Month: June 2016

It’s Time To Turn Away From Computer Controlled Lockers

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Have you notice the backpacks and books in front of the lockers at KAS? Well, the thing is, it’s like a mountain over there. Why not just put the bags and books inside the lockers? Let me tell you why. Because the computer controlled lockers in KAS is often broken. So why not use mechanical lockers? KAS should use mechanical lockers because students control them, they don’t break as much, people know how to use them.

Lockers

Photo on 6-7-16 at 1.12 PM #2 #2

Above is two pictures of the backpacks in front of the lockers at KAS.

Mechanical lockers don’t break as much. In schools, lockers are used for years. Lockers won’t break and you could put your school materials inside. You won’t have to carry your backpack with all your books around to classes. In KAS, most students don’t use lockers anymore. KAS uses computer controlled lockers and 56.2% of the students in middle/high school said they don’t use the lockers because they break. “First of all, the electronic lockers are prone to be stubborn, confusing, and generally malfunctioning most of the time. Though its purpose was to make things easier, it has not fulfilled that to any measure of confidence. I believe it is of our best interest not to continue to use these stressful things. Just today, one of my friends Pearce could not open his locker. We were standing there for about 15 minutes trying to get the obstinate thing open, until we were literally smashing the card against the sensor… to no avail. Nothing worked and we gave up. This has happened many times, and I do not think adding more stress on top of the horse loads of the emotion we already possess is a good idea,” said a student from high school. So that means they have to carry their backpacks around to their classes.

Heavy Backpacks
(Picture from: ‘Breaking-our-Back’packs”‘Breaking-Our-Back’Packs”. The Scratching Post. N. p., 2016. Web. 7 June 2016.<http://senecascratchingpost.com/2206/student-life/breaking-our-backpacks/>)

Most students’ backpacks are heavy and when they keep on carrying heavy backpacks around, they can damage their spinal cords. Researchers weighed the children’s backpacks and asked the children if their back hurts. 64% of the students said it hurt, at least a bit. In students reporting pain, about 12% said it was “not bad,” while almost 90% said their back pain was “bad” or “very bad.” Carrying backpacks around the school campus could hurt your spine, which if injured, you cannot do anything. You cannot feel, exercise, eat, or even breathe without help. You might say that, “Students can just put it in front of my locker or on top of my locker.” But what if it was kicked to another place, or somehow it was missing?

SPINE
(Picture from: Tribune, N.Tribune, Nri. “Heavy Backpacks Leads To Kids’ Back Bone Problems – South Asian Media Network”. South Asian Media Network. N. p., 2015. Web. 7 June 2016.< http://www.nritribune.com/heavy-backpacks-leads-to-kids-back-bone-problems/>)

If schools provide mechanical lockers to students, students can control the lockers. With mechanical lockers, students turn the lock to enter the combination. When you can control something, you have power over it. When you enter your combination, you are basically giving a secret code to tell the locker to open itself. If you had the computer controlled lockers, sometimes the computer system will be dead, or broken. You can’t control the computer system.

Also, teachers would know how to use mechanical lockers, obviously because they are old (no offense). Back then, there are no high quality electronics to operate lockers, so they would have to use the mechanical lockers. Turn, click, open, put the stuff in, and slam. If you need help with the lockers, you could just ask your homeroom teacher, or your English teacher. So much more convenient.

KAS uses electronic lockers, then you would have to go to the teacher who knows how to fix that kind of lockers. I had a personal experience about fixing the lockers. I had the habit of putting my stuff inside my lockers, so I have to go to the second floor, find a teacher who knows how to fix the lockers, and then come down to the first floor to my locker. In my case, I always had to go find Vivian or Jeff. They have their own work to do and everytime when I go bother them for fixing the lockers, we are just wasting my own time. Is it worth it? Why not just buy mechanical lockers and everybody is happy and not wasting anytime?

Change the lockers to mechanical ones now! It is easy to use, it’s timesaving. If you want students to be happy, love the school, then you need to do that.

Mechanical Lockers
(Picture from: school lockers #095 manufacturers,school lockers #095 exporters,school lockers #095 suppliers,school lockers #095 OEM service.”School Lockers #095 Manufacturers,School Lockers #095 Exporters,School Lockers #095<http://www.yeskey.com/space/junlanshiye2635/products_info/school-lockers–095-201508.html>)
Lockers 2

Tessellation and Self Portrait

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Tessellation+SelfPortrait

This artwork is about making a tessellation and self portrait. Also, I learned how to shade, putting value in it, and using a grid for the self portrait part. When we were starting this project, we first made our self portrait. Before having a picture taken to be our guide, we used a sphere and a picture of Mr. Bean’s head. We practiced how to draw a grid and how to shade different parts. After all those practicing, we took our picture and put it into Photos and change it into a black and white picture. After Ms. Oda, our art teacher, printed the black and white photo, I drew a 2 cm grid on the black and white picture and 2 cm grid on another piece of blank paper. Of course, I started drawing my self portrait. Then, we needed to make a tessellation to put our self portrait on. I learned how to create a shape out of just a piece of paper that I can tessellate with. The shape for the tessellation is created by drawing a creative line starting and ending from the left side of the paper, then taping it across to the next section. For example, I drew a curved line starting and ending from the left side of the paper. The next thing I do is cutting out the shape. The shape should be exactly fitting into the cutted out area, then the shape will be translated across to the other side. So left to right. Repeat these steps again, but the shape would be translate from top to bottom.

The self portrait picture I chose was because I think the value are more obvious and easy to draw. For my tessellation, I made three different ones. I chose the one with curved lines because I think that one was the most unique one out of all of them. For the first pattern, I chose to put harmony in it. The outside is darker and the inside is faded lighter. The next one is a pattern with 4 different colors. I purposely chose those colors because together it is very colorful and I think it looks pretty good. Viewers might feel happy and inspirational when they see this artwork. That is because when you see something that is bright and colorful, you will feel happy and the black and white self portrait against the colorful background makes you feel motivated and inspired somehow.

The elements of art I used were line, shape, color and value. I used lines to outline the shapes of the tessellation, and parts of the features in my self portrait. I used shapes when I am drawing my tessellation and there are different shapes in the self portrait. For example, oval shapes for the eyes and the pupils will be in the shape of circles. I used colors when I colored my tessellation. I colored my tessellation in red, brown, light green, dark green, light blue, dark blue, purple, orange, yellow, and light pink (skin color). I used value when I was shading my face, making it look more 3 dimensional, not just flat. The principles of art I used were balance, rhythm, pattern, contrast, emphasis, harmony and variety. I used balance when I was drawing the tessellation. Balance was used when I drew the same pattern at the top and bottom and in the middle, there is another design. In the self portrait, you can see that the drawing is balanced, I worked very hard on all of the parts. I didn’t just focus on the hair, because it was easier, but I focused on my face, neck and even my ear! Another principle of art I used was rhythm and pattern. I think I used both of them in the same place. I created the pattern, which added rhythm to the whole drawing. The colors in the background, contrasted and emphasized the self portrait. The colors changed so fast. The background is very colorful, than the self portrait is more classic, black and white. I used harmony when I shaded the outside of the tessellation shape and then lighten it in the middle. Like I mentioned before, I used a variety of colors.

Next time, if I do a project like this, I would have more designs in the tessellation and make my self portrait look awesome. I hope that through this experience, I could use some techniques on other similar projects.