Time Has Never Sounded So Good

The Final Action Project of our Light, Sound, & Time course, focusing on both math and science has us utilizing our knowledge on the 3rd and final unit, Time, to make something you probably have in your pocket right now. A way to tell time. Now to specify, the project was to create a unique way or improve upon an already existent time telling device, but mainly an entire item dedicating to telling time, as opposed to an app with the most accurate time or something. In the unit itself, we actually studied that based on how fast you go in relation to the speed of light (approximately 300 million meters per second), time may actually flow slower for you, and this happens with gravity too. Gravity's effect on you body affects how time gets to you as well, because if you're higher up in, let's say the mountains, then you'll live longer than your clone (assuming the actual lifespan is the same) who could be living at sea level. Time genuinely has altered effects based on speed and gravity, as if there were 2 watches (which include a date for accuracy) ticking at the exact same time and pace, if one was traveling at 90% the speed of light, and the other one was stationary, then the one that's moving would be at a time beforehand, something in the past as opposed to the one that didn't move which as a much farther time. There will be a time gap. Of course, the actual amount is varied based on how long the watch was moving for, but there is a true difference, an actual time gap sole because of motion and/or relation to gravity. Now just down below, you can see what I thought of to tell time, and I'm proud of it's (possible) universal appeal, as it can be anything you want. It was difficult to think of how it would work exactly, but look just a little further below and you can figure out exactly how it works, plus what exactly it is!

General Concept In-Depth: Have you ever thought of a timer that would speed up music the closer it is to finishing, or maybe even one that literally speaks to you, saying something like "almost there" as it progress back down to that zero mark? Well with the Custom Audio Timer, also known as the CAT Clock, you can set up different markers for your timer to update you on. If you ever need to know when the half way point of something is, then the CAT Clock is for you. If you've ever wanted to put your favorite movie quote to tell you that your cake is done baking, then the CAT Clock is for you. But where exactly did the CAT Clock come from?

Well some of the earliest forms of time telling devices come in a glass, an hourglass to be precise. More than millennium and a half later, humans managed to make mechanical clocks, which either used clock work or pendulums, the latter being the earlier form of these conventional inventions. Digital clocks and timers followed by the 19th century, almost 200 years after the first official clock that we would know today. Digital timers are now so common, you've got 2 if not more of them in your own home. Fascinations aside, timers are a crucial part of organizing yourself. If it wasn't for timers, then I wouldn't know how long I would be making this video. Most people only consider the forwards flow of time, but when you're counting down to something, then it's much easier to keep track of as you're independently separating what you're doing from regional timezones or global affiliations with time.

Now what does the CAT Clock bring to offer that your standard clocks and timers probably don't have? Custom audio. Using a special app or possibly a bluetooth set up, maybe even USB, (this is only a conceptual product after all) you can program specific audio to play based on what percentage of time you have left on the clock. The clock itself is a circle shape, with a diameter of 3 inches. That means that the circumference is π times that diameter, which is approximately 9.42 inches squared. There's a panel in the back where you can set up how long you want the timer to go on for, whether it be 15 minutes, hours, or maybe you just want to hear how it works and put seconds. Whatever time you want, you can set it up with the digital panel in the back. If you also what the clock mode to speak out each day to you, you can record your own voice or set up a synthetic voice to speak out to you each day a regular alarm for you to wake is set. Speaking on that note, I found it interesting to figure out through research that "Sunday is, obviously named after the Sun and Monday is named after the Moon. Saturday is named after Saturn. The other days of the week are named after Germanic gods. Tuesday is named after Tiw the god of war. Wednesday is named after Woden the chief god. Thursday is named after Thor the god of thunder and Friday is named after the goddess Frig." according to Tim Lambert in his article of "A History of Clocks" on the Local Histories organization website. But while that's interesting, how does the main feature add to your general life convenience.

