Blog Feed

Create a Post

Stephanie Dyson Capstone

Posted by Stephanie Dyson in Capstone - Bey - Wed on

From the ever-influential (and never-aging) lips of Pharrell Williams: “'Entrepreneur 'just denotes that you recognize that you're doing things across disciplines and that you're blazing your own path.” My capstone was my own exploration of the term entrepreneur and of myself as a renaissance woman. I actually began my Capstone in June 2015 when I began work with a thrift shop located on South Street called Here’s To Cool Stuff. There, I met a myriad partners and friends who would work with my over the course of my senior year to attend learning events and produce the following projects:

  • Administrative Internship at The Village of Arts & Humanities in North Philadelphia

  • YCenter 2-Week Social Entrepreneurship Incubator

  • Five Finger Posse Art Shows

  • Radiation Media Gang Events

  • Philly Art Collective Events

  • Events Internship with Art(is) for Kids

  • Elebration Celebrations

Elebration, the group that I did a majority of my work with, gave me the opportunity to build my personal clientele and help me decide that I’d like to go to school for Public Relations. I worked with countless artists, managing their social media accounts and commission requests, creating business cards, organizing and being a liaison for galleries and shows. In terms of shows and events, I managed four over the course of the school-year:

  • South Street Cypher @ InksterInc (530 S. 4th Street) - 3/12

  • Philly Art Collective 7th Installment @ OpenSpacePHL- 4/16

  • Locals Only @ H2CS (1214 South Street) - 5/6

  • Frieday @ The Boom Room (1300 N. Front Street) - 5/20


Video footage from our extremely successful South Street Cypher. Hosted by Elebration at InksterInc, only 23 people showed up when our doors opened. By leaving doors open and allowing the music and art to ebb and flow, we ended the night marching to Kendrick Lamar's "Alright" with nearly 70 people. This made the way for various interviews on small blogs and media outlets within and out of the city. All credits for the video go to our media specialist at Elebration, Yusri Yunivrs.
A poster that I created for an event I co-curated with the Here's to Cool Stuff team. A multidisciplinary art show and locally curated pop-up shop, Locals Only garnered nearly 80 enthused patrons. In helping H2CS curate and manage events, I helped their profits tremendously. When they were previously breaking even at best, they had a booming 6 months of profits when I began promotional work with them. I have also been commissioned as their In-house Events DJ when school lets out for the summer.
​One of my favorite and most interesting side jobs was doing creative direction and styling for my good friend, Sean. Han.soloo on instagram, Sean has had his recent work published in many online, New-York-based publications. This gave me some insight not only on entrepreneurship, as he is one of the few artists I know who makes a living as an artist and as an artist alone, but on the fashion industry and allowed me to create my own ideas on style and creative direction. 
--
From working with my various teams, I found that, however long and tasking the processes of event and project management may be, it’s something that I love to do. My future projects include the Philly Art Collective’s 8th Installment @ OpenSpacePHL - 5/22, Elebration Banquet - 6/11, Eleblock Party- 6/18, Art(is) For Kids Wine & Dine - 7/1, "Gentrified" Book Signing with author and photographer Lamar Bonéy @ The Village of Arts and Humanities - 7/4. I was a quiet power-player in Philadelphia’s underground art scene, and plan to take everything that I learned this year and not only incorporate it into my studies in college, but continue to follow the path that I am blazing.

View my annotated Bibliography here


Isabella Blackwell's Capstone

Posted by Isabella Blackwell in Capstone - Martin - Wed on

For my capstone, I initially wanted to base it off of Youtube, and create a Youtube channel with content of my own on it. I watch Youtube videos everyday, and it has honestly become apart of my daily life. I thought it would be a great idea to create videos of my own that people my age could relate to, and take a liking to. I started to "vlog" in the fall, but in the end, I just wasn't comfortable with the content. I also just didn't know how I could connect that capstone idea back with SLA's core values. After talking with my mentor, and throwing around ideas, I decided to do something that I love, which is volleyball. Along with my team and coach, I worked hard to create a "Students vs. Teachers Volleyball Game", that will take place on Tuesday, May 24th 2016. 

To make this all happen, a lot of things had to be planned, and difficult decisions had to be made. We had to get a gym to have it in, decide who was going to play, get ahold of teachers who wanted to participate, spread the word and get students interested, figure out how to make money off of it, etc. Phone calls were made, and we ended up booking Lloyd Hall, on Boathouse Row, to host the game. I made a forum for teachers to sign up to play, with information about their shirt size and nickname so they could have a "jersey". I signed and distributed tickets to sell to people interested in coming to the game to have fun and support. I also made flyers to post around the school with information about the game like, the cost of entrance (initially 3 dollars, now 2 dollars and 5 dollars at the door) and the time, date and location. Below is a picture of the flyer, along with a picture of the matching slip of information about the game that goes with a ticket when bought. 

Here is my Annotated Bibliography!


Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 9.13.57 PM
Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 9.13.57 PM
Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 9.14.15 PM
Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 9.14.15 PM

Allison Kelly

Posted by Allison Kelly in Capstone - Bey - Wed on


​When entering senior year, I had no idea what my capstone would be. I didn't feel interested enough in anything to dedicate a whole school year's worth of work to the project. I was actually one of the very late bloomers when deciding on a capstone idea. I had messed around with a few different topics, but nothing really stuck with me. It wasn't until one day when I was reflecting on senior year and all of the things I wish I knew going into it and I wish I was warned about  that it finally hit me. I was going to make a senior year guidebook for the incoming seniors of SLA.


The book consists of 8 chapters. It starts out with an intro to senior year, just a general idea of what to expect. After that, it goes on to tell my experience as a senior. I try to the best of my ability to warn them to steer clear of all of the mistakes I made. I then talk about some junior year necessities. In hopes that all of the advisors will make their advisory read the book over summer, this chapter will help them know what exactly to have done before even entering senior year. I then talk about test prep, creating their own future plans, and some of advice on how to be accepting of situations and motivated to make something work for them. The best chapter of this book  are letters written by some other select SLA seniors giving their own stories and advice.


Overall, I have learned that you can always take something away from an experience, even if it didn’t turn out the way you planned or would’ve liked. Maybe the best thing I have taken away from my senior year is the advice that I have crafted into this guidebook to be able to help other seniors out with some information and advice that I wish someone could’ve given me.


Below is an excerpt from the first chapter of The Official Guidebook to Senior Year.


And so that time has finally come. The year in which you have so longed for, the one you thought would never actually arrive. It’s here and it is going to go by faster than you will ever believe. All of our years in schooling are spent wishing for the weekend, the summer, the following year, etc. that we never realize until it’s all over how fast that time we wished away actually went. The scary thing is though, that is time you will never get back. So, I am here to help you not be in the current position I am in, wishing you could start senior year all over, do things differently, and get all that wished away time back.

    I think the first place students go wrong when entering senior year is the mindset they have. Senior year has gotten itself this reputation of being the easy year, the year that you just cruise through. I hate to break it to you, but that is not the case at all. From experience, I can actually say that it is quite the opposite. Senior year was definitely the hardest year of high school. All of the work you get in all of your classes seem like so much more than it actually is just because you were expecting all of your teachers to be asking close to nothing from you, and sadly that’s also not the case, well not at least until about second semester. So, not only do you have your normal boatload of work, but it is also the lovely season of college applications.

Now at SLA, being as we are a very small, close school, we seemed to have been warned about everything. We have rarely went into a year not knowing exactly what the challenges entailed. We were warned about how hard physics class would be for most of us, we were warned about which teachers would always catch us on the elevators, which teachers were pushovers and would fall for accepting a google doc link for a submission even though they wouldn’t be shared in for weeks to come, what it would be like to finally be stuck in a Don Marcos or Reddy class, and even how hard junior year would be. But, for some reason, nobody decided to warn us about the hardest year of our high school careers.


Bibliography










Jonas Bromley Capstone

Posted by Jonas Bromley in Capstone - Bey - Wed on

When I started thinking about my capstone last summer I knew I wanted to do something with solar power. After that I had to think about what I could do with solar power that could help the school. With this I decided to make a solar powered charging station. This was a much bigger task than I first anticipated it to be, after doing some research on making solar panels I realized that this could be a huge undertaking. After that I talked to Miles about joining me on my capstone and splitting it into multiple parts, we started working together on wednesdays in Mr. Kamal’s room. We started off just doing research and got in contact with Stephen Pisklak, who works on solar panels at DOW. We reached out to him to figure out if making our own solar cells was a viable project. He told us that it would not be possible to make our own solar cells but that we could buy solar cells and build a charge controller. We started researching and ordering parts, we eventually accumulated enough parts to be able to start working on the panels. Attaching the cells together proved to be very difficult because the cells were very delicate. They are so delicate that when miles picked one up it snapped in his hand.

At this point in time we have everything assembled and we just have to connect a couple pieces together and mount the solar panel.



Below is an album highlighting the process of our capstone and what we have now:

https://goo.gl/photos/sAxb4au97Gs6cqAW8


IMG_3537
IMG_3537

Bibliography:


Byers, TJ. "Build a Solar Charge Controller." Mother Earth News. Mother Earth News, n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2016. <http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/solar-charge-controller-zmaz84mazale.aspx?PageId=1>.

This source is where I found the best schematics for a charge controller. This source was very helpful because it gave me a layout for the charge controller and the exact specifications on all the parts I needed for it. It gives in-depth descriptions on how to assemble it, and where to get certain components. One of the drawbacks of this source are how old it is, it was published as an article in 1984. I have checked it against other sources and it looks reliable, the reason I chose it over the other sources is that it is a lot more detailed.


Davis, Michael. "A New Solar / Wind Charge Controller Based on the 555 Chip." A New Solar / Wind Charge Controller Based on the 555 Chip. Michael David, 2014. Web. 02 Feb. 2016. <http://www.mdpub.com/555Controller/>.


Dell. "Dell Slim Power Adapter - 65 Watt." Dell. Dell, n.d. Web. 4 Feb. 2016. <http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=332-1831>.

