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For my capstone, I’m using my makeup account to show how you can grow on social media and how you can gain positive profit from such accounts. My makeup account first started on Instagram and it expanded to different places like Twitter and Tik Tok. I was able to achieve some of the goals that I wanted with my accounts which were to have them grow, get noticed by a makeup brand, and finally work with a brand and have a paid partnership. I grew my Instragam to over 1,00 followers, my Twitter to over 3,000 followers and my biggest following is on Tik Tok with 18,000 followers. With my different accounts, I was able to get noticed by a makeup company called Anastasia Beverly Hills. They saw my work with my accounts and wanted to support me so they sent free makeup from their company for almost a year. Later on, I was able to work with another brand called Drench Cosmetics and they offered me a paid partnership of $100 to promote one of their products. I wanted to do this project because I wanted to see how one could grow on social media and the positive aspects of it. I also wanted to show off my makeup online. I thought starting accounts on different platforms would maximize my chances of doing these things for my capstone.

https://www.instagram.com/carlosbeautyy/

For my capstone, I wanted to create a project that would have an impact on the SLA community and even others outside of it, such as my family and friends. I live between the Hispanic world and the American world. I never really faced any challenges until I went to high school because growing up, I went to schools that were mainly ethnically speaking, Hispanic. It’s hard to balance at times since walking out of my home, it is a different environment I have to face every day. I wanted to portray that by making a documentary about what it is like being a Hispanic in America. The documentary was going to go deep into the social and emotional impact I’ve gone through and how people who go through the same challenges as I do, are not alone. Due to unfortunate circumstances, I was not able to begin filming for the documentary making this project not precisely what I wanted. I was able to complete an interview that was going to be apart of the mini-film and collected other types of research that will be presented in a google slide show.

Process Paper: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15UxItya2O8H188iP_BHNuHIvV-OwWRmG9Ek_vJp-8to/edit

Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Oi8TPT9y2hEgCi9cCTmMmYZvofr3uPoewbOb0YMAkcc/edit#slide=id.g808944eecc_0_90

Annotated Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z03TVcPHNIFOCNvnCfMt8SPXZkBpX7J-U8dAPy8Akhw/edit

Annotated Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13WQ3IrG6LZqD_LxJQToGpa52MgLvoECZ7cHB2Zok6KQ/edit?usp=sharing

For my senior project, I created an online resource for high school students who are dealing with stress. Initially, I had planned to give back to the SLA community in a physical way but my senior year was cut short so I had to adjust and adapt. Living in the age of technology I decided that the best way that I could create a long-lasting resource for high school students would be to create an Instagram page. The Instagram page is filled with information about managing stress. While completing this project I’ve learned new techniques to manage my stress. Also, I’ve learned that I am more connected to my school community than I once believed. After talking to my peers I learned that we were stressing and struggling about similar things. Knowing that the people around me were stressing about similar things made it somewhat more comforting and welcoming, hence the handle name @stressintogether_

Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Lc9zhLcsBMfIjegL3j-YTmEfiaZxWaVm4LeMlZQicE/edit?usp=sharing

https://www.instagram.com/stressintogether_/?igshid=1dqygazh61fg8

ABSTRACT

The goal of my capstone project was to develop a new way for speech therapists and parents to communicate with their nonverbal children. Originally the final product was planned to be an app using eye gaze technology, but due to COVID-19 making some resources inaccessible, the final product being presented is a video explaining how the app, HeyeLight, would have worked, as well as a donation to Easterseals of Southeastern Pennsylvania in the form of an iPad Pro. While the project goal was only accomplished in theory, I was able to accomplish several personal goals for my project, including learning how to design an app using programming languages HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, as well as how to solve a real-world problem using the engineering design process. I started this project in the fall by researching disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, and asking professionals at the Easterseals of Southeast Pennsylvania what problems they deal with on a day-to-day basis. A common problem for young children with cerebral palsy is communication. Speech therapy, including eye gaze sessions, can help with communication, however many eye gaze apps that are currently on the market rely on clipart or keyboards, an understanding that many young, preschool-aged children do not possess. My solution to this problem is HeyeLight, an app that applies user-uploaded photos as the subject of the eye-gaze session, causing a higher level of understanding in the child using it.

