For my English component, I decided to keep a journal recording my thoughts and feelings on my project.
November 10th, 2013. I have just attempted my project for the first time. Before I tried it for myself, I thought the whole “balancing nails” thing was going to be boring. But now that I have done it in real life, I can see just how the physics of it works. I was very impressed and I can’t wait to present it in the future.
November 20th, 2013. Today we presented our projects at the George R. Brown Convention Center. This was the first time I have ever presented my project in public, and added with the fact that we presented to students from other schools, the entire experience was very nerve-wracking. At the very beginning, I realized I had no idea what my project was truly about, but after a while, I started to get the hang of it. It was fun to answer the students' questions and see their fascination with the seemingly-impossible structure of the nails.
February 1st, 2014. Today was the school's first STEM fest, during which I presented my project to students, teachers, and parents. It was a very fun, if somewhat tiring process. I was very nervous at first, but as the day went on, I became more sure of my project and started to enjoy presenting. The people who came up to my table seemed to be very impressed and surprised with the trick to balancing the nails. No one who had not previously seen my project was able to find a way to balance the nails on the nail head.