in time and without rushing. As you can see, I didn't stop doing my normal activities just because I had personal project. I knew if I worked in the established hours I wouldn't have to make any sacrifices, on top of that I didn't want to overload on the project. This would make me tired and I would lose motivation in little to no time. This really benefited me to be honest. It organized me, and the good thing about it is that I made it, so I was comfortable with everything and I ended up memorizing the schedule and I made everything systematic, from that point on, I have developed a lot of schedules. I would really recommend the use of a schedule for disorganized people like me.

Here you can also see, the development of my criteria, this is basically what I wanted to evaluate and how. Evidence, purpose, audience, impact and aesthetics were the aspects I chose. The product clearly requires aesthetics to be evaluated as it is the main source of noticeable change, hence why it is important for there to be a change in the aesthetics, the product changed from one state to another and along the way changed other things, leading to a clear relation to part of the criteria. The impact determines the importance of my personal project, and my product relates to this because it makes a change in me and in the community that surrounds me. The audience is set and established and my product relates to this criteria because it is appropriate for a wide variety of people, and the learning experience will be the same. The purpose of my PP is to make my motorcycle function so I can ride it, I clearly achieved that leading me to relate the product perfectly to this criteria. Finally, Final evidence evaluates the way in which I document the process which I clearly did by using images and videos as support, leading me to relate this criteria with my end product.