For my capstone, I wanted to support the young women that I attended SLA with, by empowerment. By empowering the youth, it will help with self-determination to motivate oneself. By forming a small organization where girls close in age are brought together every day, they have an opportunity to develop social skills and prepare themselves for the future. Having this kind of community will help them set goals, learn what it means to be empowered, and give them the confidence to persevere. I have created a blog post where girls are welcomed to speak out or be given advice.

For my Capstone, I have partnered up with Keyonne Johnson to create a way for kids to get more active outside. With the physical health of youth in the city in mind, we built a rickshaw for them to ride and drive. The other part of this project is a city-wide event. This event would include a skateboard ride and kickback. We would have food, music, giveaways and much more. At this event is where we would unveil the final product of the rickshaw. Clearly, because of the ongoing pandemic, we are not able to have this event, however, we still have the layout of what we have already done. We have built a prototype, searched for sponsors, and done event planning to make all of this go smoothly.

Slides Link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vFuO86fZ67lxjIH4gKhY7XicSLlSZFwAcxuI2jKFlhk/edit?usp=sharing

Bibliography Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IfqPyZ3BPQfrEJlpjlkXUHMHisLpQF41aUZMMFXa12s/edit?usp=sharing

For my capstone I created a professional development series called: Black Boys & Young Men: Liberated, Empowered, Educate. This was done in partnership with the School District of Philadelphia’s office of Students Rights and Responsibilities. This professional development is designed to create an environment where educators are able to have meaningful conversation about how race can affect classroom learning environments as well as talking about a Black student’s individuality and how the challenges they face also affects how they learn. This series serves as a training to help educators (new and experienced) across all fields understand the reality of Black students in their classroom. For this series I had a larger focus on Black boys.

My capstone is basically proving how SLA’s core values help you through any artistic thing you want to do. Whether that’s in social media, my project is how collaboration helped my tik tok grow. I break down stats and before and after on how i was just making videos individually and then when I used the SLA core value collaboration I went viral and it was really all thanks to the sla core value. I went to 22 followers to 10 thousand. My project shows and presents many core values through my videos on tik tok.

Link to Presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18wV9wmttkuedvAghhtfkzLmyrpwTcXOgvDhNWm2XGL8/edit?usp=sharing

For my 2020 Senior Year Capstone, I knew I wanted to do animation because it was the only thing that I could think of to get a book I write in 10th grade into the world. When coming into this project, I knew I had to do some research on how to animation, that, and advice from Mr. Ugworji, After trying and trying to learn about animation, soaking in all the information I could, I started the animation. When I say that I learned about animation, it wasn’t as much as you think. The thing about animation is that everyone has a different way of doing it. When I started, it was time-consuming and hard, I kept going, doing my work in school when the coronavirus happened. While the world stopped, you can guess what also stopped. That’s right, my capstone. It was too late to change my capstone, but I couldn’t create the animation anymore, I didn’t have my teacher to teach me, and I didn’t have the right tools to do it. I don’t mean physical tools, I mean no way of knowing what I was doing. I will say that this was a very good learning experience and was a great opportunity to learn some stuff. I learned a lot about how to animate, mainly facts, and what to do when you are animating. I also learned a lot about time management, I wasn’t that great at it, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. I am very grateful that I did this and got to do this, I wouldn’t change a thing about this year or this capstone.

Here is my Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1En_a41hUadPE8Zf6BXoYf8v-KfFDHwpqL2g_9_ZcC9Y/edit?usp=sharing

And I have my book here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12FOtvwl7OKFjdSoEkvVu2mVQp_ONIz_NfgxBMAd5aDQ/edit?usp=sharing

My capstone goals are spreading cultural differences so that people could feel less intimidated about Asian Culture. Before the pandemic happens, Valerie and I created an Asian Alliance Club in school, our goal is to let people know about the Asian representation in the SLA community.

The second part of our capstone is to create a gallery of the Asian culture but we could not do it. So instead of a gallery, I created a website that is specifically focusing on Vietnamese Culture. And for Valerie part, she will be creating some infographics as well as a poster!