What extra benefits do you have with an incrementally notifying timer? Well for cooking, you may need to check things when they're about halfway done cooking or boiling, but way think about when you can precisely know halfway. Other benefits could be during a presentation, as the timer also vibrates, so if you have a portable version of it and set it up to vibrate as each third of the total time passes by, you can easily pace yourself as to how quick you may need to speak. All in all, this timer is supposed to feel personal. It is customizable after all, and with several settings on how it interacts with you via sound based on remaining time, it's supposed to be the best clock you ever got. Not to mention that the CAT Clock does indeed have an actual clock mode, as the name suggests, telling official time based on manual configuration. There's no downside to a personalized watch!

Sources (MLA Citations): Wikipedia contributors. "History of timekeeping devices." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 25 Feb. 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2016.

Local Histories, Tim Lambert, "A Brief History of Clocks and Calendars", 2012

School is Long, But Should it be Longer?

The final Action Project for the history and language course, Argument, has risen. This course we've learned about the Civil Rights Movement Act in 1964, and also how certain forms of discrimination are evidently present today, despite our country's (United States) government's best effort to prevent it from happening. Countless cases of abuse and brutality from our own law enforcers, this is why we study the Civil Rights, to see if everyone actually has them, but I digress. The Action Project this time was merely to have a synthesis of both sides for an argument, any argument actually. As long as both points of view of the topic are considered, there's no limit to what this project can focus on. I myself chose school schedules. Many people already consider school days to be long enough as is, especially with the homework, but what if they were longer?

Reformatting School

Thesis

If school days were slightly longer, and the school year was longer too, then that would provide more time for proper teachings, and less homework. I see it as a more effective method for schools as homework is often times what overwhelms some students, resulting in less sleep each night they stay up trying to complete all the assignments. That, in turn, causes a chain effect of less efficient work, because of having less sleep. If the school day was slightly longer, there would be less homework assigned, and while there may be more time spent in school, the ratio of work done is school is suppose to alleviate a good amount of homework from the students.

Where's the Support?

- "A longer school day would allow schools to spend more time on art, music, social studies, science and physical education. These subjects have been cut back through the years to focus on English and math in the hopes of boosting test scores. Yet test scores have remained stagnant, and students have missed out on a more well-rounded education." -Barbara Bean-Mellinger, 2016

- "Yes, longer school days.

Wikimedia Commons, David Stroble,

Students and Teacher in a Classroom, 

1974 (digitally remastered)

I say yes. There are a lot of kids struggling in classes. Having longer class time means that a lot more stuff will get finished that might have not because there was too little time. The longer class times doesn't mean that it has to just be the teacher up inn front. This could be a time where the teacher walks around asking students if they need help. It could be a homework period. Maybe they have sports. They could get all their homework done if there is longer school days. And teachers worry so much about students not doing homework. This could be the time that the kids who don't do homework do it and not waste time playing video games." -Anonymous User via Debate.org 2013*

- "Instead of narrowing the school curriculum to focus on reading and math, the new school day opens up the range of subjects students study and get exposure to. In new day schools, students explore music and the arts, a remarkable variety of enrichment activities, as well as a range of programs in social and emotional learning. All these activities contribute mightily to helping children receive a truly well-rounded education. There's good evidence that the new school day improves the overall school learning climate by raising attendance and by reducing disciplinary referrals and what are blandly called serious incidents." - Christopher Gabrieli & Warren Goldstein,  2010**

Who has a say against it? (Anti-Thesis)

- "There are just 24 hours a day. School in itself takes up around 8 of those hours with travel to and from school and homework. Kids need about 10 hours of sleep. That leaves just 6 hours a day for family life, eating, sleeping, health care, physical activity, developing social skills, learning life skills participating in extra curricular activities and sport, religious instruction, reading and so on. Many of these things are just as important as school." Anonymous User via Debate.org 2012