For the charging station I am including chromebook chargers because all of the students will have chromebooks and it will be helpful to have that hardwired into the station. I needed to know how much power is needed to charge the laptops so that the solar panel produces enough energy. It is also important to know how much energy the charger accepts and how it converts the energy. If I give it too much, it will blow out and will not work. If I do not give it enough, it will not do it’s job.


Dhar, Michael. "How Do Solar Panels Work?" Live Science. Live Science, 16 Dec. 2013. Web. 1 Feb. 2016. <http://www.livescience.com/41995-how-do-solar-panels-work.html>.

This source was very helpful because from it I were able to learn the basics of photovoltaic solar panels. This helps me to be more knowledgeable about my capstone. One of the drawbacks to this source is that it does not actually tell me anything about building a solar panel. I chose this source because it is useful to know the background information about what you are working on even if it is not actually pertinent to what you are doing. This information could help me work through problems I might have while building my panel.


DIY Projects. “Solar Cell Tabbing - the EASY RIGHT WAY to do it.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 23 January 2010. Web. 2 February 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDlcaILWP54>.

This is one of the sources to I used to learn how to tab solar panels. This one was really helpful for me because it showed me how to do complete tabbing of solar panels. The process is very difficult and without this source I would not have been able to accomplish it. One of the drawbacks of this source is the lack of explanation on some of the procedures to tab the panels. The video helps us find out how to connect the solar cells together to create a solar panel.


Dow Corning. "Solar Energy Basics." Energy for a Sustainable World From the Oil Age to a Sun-Powered Future (2010): 155-65. The Science of Solar: Solar Energy - The Basics. Dow Corning, 2009. Web. 4 Feb. 2016. <https://www.dowcorning.com/content/publishedlit/06-10028_solar-energy-the-basics.pdf>.



Everbright Solar. "500 Watt High Power Mono Crystalline Solar Cells for DIY Solar Panel." Everbright Solar. Everbright Solar, 2009. Web. 02 Feb. 2016. <http://www.everbrightsolar.net/500-watt-high-power-mono-crystalline-solar-cells-for-diy-solar-pa500.html>.

This is the company I bought my solar cells from so they have the specs for the cells I bought. I need the specs to figure out how big I want to make the panel and the specifications for resistors. It is also useful to know the specs for the cells so we could find the right materials to use with the cells to build the solar panel. This source also gave us the weight of the cells which will help build our support structure for our panels. One of the things that I would have liked this source to include is how fragile the cells are, when we first opened the box we took one out and it snapped in our hands.


kurtscottage. “Homemade Solar Panels Diy tutorial, complete build.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 12 August 2012. Web. 2 February 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouLa4Ftu3O8>.

This has been my main source for the complete build of the solar panel. Shows how to build a large panel from beginning to end with plenty of explanation and instruction. The one issue that I have had with it so far is that he has some slightly different materials. His solar cells for example are already tabbed, but mine are not so I had to find another more detailed source to learn how to do that part. This source is credible because it is simply and instructional video, it does not make and scientific claims that require citing. This source has been essential for step by step instructions on the creation of a solar panel.


Mik. "Overcharged Lead-Acid Battery - What to Do?" V Is for Voltage Forums. V Is for Voltage Forums, 7 Mar. 2013. Web. 2 Feb. 2016. <http://visforvoltage.org/forum/13446-overcharged-lead-acid-battery-what-do>.

This is an important source because I am doing something that could potentially be dangerous. I found this source when trying to research on the dangers of charging a battery of this size incorrectly. The source describes a man who over charged his battery, something that may happen if I do things incorrectly, and I now understand more fully what will happen to the battery. This source confirms my suspicion that not only will the battery be ruined, but it will need to be properly disposed of. This means that I need to check up on my battery periodically to make sure it is ok.


Schwartz, Drew. "Polycarbonate (Lexan) vs. Acrylic (Lucite)." Colorado Plastic Products. Colorado Plastic, 25 Sept. 2015. Web. 5 Feb. 2016. <http://www.coloradoplastics.com/blog-0/bid/42625/Polycarbonate-Lexan-vs-Acrylic-Lucite>.

I needed to figure out what I was going to cover my solar panel with, glass is expensive so I wanted to use some sort of plexiglass. The question was polycarbonate or acrylic and this source helped me know the difference. The source explains the impact strength of the polycarb (most notably by demonstrating in the video), and lead me to the decision to use polycarb instead of glass or acrylic. This option is cheaper but still has the strength that I need for an indoor solar panel.


SFUPTOWNMAKER. "PCB Basics." Sparkfun. Sparkfun, n.d. Web. 2 Feb. 2016.

<https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/pcb-basics>.

This site helped me learn how about PCB’s or Printed Circuit Boards. We are going to be making our own Printed Circuit Board for our charge controller. We decided that a printed circuit board would be the easiest way to make our charge controller (opposed to a breadboard or wiring the components together manually). A printed circuit board will allow us to assemble our charge controller very easily and make it more reliable and more durable.


Solar America Cities. "Solar Installation Guidebook." Mayor's Office of Sustainability. City of Philadelphia, n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <http://www.phila.gov/green/solarGuidebook.html>.


wtam69. “Diy automatic 12 volt charge controller.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 16 January 2014. Web. 2 February 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C-Q76y3wy8>.