This is the website: https://nlai0612.wixsite.com/capstone

This is the presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1x9AX_rFmFE6kNjWVVxFX9S6taj4sI4uQJK8tOzJyjIw/edit?usp=sharing

This is the process paper: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17w634Y6GUeJWMoPExZAyU08yTirEJ4OzO1cv5K2lPYA/edit?usp=sharing

This is the bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n4LIezA1VsVYu4xDuEwkxDyp5Q2fKxtosQ8wduTs1tU/edit?usp=sharing

I spent the past eight months putting on the She’s Reel Film Festival with my dear friend Grace Conley. The festival was designed to give young female filmmakers in the Greater Philadelphia Area a platform to share and be recognized for their art. The final product takes several forms. Most notably is an hour-long award show (which was initially live-streamed) that now lives permanently on YouTube, alongside the films that were selected to be part of the festival.

Grace and I worked almost nonstop from September until May, so it’s difficult to describe the process briefly, but these are the major steps: creating a brand (logo, color palette, name, Instagram), finding a venue, pitching to Braskem and receiving full funding, listing the festival on FilmFreeway to begin accepting submissions, finding judges (all of whom are women working in the film industry), analyzing the judging results and assigning awards, learning how to live-stream, hosting the live festival, and assembling and delivering gifts packages to all the submitters and judges.

Every part of this process was foreign to me in some way, so there was plenty to learn. I learned the importance of creating a detailed timeline and adhering to it, especially when other people are involved. I learned about using my network of people and their networks to find resources. I learned about the value and challenges of relying on other people. And I discovered what a difference there is when I truly love what I’m doing.

Bibliography

Over the course of my senior year, I worked to put on the She’s Reel Film Festival with my best bud and co-creator Ruby Ginsburg. The She’s Reel Film Festival is a festival made by young female filmmakers, for young female filmmakers. We wanted to give artists like us from the Greater Philadelphia Area a platform to have their art showcased and awarded. The final product is a combination of many works. The first being our virtual festival. This was an hour-long festival that we streamed on youtube, we awarded 11 films, and the video now has 200 views. Along with this is a youtube playlist of all of the official selections.

I have broken down the process of putting on this festival into three stages, stage one being the conceptualizing and branding stage. This is where we made decisions about the ethics of our festival, created all of the guidelines, and made our brand. We made a logo, color palette, name, slogan, Instagram page, and website. After that is stage two, the marketing and organizing stage. Here we searched for a venue, created a budget, found judges, created a timeline, pitched to Braskem, received full funding, posted on Filmfreeway, and then started accepting submissions. Stage three was the presentation stage. Here we had to switch our festival from in-person to virtual, learned how to stream, had the judges score the films, analyzed the results, assigned awards, created a script, highlight reel, and slide show for the virtual festival, and then hosted it. After the main event was over we designed and ordered swag for our festival and crafted homemade She’s Reel gift boxes that I hand-delivered to every submitter, judge, friend, parent, mentor, and supporter of our festival.

I learned a lot over the course of this project. I learned how to effectively collaborate, how to stay organized and follow a schedule, how to strengthen a community, and how much better it is to complete a project when it’s something you’re truly passionate about. I’m really proud of this project, for all it did to help me grow as a person and the joy it brought to the community of young female filmmakers in Philadelphia.

Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography! - https://docs.google.com/document/d/16FvWIJDeWprc2uzcZVqs6C0aEy_R5od35rDndB05mXU/edit?usp=sharing

Excerpt:

Why meditation works for me. Meditation for me is like a type of therapy. Talking to others doesn’t do anything for me. I always have and still address my worries and lifelong questions to myself, not others. It may be a flaw but that’s not for anyone but myself to let it become one. The first time I meditated it actually didn’t work and during this time I was an Atheist and had no beliefs on afterlives or before life. It wasn’t until I saw an article that said if you don’t believe that meditation will work, then it won’t work. You have to believe that meditation will work for its work. When I heard that it actually only made me not believe mediation worked even more. But a few months later with my anger issues at peaks I decided maybe to try once more, in an effort to calm my anger down and for me to not be so quick to anger I sat myself down in a place I saw as safe, made sure I was comfortable and on the floor. Began to breathe in and out for a seven-second duration of each breath in and out, with my eyes closed I began to see my breath cycle as a symbol much like an infinity symbol with one side with breathing in and the other side of the infinity symbol is breathing out. After this I would begin to think about things deep to me and my personal issues I’m working out. Time would feel a lot slower as the last time what felt to me as 20 minutes was actually over 6 hours. Things like that really take me by surprise and impact the way I think when I see it can control the way I perceive time.

For my senior year capstone project, I chose to expand and improve our school’s community involvement club after being appointed as the leader of the club by its previous leaders. One of my core philosophies as a person is that if you have the resources to help others who need it, you must do so. I wanted to share the sentiment with my peers by upgrading the club’s activities, consistency, and overall impact on the community. I wanted to ensure that we were participating in activities that were truly helping others. Throughout the 2019-2020 school year, I developed new regular volunteer activities for students to participate in as well as scheduled monthly standalone events for us to help run. Running and developing CIC this year was a challenge but it taught me a lot about the importance of leadership and service. To digitize my capstone, I composed a timeline of the 9-month long project from the beginning of the school year in September to May 2020.

Capstone Abstract

For my capstone, I created and ran an Etsy shop where I sold my original artwork. I sold greeting cards, watercolor paintings, collages, and different customized items that I painted/collaged on such as tote bags or jewelry boxes. All the proceeds from the sales I made went to Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program, an organization I am passionate about. When my capstone was finished, I was able to raise over 400$. My capstone process started with research and inquiry, where I learned how to best run my Etsy shop and fleshed out the particulars of my project with the help from my parents and mentor. I then worked hard to amass diverse a body of work that I could sell and set up my shop. Finally, I photographed my products and listed them on my site, marketed my site through social media and email, and shipped out orders. I had to adapt to obstacles throughout my process and not everything turned out as planned, especially because of the impact of COVID-19. Despite this, I am really proud of what I was able to accomplish with my Capstone. I chose to do this project because it combines two things that I am passionate about, art and helping others. It was amazing to be able to let myself have full reign over this project creatively and translate that into a digital business model, and to engage in my passions in a way that will make a difference for the people of my city.

Capstone Deliverables

Link to my Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/marenlambarts?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Screencaps of my Etsy shop:

Photos of my products:

Annotated Bibliography

“7 Essential Types of Product Photos.” Etsy, www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/7-essential-types-of-product-photos/22504064051.

This source is another one that has to with taking pictures of your Etsy items. It’s an official Etsy article, which I think is the best because it includes some inside knowledge of the platform. It goes into a bunch of different types of shots that are good to include when you are listing a product online. I never thought to have a scale shot or one that shows the product in action. It also made me think about how I will get clean studio shots for my products. I will need good lighting, a blank background, and a good camera.

“7 Steps to a Successful Start on Etsy.” Etsy, www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/7-steps-to-a-successful-start-on-etsy/22421860924.

This source gave me a baseline of the basics of starting an Etsy shop. I like that it is straight from the source where I will be making my site, so the steps are approved by it. It gave real examples of past Etsy users and how they were able to manage a shop. I was particularly inspired by the section about setting attainable goals, and used that to create my goal of raising 100$ for the Philly Mural Arts Program. I also thought that the advice on making keywords would come in very handy.

“Best Selling Items- Cards.” Etsy.com, Etsy, www.etsy.com/search?q=best selling items cards.

This source is the best selling greeting cards Etsy page. I will use it to look at the pages of the people who are selling the most and look at their designs and setup. I want to learn from those accounts so I can make the most successful shop possible. I noticed that a lot of the greeting cards have included humor or pop culture references so I will definitely keep that in mind when I continue to make mine. In the future, I will look at the tags that people used to list their items with so I can use those some tags for my items.

CBS. “Top Philadelphia Arts Programs To Support.” CBS Philly, CBS Philly, 23 Apr. 2012, philadelphia.cbslocal.com/top-lists/top-philadelphia-arts-programs-to-support/.