- "School Days: Quality vs. Quantity

Wikipedia, Young woman sleeps over study materials,
Username: Psy3330 W10, 2010

But like the Academy Awards or tapeworms, “longer isn’t necessarily better.” After a while, things deteriorate and can even become painful. School is no exception. When we start to solve schooling issues from the position of lengthening the school day, we will create more problems than solutions because that time and money will have to be cut from something else.
By extending the school days, schools will need to cut after-school programs, sports and clubs, and make-up credits (night school). Graduation rates will plummet (further) when we see that kids who can’t make up classes they failed the first time have no second chance to learn.
Outside of the classroom, students’ lives will deteriorate: students will need to quit their after-school jobs. They will get home much later in the evening." - Adam Heenan,  2014

- "The more time kids spend in school, the less time they'll have outside of school. This is time they currently spend on extracurricular activities of their choice. Students will spend time in a basic physical education class instead of dance, karate or listening to music. Children already spend a large portion of their day being told what to do, how to do it and what rules to follow, and have little free time as it is. The ability to make their own decisions on how to spend their time is a learning experience, too." -Barbara Bean-Mellinger, 2016

Simply put (straight forward visual):

Questions for both sides

Longer school days: Do you really believe that the students will pay attention?

Answer: While the influence of the teachers and guardians is essential for optimized student performance, if the school day is slightly longer, we can either have a shorter school year or cover more lessons thus reducing homework. The goal is to eliminate the after school stress of having hours worth of independent work which will usually have a long term negative effect on the student.

Shorter school days: How do you suggest handling the work load, because compensation for what's not learned in class will be require.

Answer: With shorter schools days, a longer school year or even all year round could allow for any teachings that weren't fit in for the regular schedules. Brazilian education has 2 schedules, morning or afternoon, and it's all year round, which provides much less stress and strain on students as extended school hours can even proof to be painful in some way.

But is there something we agree on? (Synthesis):

Flicker, Girl overwhelmed by books, Walt Stoneburner, 2009

I believe both stands recognize that a change in schedule would be beneficial, and that students need more time to themselves as a whole. Focusing only on school causes too much stress for young developing minds to handle, which is why change should be a priority. American education may not be the worst, but there's a reason as to why here in this country, school is always affiliated with loathsome boredom, so a more engaging classroom, or perhaps more time for the student to pursue personal interests, should surely change that asphyxiation. Less work at home means better attitude the next day, however longer days could possibly result in a negative outlook towards school because it consumes so much time alone. Assuming it was all year around, though, it could also provoke a hateful connotation with the idea of going to school, as it would be redundant with the students. There are definitely large points to address for both sides, but in hindsight, the way things are right now are not optimal for American students. Some way to change the work load is no doubt what's needed for students today.

Sources (MLA, see also for Prezi)

TeacherHub, Ed Reform: Longer School Days or Better School Days? AH, 2012 http://www.teachhub.com/ed-reform-longer-school-days 

Institute of Education Sciences, Fast Facts, NA, 2015-16 https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40

Seattle PI, The Negative Effects of Extending School Days, Marie Anderson, 2016 http://education.seattlepi.com/negative-effects-extending-school-days-1755.html 

NEA, Longer School Days Affect Everyone, Dave Arnold, 2015 http://www.nea.org/home/14511.htm

Debate.org, "Should school days be longer?" NA, year of creation 2013(?) http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-school-days-be-longer

*Interested in hearing the debate about video games? Classmate and fellow blogger DNR made a post all about that here.

**There's much more to read in the article that further backs up the side of having longer school days, you can read more here.

Code of Wrongduct

Argument's second Action Project is just around the bend, as we are going to correct our school's code of conduct in some way shape or form. The initial goal of this project is to add, remove, or change something from the code of conduct in a way we see fit. This unit itself reviewed the basics of each of the 3 branches of the government, with a hardy focus on the Dread Scott case. If you aren't familiarized with it, just know that the Dread Scott case was back in 1847-1857 as a slave attempted to fight for his freedom as he was a citizen, and had no owner. This case actually rose up to the Supreme Court, but initially, the court decided that Scott had no place stating this claim in the first place, for he was a black man who shouldn't have even gotten that far in the first place, or at least, that was the mentality. Going back to the Action Project, I will definitely say that it was quite challenging to think of a topic because I'm honestly fine with just about everything that the code of conduct states, to me it all seems quite fair. All in all, I was able to decide what I could revise from GCE Lab School's Code of Conduct, and just below, you can read all about it.