This source on charge controllers was very helpful because it helped to verify our first charge controller source so we could know it was accurate. This is important to know because if your sources give different information you won’t know how to  proceed correctly. This source also showed the actual construction of the charge controller instead of just showing diagrams like the other source. One of the good things about this source is that it outlines how to test your charge controller safely to make sure it works. This is very important because we are going to be using a large amount of current that could be deadly.

Katia Hadjeb Capstone

Posted by Bradford Latimer in Capstone - Pahomov - Wed on
Abstract:


The original project was to  complete a novel by the end of this year, that talks about the way society  treats people with visual disabilities. Also talking about what people consider as normal, and how is difference often rejected. In deed, I finished the first chapter of this book. I was not able to finish the whole book, because  I kept having new ideas and changing the story; but also because of health issues I’ve had which required me to not do work for a very long time.  I am planing on finishing the other chapters  as I’m moving forward to college.

The other part of the project was creating a group that consists of high school students who have visual disabilities,  and discuss the obstacles that face them and the reasons behind them as well as ways to overcome them. Also to participate in certain activities and workshops in order to raise awareness about blindness, and advocate for our rights.  Although I found people who were very passionate about the project, we faces a lot of obstacles as moving forward.  Because the students are from a private school for the blind, they were not allowed to get out of the school since they lived on campus; and in order for us to do our activities in that school I had to go through a lot of people. The end of the year  started approaching and I still had to meet with other people in order to make it work. Meeting with those people was never a problem, but it took up to three months in order to schedule an appointment with one of the principals. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time and resources to complete this part of the project, but I’ll definitely keep working on it.

Over all, I have learned a lot about   different ways of dealing with different people. Most importantly I worked with great mentors who thought me  that when things don’t go the way I want them to, I should just make the best out of it. Even though the result of this project was not exactly what I wanted it to be,  but  this project is still a great start for a future greater project.


bibliography:

My project is mainly based on my personal experience, as well as the experiences of some other students whom I’ve met with a few times. 


Marvin Pearson,Shaniyah Scott,  Madeline Nobles, Tyler Jordan and Christian Childs  all confirmed that they have been treated differently/negatively by people only because of their blindness/visual impairment.


The following books helped shaping the story and characters of my book, due to the critical and philosophical ideas and theories they introduce.


How to make friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie.

This book talks about human relationships, and the min theory that it introduces is that the deepest  urge of all human beings is to feel important. Therefore the best way to positively influence someone is to make that person feel important,  or unimportant  if the goal is  to destroy  the person psychologically.  So the question that comes out of this book is:  do people feel important when they believe that  people with disabilities need them to do anything and everything?


psychotherapy and existence realism (selected papers on logo therapy) by Victor Frankel

This book is very interesting. It is very philosophical. It questions truth  and reality, but it also talks about what makes humans  humans.  To be a human being is not to be driven by instinct, but to be responsible.  Humans are instinctual, but they are also existential  and that’s what makes them different from animals.  


Man's search for meaning by Victor Frankel

This book suggests that all humans need to find meaning in their lives, otherwise they cannot live because they’d have nothing to live for.  It also states that  if humans have the ability to find meaning in their sufferance/pain, they’d never be negatively impacted by that pain or suffering.


the tears of humanity chapter1

Ava Olsen Capstone

Posted by Ava Olsen in Capstone - Jonas - Wed on
My capstone was centered around the sport of ice hockey and the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation. I have been playing hockey for five years, and it has become such a huge part of me that I couldn’t help but involve it in my senior project. I started volunteer co-coaching a 10u girl’s ice hockey team in September, and stayed with them for an entire season for a total of 24 total hours volunteered. I also ended up writing four articles and counting for the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, as well as a tribute to Mr. Snider, who passed away recently. It was an amazing experience to be able to show young girls how the dynamics and team building aspect of ice hockey work, and to use my writing skills to have articles published in a newsletter. It was a privilege and honor to get to work with such great people, and I am so happy that I was able to have that experience. I will never forget the people that were involved in making my senior project a success, and I hope to inspire those around me to do great things for the people in their lives that have done so much for them. The Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation has done everything I can possibly imagine for myself, so I am ecstatic that I was able to give back to that community.


Sean Morris Capstone

Posted by Sean Morris in Capstone - Martin - Wed on
Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 10.02.31 AM
Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 10.02.31 AM


​For my Capstone I worked on the preproduction process to be able to make a high quality short film. This project took many different forms as I edited and reworked it. From creating a TV pilot episode to trying to film this film, I decided instead to focus my capstone on the pre production aspects on making this film, in which the ultimate result would be that I am ready to start filming. Which I have thus far succeeded in! In fact I have already filmed some scenes, which will be reshot later, but certainly demonstrate some examples of how page changes to screen.


The bulk of this project and my work lies on the script that it all comes from, which was a more difficult process than I originally gave it credit for. Creating a storyline, characters and especially dialogue that you feel like most audience members would be able to listen and respond well too- are all very difficult things to do I found. Especially when the content of your script deals with a supernatural element as well.


