THE LAST POST EVER

The Ho'oulu Ia Kamehameha project is finally over...as in over, over. We're done! With much anticipated relief, there is now a time to look back at what we had accomplished.

Back when fourth quarter was just starting, we had learned there was to be a project in which we would have to fix some type of problem at Kamehameha, in a way that relates to physics that is. And so the quest began to find a problem and solution. Looking back, I wouldn't have changed what we did. I believe we choose to attack a problem that has and will continue to impact Kamehameha. The tardiness challenge took some time to figure out, but in the end, we took care of it. I feel our 5-minute warning had a significant impact on the students of Kamehameha because it was campus-wide. Not only were the number of tardies reduced, but we also had a happier atmosphere, which was unanticipated but highly appreciated. For this being the time of year it with what with finals coming up, seeing students dance and be happy showed us that this warning has other purposes too. It has been suggested to us that we look into sticking with one song/tone and having that as a 5-minute warning. In all honesty, I see that failing for the lack of uniqueness to it; after awhile, thanks to psychology, the bell becomes an ignored noise for many, and it would cease to serve its purpose. Hopefully in the future, this project can be continued. Although it is a hassle for students to do during the passing periods, I hope that it can one day be part of Island Signal's system.

Having said that, it's a bittersweet moment to look back at what we had all done, all the stress that had been paid, all the waiting that had idled us...and now we're done. I remember when this project first started, and we had no idea what to do. And then we thought of something. And that something succeeded and came to fruition. A successful project now completed, we can look back and know that what we did had a real impact on Kamehameha.

I wholeheartedly believe that our project worked because our group had no dead weight. All members were productive and did what was asked of his responsibility. We never missed a blog post (except for this final one, haha, but this is individual, so it doesn't affect my group members' multipliers. Atleast I hope not). We worked as a group on all aspects of the project. When one of us needed help, we helped out. When someone needed to go see a person in charge, the others waited for response and looked for other people to question. I am completely happy with my group; I could not have wished for a better one. For a whole quarter, I got to meet new people in my class, and that was pretty cool.

Final Blog Post

Today marks the final day of the 4th quarter besides finals.  Doing this project during the 4th quarter was a very fun and enjoyable experience that taught me a lot.  I feel that the project was a great success that all came together the night of our presentations.  Things that went well with the project are that we the students we able to make a difference in the school that can be seen, some on a bigger scale than others, but just knowing that you made a difference is rewarding enough.  Also i like how this project was able to make me more familiar with my group members and helped me to get to know people that i didn't know before.  Things that didn't go to well include, a very long waiting process and not enough time to collect data.  However these thing could not have been prevented and were all apart of the learning process.  Waiting for the administrations approval showed me how much people go through in order to plan events for us.  It also tested our groups patience, but was so rewarding when it finally came through.  One of the main things I learned from this project is to always expect the unexpected and be able to adapt to it quickly.  I was taught this when our group had to face the waiting period of over a week to get our bell approved.  It showed to me how hard it is to get anything approved by administration, and made me thankful for all that our class advisors do for us.  I think what could be changed to help make this project better is that we have student logs of what we did each day.  This will show exactly how much work is being done, and if need be will be able to show who messed up where.  Other than that i would keep the project the same, because it was a really new and exciting experience.  I do think that I was doing science, however it didn't feel like it.  I was having so much fun doing this project that it didn't feel like science although we clearly were doing science every day, wether it be inquiring data or coming up with a hypothesis.  In general this project was a great success and i would really recommend that it be done in the future.

It All Comes To A Close

After 10 long weeks dedicated to this project, we are coming to a close. We have completed are final presentation during the symposium and have just turned in our final written report. Now that the project is over, it is time to reflect on what we have done and learned.

Overall, I think that this project really taught me a lot about many aspects in life. We had to deal with actual deadlines and actual people making decisions that we really couldn’t control. We learned to work as a team and to fulfill our own responsibilities or take the consequences. In addition to teamwork, we used problem solving skills and creativity to construct and implement our own ideas. This project is very unique and something that was well worth my while.

Some things that really went well include the symposium and actual completion of our projects and many of them working. The blog posts were a nice way to keep track of our progress and inform others who were interested in what we were doing. Like many things in life, not everything went the way we could have hoped. However, this is what made the project so realistic and meaningful; it showed that not everything will go the right way and you have to simply adjust. For example, the

If I could change anything about this project, it would be the time given. I believe that this is more of a semester project rather than a quarter. Although most groups were able to compete their tasks in the allotted time, I believe that over a semester, projects could be better planned, and data collection would be more accurate as far as longevity.

