This week, we were introduced to basic biology concepts, such as the causes and effects of ecosystems and biodiversity. I have learnt about these concepts in the past; however, this time, I was introduced to some new vocabulary: "richness" and "abundance" (at least I think that's what they were) to describe an area's biodiversity. It also served as a nice refresher before the main PBL project was introduced. We also did a team-building exercise by building a puzzle. This taught us teamwork and set the stage for how we would work together on future group projects. We were also taught the CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) research structure. We started by watching ads and writing what their claim was, listing evidence, and giving reasoning for why the evidence supports our claim. After this, we did group research using this research structure. My group was assigned the question "How urban development is hurting biodiversity in Taiwan". We found 3 pieces of research, 2 sources, and some visuals that were included in the articles. This research assignment was similar to what I was doing in Dr. B's English class. That made it easier for me to understand what was going on in the harder parts of the article.

This week, we had 3 case studies analyzing the design process. Two were done on paper in a question-and-answer format, while the last one was a presentation. The topics were all pretty enticing, and I had fun reading them. This presentation and its feedback also allowed me to prepare myself for what I will need to do for the first project pitch. Additionally, I also thought watching other people's presentations was pretty informative, as I got to see how other people did this project and how each presentation had different strengths and weaknesses. Basically, I got to see other people's and my own mistakes, so I wouldn't make them in the future. This was the first presentation made in this class, and I would say it was overall a success. We just picked slides we wanted to work on or that no one else was working on, and each did around 2-3 slides. However, we could have worked on our communication with each other, as we last-minute decided to randomly present the slides instead of presenting the slides we made ourselves. We also could have used the extra time to practice our speeches a bit better, as I feel like we were a bit underprepared. I look forward to doing project pitches in a new group.

This week, we mostly pitched our products/ideas. We started by making a one-slide presentation to get our ideas out, and after getting feedback from the teachers, we started working on our first full project pitch. While we did struggle a little trying to pick what we would be focusing on, we eventually ended up on seed spreading using a keychain salt shaker. There was also a ton of pressure lifted when the presenting time was moved to Tuesday. The research process was fun, being able to delve into guerrilla gardening and the culture and community behind it. Something we could improve on next time is fooling around less and actually trying to get together to agree on one point. I think we only realized we needed to lock in after we went home on Wednesday, as our presentation was not finished at all, and we spent pretty much half the class trying to decide on the idea we wanted to focus on when we could have been using that time to research our idea (seed spreading, for example). Moving forward, we should try to get it to exist first and perfect it later.

We started the week by presenting our project pitches. I would say it went pretty well. We received some valuable feedback from our peers, Grade 12s and teachers. After this, we further developed our Group 1 project tracker by making a timeline, weekly tasks, and a materials sheet. We noted down peer feedback from the pitch and had a meeting with the teachers, where they provided more detailed feedback. On Thursday, we were taught orthographic and isometric drawing. This was actually pretty fun to do and learn about, as it provided me with a tiny insight into what Liam was doing in Makerspace and gave me the basic groundwork for the more complicated concept of making a 3D concept/prototype drawing for my own product. I've taken a few drawing lessons in the past, but they were incredibly different from what orthographic and isometric drawing is. The fact that you can make a ton of unique shapes with just straight lines and a ruler is kind of insane to me. Especially with the fact that this is used in engineering (with it, of course, being more complicated).

This week, we researched our project, conducted a paper Mars helicopter experiment, and were introduced to our solo experiment comic planning project. I researched existing solutions. I found that people are trying to save endangered plants by saving their seeds. I also delved into some specific plant species that are endangered and that people are trying to save. I wasn't there for a bit of the experiment, but I would say it was fun. We dropped paper Mars helicopters from different heights and graphed the medians from 5 drops at each height. The comic is a good way to teach how to make your method specific while making a visual. I feel like in school, I could try being more efficient during work time, as I did less work than I could have. I can spend more time just making the work exist on the paper. A more consistent sleep schedule can also help, as I start crashing whenever PBL starts ending.

This week, we mostly focused on individual work (planning our introduction, the experiment comic, and isometric prototype drawings). The drawings were actually pretty fun, despite being time-consuming. It was especially satisfying seeing the angles come together to form a coherent shape. All with just straight lines. Improvements could be made to our introduction, which we can do when our whole team can work on it together. We also started printing out our prototype and hope to test it next week. Not really much to say about this week; we mostly split up into pairs to work on our own projects/assignments.