I was able to learn a lot into the making of films and media creations, and how encompassing and difficult it must be when you're actually in the industry. From script writing to getting props and more it was an incredibly involved process. I have been able to get my movie at a good place and I hope you will all enjoy it when it comes out next year!!!



Link to Google Folder with my work: Sean’s Capstone


Link to Citations (also in folder): Citations



DSC_0025
DSC_0025

Kadija Koita Capstone

Posted by Kadija Koita in Capstone - Kamal - Wed on
Abstract:

I know first hand what it was like to be in crucial need for blood, because when I was thirteen, I got malaria and was in Children`s Hospital of Philadelphia`s intensive care unit for two weeks on dialysis. My blood was also O negative, which is the universal blood type, but unfortunately only makes up 7% of the world's population, which made the process even more extensive for me.

Every two seconds someone is in need of blood. The average blood donation is three pints, which takes about 15 minutes for a volunteer to donate. A single car accident victim could need up to 100 pints of blood. I know some people had no idea of these facts, which is partly why I chose my capstone. I wanted to not only educate those who were not aware of this blood crisis, but also help, even if it only made a small difference, to alleviate the problem.

I decided to partner with the American Red Cross to host a blood drive. Building up to the drive, I publicized the event by teaming with Timothy Morgan, an American Red Cross blood drive manager to help spread the word, not only in our school, but in our community.

Below is the link to some of the blood drive photos. As well as descriptions.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oa8glhnXVagAB4lg31bF1-ZMjZwGqk2cX22g3DcynKQ/edit?usp=sharing



ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY:


  1. "Hosting a Blood Drive." American Red Cross. Web. 02 Feb. 2016.

This is about how you can sign up to be host for a blood drive. I didn`t know if you were supposed to go to the American Red Cross or if they came to your school. I now know how you can host a blood drive and be in partnership with American Red Cross. Prior to starting this capstone, I didn't know what steps I should have taken to start actually being a host for the blood drive, now I can move forward knowing. Before starting my capstone, I need to know the fundamentals of actually what my job is, this is why I looked up how to navigate a blood drive.


2. "American Red Cross Founded." History.com. A&E Television Networks. Web. 02 Feb. 2016.

This website is basically about how the American Red Cross was founded. Before doing this project I didn't know when the American Red Cross came about, so that is why I looked it up. This will help me access how long ago it Red Cross went back. Also who were all the people that were involved from the beginning. This is intended to signify the importance of how the American red cross was made. I also think that intended audience is for mainly seniors or adult students. The website is clean and gives lots of information.


3. "Donate Blood." Donating Blood. 01 Jan. 1948. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

This website gives insight on what actually the blood facts are. They give you an understanding on how many people are eligible to give blood and how many people actually give blood. Prior to doing this research, I did not know the statistics and quick facts of giving blood. Also this would help me because I need to know the estimate of how many people will be attending in contrast with the statistics on how many people actually give blood. There are not any found authors, which is not good, but the website looks legitimate and the facts look exact as well.     


4. "Carter BloodCare." Carter BloodCare. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. <http://www.carterbloodcare.info/>. This website illustrates the importance of O negative blood. It helps people insure that people with this type of blood can know why they really should donate. There are no authors which I think can be detrimental to the authenticity of the website, but people should still be able to trust it. Moving along my capstone, I want to be able to have an understanding of what a “universal donor” is so it will make people be more aggressive to donate. I need to make sure that I know every type of blood type, so that I know the kinds of people are more common to have each type of blood.



5. "Donor Preparation - LifeSource." LifeSource. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

This is an overview of what to drink and what to eat before donating blood. This site had lists about what you actually eat and what you shouldn`t. It had reasons on why it was important to not eat certain types of food. This website looks like it was made easier and simpler for people to follow and come up with. It also does not have a certain type of publisher, which is ok because they have explanations of why the put each thing in there. With other websites, they really don`t have explanations that go in depth like how this website deos.


6. "What Happens When You Give Blood." What Happens When You Give Blood. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

This source includes every procedure of giving blood. It goes into depth about what the interviewer will ask you and what they do prior to taking blood. This website is mostly geared to people that are first time blood donors and want to take precaution as to what is actually going to happen. Other websites just glimpsed over it and made it sound like you actually knew most  of the information prior to getting on the website.


7. After your donation. (n.d.). Retrieved February 05, 2016,

This gives you steps that you do to make sure you don't die when you give blood. It gives you ideas and facts about what to do when you have given your portion of blood. Some of them change when you have O Negative, because then you are able to give a double platelet blood which means you will have certain type of blood cells taken out and then it gives taken out. This will help me inform people that don`t know what type of blood they have and what their blood type means. This website was really helpful in making sure I know appropriate protocols for donors.


8. How Often Can You Donate Blood? (n.d.). Retrieved February 08, 2016, from https://www.mskcc.org/about/get-involved/donating-blood/how-often-can-you-donate-blood

When many people try and donate blood, they often don`t know the number of times you can give blood in a specific time. Often many people think if they feel ok then they can just give blood.When looking at this site, the intended audience was for people that were older in age because it had more medical terms and words that were harder in reading level. This website looked very sleek and had a medical feel to it, like many college students go on this site. Many other sites dealt with other things and not really specifically what I had searched. So now I have knowledge on this and it will help me further my project progression.