Was all of this related to science? IT’S PHYSICS BABY! Everything in life is science and when you collect data, you are truly doing science. That is what we did, and that is what we accomplished.

Thanks to Mr. Blake for the life lesson, and thanks to Princess Pauahi for the opportunity!

Image: http://www.hawaiiforvisitors.com/images/topics/monarchy/pauahi-03-398x459.jpg

Final Blog Post

I thought that the overall project was really difficult, but fun at the same time. It was rather difficult because we had to really analyze Kamehameha Schools and pinpoint a major problem on campus. Our group brainstormed for a week or so and was finally able to identify a complication at school. The project was also fun because we were able to run a five-minute warning on both high school campuses for almost a week. Being in charge of a major undertaking like the warning bell was truly an awesome experience. Several things went well with our project. One thing was we were able to reduce the number of tardies on campus, which was our initial goal. We also were able to make Kamehameha a happier place because the students were able to hear some of their favorite tunes over the PA system. We even caused students to dance, which was totally cool. Another positive thing was that the hallways were much clearer, and all the credit goes to our implementation of the five-minute warning. Along with the good things were things that did not go as planned. One thing included the five-minute warning turning from a whole song to a 20-second clip. This was because Mr. Ako was in a meeting at the time of the first warning and said it was a bit of a distraction. Another thing that did not go as planned was the late implementation of the warning. We had scheduled with Mrs. Martin to have our proposal out by May 9, but it was postponed because of AP testing. From this project, I learned that I can’t please everyone in this world. This is so because a certain number of individuals complained about the music selection from time to time saying that they wanted their requests over the PA system. I believe it was hard to please everyone, especially when you are apart of a campus of 1600+ students. Through this experience, I did whatever I felt was best for the vast majority. All in all, a vast majority of students enjoyed the music selection and said it was really good. To make this a better activity, I would say that the school service students should manually run the five-minute warning instead of us. This would be better, so we wouldn’t have to personally go into the office five times a day to run the PA system warning. It would really save us a lot of stress and trouble. To make Ho'oulu iā Kamehameha a better project, I would say that the students should have more days than just a quarter to work on their proposals and implementations. Maybe give them an entire school year, while still doing physics activities at the same time. I honestly do believe we were doing science. This is so because the five-minute warning implemented music and music includes sound waves. Sound waves are directly related to physics, which is in part science. Also, our group was collecting data during the implementation portion of our project by asking teachers to record the number of tardies before the warning was set up and even after. Data collection is directly involved in the science process, so we were definitely participating in a science-related activity.

Post Presentation

Friday night was the night of our speeches and the culmination of 8 weeks of hard work finally came together.  Everyone was feeling the pressure, however were still able to do the presentation.  As for our group, i feel we did exceptionally well.  The grades we got were 40/40 for the powerpoint/keynote presentation,  and 108/112 for the actual presentation.  We could not be any happier with these grades seeing as it translates to a 97 % for our final exam grade.  The overall effort my group members and i put into this project definitely paid off.  We could not have been more happy for ourselves and happy for each other.

Presentation Day

Today is the day of our final presentations! We have finalized our keynote yesterday with several bits of information, pictures, and even videos. Each of us has different responsibilities in our presentation. Tylar is covering the proposal, Sam is going into detail about our design, I am dealing with the implementation, and Jessica is explaining the results and concluding our presentation. We feel rather confident in our group’s presentation and truly believe that we’ve made a difference on campus. The bell has had many positive comments and feedback from not only teachers, but also students. We hope that the parents and administrators see how big a difference this bell has made on campus.

Final Day!

Today was the last Block Schedule day of the school year, which means it was the last day for the 5 minute warning. Although the Five Minute Warning (FMW) has only been implemented for 4 days, we have seen a change in the student body. The combination of the end of the school year and the FMW has appeared to liven up the school. As we walk through the hallways during passing period and the sound of the PA announcement warning tone rings, students anxiously wait for a song to be played. Some students would sing along with the songs played and others would dance. Many students made the primary use of the FMW and got to class on time. It was somewhat saddening today to give the last warning. We announced over the PA that it would be the final FMW and we even played the song a little longer than normal. We really believe that it made a difference at school despite some opposition from some students. We have learned that there is no way to please everyone, but when a majority is happy with what you've come up with, that's all that truly matters.

Image: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~turner/kam/campus.gif