So initially, the Code of Conduct has a section labelled for levels of Disciplinary Action, and one of these 5 levels is contacting a parent. To be more specific, there's an early level that seems rather hasty for its early inclusion;
"How: Disciplinary Action Levels

The following summarizes the levels of disciplinary action which shall be enforced by the Disciplinary Council and appropriate school personnel with students who are in violation of the Code of Conduct. This hierarchy serves as a guideline for disciplinary action. Disciplinary action levels will be assessed on a case by case basis; this means that the spirit of the Code of Conduct is more important than the letter of it.

Level 1 ­ Verbal warning – School personnel that witness behavior will address the student verbally. Note: process of documents in Highrise student’s personal file (depending on severity and regularity of behavior). 

Level 2–Contact Parent/Guardian ­School personnel will contact parent/guardian when student is given more than 2 verbal warnings in a class period or a pattern of behaviour needs to be communicated to parents/guardians.

Level 3- Referral out of class to Co­Curricular Coordinator, School Counselor and/or Director to conduct a conference with the student. The Co­Curricular Coordinator, Director, and School Counselor determine that due to the frequency and/or severity of the behavior a Parent/Guardian will be contacted and one or more of these interventions will be used."*


*The list goes on, leading up to suspension and then expulsion

Now as GCE is a school that focuses a little more on student independence, mainly focusing on autonomy and accountability, it seems almost hypocritical to have just the second level be contacting a parent or guardian. Independence can not branch off when a student constantly has the attention of their parents at the wrong time. Of course communicating with parents or guardians is actually vital, but as stated up above, only after 2 verbal warnings is the idea of contacting the legal guardian now imminent. Assuming that the offense to the code of conduct is a large one, then of course it seem only natural, but minor offenses, or even missing assignments is usually followed by a short email to the parents. Now is when the 2 sides to this argument really shine out, because on one end, if you're struggling in class and require assistance but haven't reached out to anyone, this is a good way to notify some hopefully reliable people in order to help out the student in need. However, on the opposing side, many of these notifications can easily be misunderstood, and furthermore, be sent at a time just when the issue is about to be resolved.

Premises 1: GCE endorses an independent style of learning and prefers to have a display of autonomy, responsibility, and accountability.

P2: As students face level 2 of disciplinary actions, an almost hypocritical experience is had.

P3: The hierarchy of Disciplinary Actions may be necessary to determine what's appropriate for the student to be punished by.

P4: Students that misbehave are first addressed by staff, first casually, then more seriously, and the next level is legal guardian contact.

Conclusion: The transition from staff being involved to parent being involved is very unnoticeable, which I find unexpected since I'd assume working staff could easily account for a level 2.

The main point I want to get across is how easily or quickly contacting a parent is. It's almost as if it's simply jumped to as the first option, which doesn't align with the independence and autonomy that GCE encourages. My revision with the code would be a change in the levels of discipline. I would either add a sub level to break up Level 2 from one so it isn't as earlier, or better yet, switch around the current level 2 & 3 with each other. This keeps a more business styled environment that GCE is preparing their students for. The values of GCE revolve around gratitude, respect, autonomy, accountability, and responsibility. 3 of these 5 guiding traits –that act as pillars for the foundation of the school– revolve around being independent. Of course it is necessary to establish a system where the worse you act the higher th level of discipline, but to have what I believe is a much more severe level as only the second tier of punishment is rather extravagant. If anything, any and all staff interacts should be dealt with first, essentially changing the order in which it's dealt with.