9. Dowshen, S. (2015). What's Blood? Retrieved February 08, 2016, from http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/blood.html

This website grasped the attention of many people of a lower age. The website was very child-like and had a lot of pictures to illustrate what was being said. It also has a foundation as its contributors which I think will grasp the attention of many parents because it has a positive connotation. Also because the foundation may be a non-profit which means they are teaching this because of the goodness of their hearts. I did not find the people who produced or made this website which I could say is one of its flaws, but I think that this website was better than a lot of the websites that I looked up.


10. Frequently Asked Questions. (n.d.). Retrieved February 08, 2016, from http://www.donateblood.org/donate-blood/faq

This website is great! All the research that I had previously researched was all on this doc. It looked very good and sleek. It gave background on what is in your blood, how are you going to be treated if you feel sick after giving blood and things like that. This website was very helpful and made me have more knowledge about the things that I previously researched. Also the contributors were not applicable which can cause damage to the recognition, but not that much.





Ilker Erkut's Capstone

Posted by Ilker Erkut in Capstone - Kamal - Wed on
Abstract - 

When I was younger I played a lot of soccer.  It all started in fifth grade when I first started at Independence Charter School.  I played at recess everyday for four years.  I grew to have a passion for soccer.  The biggest thing I was missing while playing soccer was a personal coach.  When I went to team practices I never felt that I was learning enough to play in high school.  I honestly think that if I had a personal coach, I would have been a lot more ready for competitive varsity soccer.   I went back to Independence Charter School so that I could give kids the opportunity I wish I had.  I taught a small group of third graders very useful skills that they can continue to practice to become better than I was at their age.  I enjoyed giving back to the community/my old school.  My program got kids active and got kids enjoying soccer so much, they practice when they are at home.  
Below, I have my annotated bibliography and below that I have a presentation of my experience teaching.  This presentation explains my process getting ready for the program, what I taught each week and how each individual kid improved over the course of six weeks.  I also touched upon the five core values, as required.  I ended it with a few of my favorite pictures, a video and some acknowledgements.  I enjoyed this project and hope that others do as well. 

Annotated Bibliography - 

http://www.independencecharter.org/


"Independence Charter School." Independence Charter School. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.independencecharter.org/>.


This is my old school’s link. I looked at this website to get a feel for their environment and the after school activities that they have.  I will be working there for 8 weeks and therefore I needed some background info.  I learned a lot from this site and I  liked all the things that have changed from my old school.  I cannot wait to work at my school Independence Charter School.



http://www.coaching-kids-soccer.com/


Brown, Chris. "Coaching Kids Soccer, How to Make Soccer Practice and Game Day Dynamic and Fun." Www.coaching-kids-soccer.com. Chris Brown, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

This website is my first link to help me start my class.  I got a lot of info from this such as game plans and what I am going to teach.  I also needed a way to positively influence the children and help them enjoy the club.  This website is quite reliable and gave me more info than most. The website was created by a father who coaches his son's team.


http://soccerhelp.com/Soccer_Dribbling.shtml


Huddleston, David, and Kay Huddleston. "How to Teach Soccer Dribbling to Kids - Amazing Results Fast." How to Teach Soccer Dribbling to Kids - Amazing Results Fast. Kay Huddleston, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://soccerhelp.com/Soccer_Dribbling.shtml>.


This sight was for the specifics for my curriculum.  I need to have a lot of different drills for my students.  If I do not have a lot of drills to show the kids my after school activity will not work.  I plan to have a total of 10 to 20 drills that I rotate around so that they learn things and continue to learn things throughout the weeks.  


http://www.coachingsoccer101.com/rules.htm


Eaton, Bill. "Coaching Soccer 101 - Soccer Coaching and Youth Soccer Drills." Soccer Rules. Bill Eaton, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.coachingsoccer101.com/rules.htm>.


I looked up the rules of soccer so that if the kids have questions I can give them specific rules and not mislead them in any way.  THis will also help them in the future against refs and coaches.  This was not as important but I also know that my knowledge on soccer is as far as I have experienced it in a game.  This is why I chose this link.


http://hubpages.com/sports/Soccer-Rules-for-Beginners


N.p., n.d. Web. <http://hubpages.com/sports/Soccer-Rules-for-Beginners>.


This was another soccer rules site so that I could have some more insight.  I looked up the rules of soccer so that if the kids have questions I can give them specific rules and not mislead them in any way.  THis will also help them in the future against refs and coaches.  This was not as important but I also know that my knowledge on soccer is as far as I have experienced it in a game.  This is why I chose this link.


https://www.nscaa.com/education/resources/fundamentals


"The National Soccer Coaches Association of America." Fundamentals of Coaching Soccer : NSCAA Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <https://www.nscaa.com/education/resources/fundamentals>.


I have a lot more links on how to coach, ranging from fathers to youth team coaches and even some professional coaches.  THe point of this is to get a lot of opinions on coaching.  When I was young I wish I had someone who could teach me soccer the right way from the beginning so that I would not be behind when I played with others.  This is why I have this link.  


http://www.pbs.org/parents/talkingwithkids/positive_discipline_tips.html


"Seven Tips for Practicing Positive Discipline." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.pbs.org/parents/talkingwithkids/positive_discipline_tips.html>.