This source was very helpful in figuring out what organization I wanted to donate to. I definitely wanted to support something having to do with the arts, so I started with that idea and found this source. Each organization had different pros and cons, and going through that list and made me realize what was important to me in an organization. While I didn’t end up using any of the organizations it mentioned, it let me think of the scope of the city and ultimately led me to the Philly mural arts program, which is where I’ve decided I’ll donate.

Dizon, Anna. “Top 30 Tips for Selling on Etsy From the Pros.” Fit Small Business, 19 Dec. 2019, fitsmallbusiness.com/selling-on-etsy-tips/.

I really like this source because it includes testimony from real Etsy users to show what works and what doesn’t work in running a shop. A lot of them mentioned the use of keywords, which I haven’t really thought about. One mentioned the use of a business card that would be included with orders, and I think I will definitely use that to add to the personal vibe of my site. Another tip had to do with making sure you don’t infringe copyright, which definitely could be an issue with the slogans on my greeting cards.

Furgison, Lisa, et al. “4 Mistakes That Will Tank Your Etsy Shop -.” Bplans Blog, 16 Feb. 2018, articles.bplans.com/4-mistakes-that-will-tank-your-etsy-store/.

I obviously don’t want my shop to fail, and I liked that this article specifically goes into the don’ts of having an Etsy shop. It was specifically interesting to hear about taking photos, because I hadn’t really thought about how the product actually looks online being different than in real life. Same thing with item descriptions. I need to make them sound personal and unique, according to this source. Same thing with search engine optimization. I thought that marketing and views had only to do with social media and getting the word out, but I also have to think about random strangers searching my items.

Pilon, Annie. “10 Awesome Tips for Starting an Etsy Business.” Small Business Trends, 25 Dec. 2018, smallbiztrends.com/2018/06/starting-an-etsy-business.html.

This source was very helpful in giving tips on handling the financial side of my Etsy shop. I have to think a lot about what is going to be appropriate pricing for my products, and this article goes into that. It states that you must always consider time, materials, and profit when finally pricing an item, and I think that that is a great reminder. It also talks about investing in shipping supplies, which I had never thought of. I think it opened the door for a lot of questions about how I should ship certain delicate items. Overall, it made me think more critically about the practical aspects of the store.

“Restorative Justice.” Mural Arts Philadelphia, www.muralarts.org/program/restorative-justice/.

This source is what ultimately made me decide to donate to Mural Arts Philadelphia when my capstone is over. I really loved learning about this program and thought that it was something really worthwhile to donate to. On the website, it talks about the effectiveness of the restorative justice program and I was very impressed by it. I felt that I understood much better what I would be giving my money to. It’s just something that I really stand for, and that is why I decided to include it in my project.

Sonsev, Veronika. “Need For Speed: Etsy Shows That Some Items Are Worth Waiting For.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 22 May 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/veronikasonsev/2019/05/22/need-for-speed-etsy-shows-that-some-items-are-worth-waiting-for/#51580bc25599.

This source was useful to me because it showed an outside perspective on Etsy from a major business publication. The source talks a lot about the uniqueness factor of an Etsy purchase. I have to make sure that my products are things that cannot be bought anywhere. It gave a lot of good stats about the demographics of Etsy and who would be viewing my products. It also mentioned that the personal customer-seller relationship also contributes to Etsy’s success, so I will keep that in mind and try and add some personal touches.

“Want More Studio Time? 5 Killer Productivity Tips for Artists.” Artwork Archive, www.artworkarchive.com/blog/want-more-studio-time-5-killer-productivity-tips-for-artists.

This source was very helpful for me in the practical work side of things. I struggle with staying on-task, especially with large scale projects like this one. I think that I am most likely to be derailed with my art, so I want to use the tips from this source to get ahead of that. I think I learned that I might have to work on times that aren’t specifically designated for capstone, but when I feel most creative and ready to work. I liked the idea that the article presented that when I am done with working on my capstone for the day, I should be intentional about leaving the work in the past and moving on with my day.