Difficulty Curve, "gabahulk" (2016)

I've even asked for what my older brother thinks of the idea of parental contact so early, and his response, "Well, yeah, it's just too early. If you go from 0 to 100 in half a second, that's way too much of a spike. It has to be evenly distributed so there's no large gap to make an impossible leap over, or else that system would be too harsh, in my opinion. Plus, like... you said that your school wants the students to be more independent, right? That can't happen if parents are almost immediately contacted." Then proceeding to sign a small paper identifying that he agrees with the concept of changing the Code of Conduct, making a more appropriate ordered Disciplinary Action Level, after giving me that answer.

With that being said, I'll close this off with one final thought, I would even ask you what your preference of discipline is; allow some time for repair/learning from the mistake over time, or make things evidently clear with how there was some poor behavior the first time around?


¶ 1: Introducing the project and reviewing the course.
¶ 2: Giving context before the syllogism.
¶ 3: Premises and Conclusion analysis.
¶ 4: Initial argument based on my point of view.
¶ 5: Those who agree with my feelings on the subject.
C: A public question to identify preference.

A Diddley Bow Music Show

The second Action Project for the hybrid math and science course, Light Sound & Time, has us making our very own guitar. More specifically, we're making a Diddley bow, which is essentially a single string guitar, utilizing a tin can to amplify the sound. It was a challenge to get all my materials together, and I'd definitely want to be as prepared as can be if I could start over from the beginning. During this unit, we learned all about how sound travels all the different traits it's got. With sounds waves, there's something called amplitude which affects the volume of the wave, the larger the amplitude, signified by the distance of the resting point to either of the peaks (range of y coordinates starting from 0). There were lessons about frequency too, which is the pitch (that can be determined by measuring wavelength; the low the wave length, the higher the frequency because compact sound waves make a higher pitch). With that being said, you can check out the Diddley bow just below.

My Diddley Bow creates sounds by the use of vibrations. The single string is vibrated via plucking, and that vibration is what we call sound. Sound waves range from a variety of sounds and pitches which visually can be represented with different lengths/height (amplitude) based on the middle point, and the distance of 2 peaks (a full complete cycle, showing us the wavelength, which is always less than the frequency as high pitches=small distance between peaks, and that's known as the wavelength). Now incidentally, there's another mechanic of sound yet it's not demonstrated by my instrument, which is known as the Doppler Effect. It occurs when sound waves seem to contract or spread apart based on motion of the listener or source. If you've ever heard a train, motorcycle, or ambulance pass by, making a lot of noise, you'll notice that the pitch is higher when it moves towards you (but not yet present) and has a lower pitch when moving away from you, going off into the distance. This overlapping of sound waves is how the sound gets amplified inside of the can as the string vibrates. So rather than a pitch change it's more of an amplification, thus not replicating the Doppler effect.


Now with a string that goes on for a foot (12 inches) before vibrations cease, and a thickens of 0.027 inches, I have a Diddley Bow that (based on a tuner) creates a Frequency of 132hz (hertz), translating to an approximate wavelength of 260cm. The harmonics are simple to calculate, as I just need to find the factors in this case as the harmonics go by quarters (including half) and thirds.

The picture below visually demonstrates how to find each harmonic, which is simple. Divide the wavelength by the harmonic number, and multiple the original frequency by that same number. Since we're talking about math here, I'll tell you the volume of my can, which I found by multiplying the height (4 in) by its squared radius (2^2) which is also multiplied by π (pi, 3.14, etc.). It turns out that there's about 50 cubed inches of space inside of the can, which is interesting to think about considering how more than 4 feet of a substance can fit inside something 12 times shorter than that in height.

Now if you're interested in what each part is supposed to signify, then the picture below shows the essential parts that are supposed to be represented.

And if you actually want to hear how the guitar works, than you can check out the embedded SoundCloud just below. Plus, a special thanks to a fellow blogger, who you can check out here, for the building process. With that, I'd say that if there's anything that I'd do over, it's be sure to be prepared. I was very late on finding a tin can which pretty much set back 60% of the research and data available, but I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!