This source is very reliable.  It is both PBS and a .org source.  THis source was for guidance in making kids feel good about what they are doing.  This is very important because if kids do not feel comfortable then they will grow up afraid to express themselves in soccer.  That is a very hard way to play soccer because there will always be times when it is necessary.  


http://literacynet.org/parents/


Nutters, Holly Fulghum, Pat Jarvis, and Leslie Shelton. "Smart Ways to Teach Your Child!" Smart Ways to Teach Your Child! N.p., 1994. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://literacynet.org/parents/>.


This source was more general.  I wanted to know how parents wanted their children to be taught.  Not specifically about anything.  I found that it is very similar to the source above in that they want there to be a lot of positive energy and that the kids should be able to express themselves.  This is why I chose this link.  


https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/why-consequences-arent-enough-part-1-how-to-coach-your-child-to-better-behavior/


Bean, Sara. "Child Behavior: How to Teach Your Child to Behave." Empowering Parents. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/why-consequences-arent-enough-part-1-how-to-coach-your-child-to-better-behavior/>.


THis link was to understand how parents want their children reprimanded or punished.  It was very interesting as I find that parents like the teachers to be very upfront with how they feel  No physical altercations should be necessary.  If it gets physical with 2 students then being physical is okay.  This is why I chose this link.   


https://www.youthletic.com/cincinnati-oh/articles/best-age-to-start-playing-soccer/


"Best Age to Start Playing Soccer." Youthletic. Youthletic Staff, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <https://www.youthletic.com/cincinnati-oh/articles/best-age-to-start-playing-soccer/>.


THis was the most interesting link because it is said that kids should start learning soccer around the age of 4.  That is really young.  The kids will not really learn anything till they are at least 6.  My audience will be 3rd and 4th graders.  But I believe with good coaching I could get them to the place they should be if they started when they were 4.  I hope my idea works.  This is why I chose this website.  


Kevin Courtney Capstone

Posted by Kevin Courtney in Capstone - Martin - Wed on
​

For my Capstone I wanted to focus on what is it like to coach a baseball team. I wanted to understand the basics of it. For example come up/make drills for practices, workout routines, making lineup cards for games, and record games in the book. Since I had elbow surgery over the past summer I wanted to find a way to still be part of the baseball program at SLA. My mentor was able to let me coach throughout the fall, winter, and a little bit of the spring. I didn’t coach as much in spring because that was when I returned to action.  


I was able to coach a few games in the fall when my mentor was unable to attend. It was a success and I had a winning recorded. I had two wins and one lost. During the winter of my recovery I had the opportunity to take over the winter weight lifting workouts. My goal was to make sure the team avoids injury and that was a success. Spring finally arrives and the doctor has cleared me to go back into action. Now I started to think what can be my final product for this project and I’ve decided to make a website based off the current season. The website has player analysis and statistics from the season. It also has all of the articles included that my mentor wrote from the season if no one has seen it. I hope everyone enjoys the website!

Website link:




DSC_9380
DSC_9380

Jordan Meriwether Capstone

Posted by Jordan Meriwether in Capstone - Bey - Wed on
​

Abstract:

Hello, my name is Jordan Prince Meriwether. I am a senior student at Science Leadership Academy and eventually hope to move into a career involving Environmental Science. My final school year was full of new responsibilities and work, but the biggest project was the Capstone. Throughout this school year we were given the major task of creating a project that both reflects ourselves and the core Values of SLA, them being inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation, and reflection. My personal interests, as stated, revolved around the environment, but I needed to get more particular. Before this project, I was an intern for the Fairmount Water Works and developed an interest in water quality, so I decided to focus on that over the course of this project. I had also partnered myself with the Water Works throughout this project and they would consistently be by my side ready to help me comprehend information, while supplying me with the tools I needed. Currently a pH kit is the best you’ll get when it comes to determining water quality, the problem is they are too subjective making them unreliable. Therefore, I believed the best way was to understand water quality is to look at the organisms that live in it, if they can not survive in their own environment what makes you think you can survive ingesting it? So my project was based on the variance between diatoms across multiple varied pH environments. I would take samples and see how they compared.


My project: http://jprince2u.wix.com/diatoms



Bibliography:

  • Busch, David E.. “The Patchiness of Diatom Distribution in a Desert Stream”. Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science 14.2 (1979): 43–46. Web.


Annotation:

This states a specific instance where the diatoms were used in a project. The scientists look for a correlation between diatoms and the patchiness of a lake in a desert. The idea is perhaps the microorganisms grow under certain circumstances. Personally, I feel this site is the most advanced in terms of vocabulary and outside references. I do not know a lot of the information involved in this project mainly due to it talking about other microorganisms, but still much of it is still understandable. Overall, this paper is harder, but it does still reference a few known pieces of information and even some interesting new information.



  • Crangle, Robert D., Jr. "Diatomite Statistics and Information." USGS Minerals Information: Diatomite. U.S. Geological Survey, 2 Feb. 2016. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.<http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/diatomite/>


Annotation:

This site gives a brief overview on the stone Diatomite, which is a stone made up of the dead remains of diatoms. They go over the structure and texture of it. I used the site for information of what diatomite is used for. It has been used for filtering, padding, and many other applications. The reason this site was chosen is do the the simple information given, it makes sure to given only the essentials. Which is all I need. If it went too in depth I would get lost in the information. Overall, this site gives a good explanation for diatomite.



  • Conger, Paul S.. “Diatoms”. The Scientific Monthly 73.5 (1951): 315–323. Web.


Annotation:

This paper is quite detailed in its analysis of how diatoms work.While appearing to be long, it actually is easy to understand and goes deeper into themes seen on other sites. It goes over the abundance of these creature, explaining how they are built to survive everywhere. They even touch on some of the darker aspects to diatoms, their ability to kill fish and over produce in water are both discussed. Even other theories are brought up throughout the paper giving more insight into the world of diatoms. Overall, the site adds so much to the my already vast information. Giving deeper insight than ever before.

​


  • DeColibus, D. "Tabellaria flocculosa." In Diatoms of the United States. 2013. Web. 16 May. 2016, from <http://westerndiatoms.colorado.edu/taxa/species/tabellaria_flocculosa>

​

Annotation:

Maria Potapova sent me to this site when I was studying the different types of diatoms I found in my samples. This type of diatoms was found in the sample and nd through the site I was able to learn more about the creature and how it works in its environment. The formation of these creatures may vary as you see them while some to look normal in their straight line formation some hold more of a disconnected square appearance.

​


  • Gross, Michael. "Diatom Evolution a Mystery." CEH Diatom Evolution a Mystery Comments. Master Plan Association, 11 Aug. 2012. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://crev.info/2012/08/diatom-evolution-a-mystery/>


Annotation:

This site details the work of Michael Gross, who has studied the mysterious world of diatom evolution. The man state that they might have developed from endosymbionts, but even so how they grew into what they currently are is unknown. Their distribution is easier to explain though, do to their ability develop in any where there is water and sunlight they could spread quite easy. From their he also explains different advantages of their silica shells, most of which have to do with their internal organs. The site basically states that though their are so many of these creature little is known about them or where they came from. Still though they have a powerful effect on our ecosystem and everything around it.



  • Harvey, Anne. Personal discussion. 3 February, 2016.


Annotation:

Anne Harvey is one of researchers at the Fairmount Water Works, as well as has been my mentor during the duration of this project. She has lead me to meet multiple outside sources as well has given me her personal information. Without her I would not know what a diatom is, let alone complete this project. Her outside resources also allowed me to be able to be able to connected with many knowledgeable and helpful individuals. She is a source mainly do to her help with finding and helping me understand many points of information throughout this project. She was pinical to the completion of this project.


  • Hines, Sandra. "Tiny Diatom Has Global Environmental Impact." UW Today. University of Washington, 7 Oct. 2014. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://www.washington.edu/news/2004/10/07/tiny-diatom-has-global-environmental-impact/>


Annotation:

This site speaks on the overall effects diatoms can have on the rest of the world. It details how they can do so much even though they are so small. They have a strong impact the carbon cycle in on the world. As well they control the the production of nitrogen as well. Their effects are imperative to the progression of most gases throughout the world. This site really gets into how important these creatures are to our environment. They even touch on genetics, implying that these creature vary greatly in how the aspects that they have. Intern, not only can this site be used for showing their impact of gases in the air, it also shows genetic changes for these diatoms.


​

  • Mikkelsen, Naja. “Silica Dissolution and Overgrowth of Fossil Diatoms”. Micropaleontology 23.2 (1977): 223–226. Web


Annotation:

This site has a focus on the silica of diatoms, primarily how they change. They note both how the shell can grow out or break down. They also go further and discuss the environments around them, mainly the salt and fresh water. They state how as the shells dissolve almost completely in the ocean and either turn to rocks on the ocean floor or dissolve into water. The most interesting part, structurally speaking, is how they left many references, I could use them for more sources if necessary. Overall, I think this source is very informative on the topic of silica, I will be able to go more indepth than anywhere else.



  • Potapova, M. "Achnanthidium minutissimum." In Diatoms of the United States. 2009. Web. 19 May. 2016. <http://westerndiatoms.colorado.edu/taxa/species/Achnanthidium_minutissimum>

​

Annotation:

This was a site recommended to me by a Maria Potapova who was helping me to identify diatoms. We noticed a solid amount of these creatures clustered around algae and debris in the water. Looking over the site I had leader about how these creatures are build much differently than the average diatom being smaller in length. This site allows me understand how this organism both effects the environment and they are effected by the world around them.



  • Spaulding, Sarah A. "What Are Diatoms?" Westerndiatoms.colorado.edu. Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, n.d. Web. 3 Feb. 2016. <https://westerndiatoms.colorado.edu/about/what_are_diatoms>


Annotation:

This site details the basic world of diatoms. Intern they are able to give great insight on how the world works in general.  They explain basic structure, environment, classification, and even physiology of diatoms and how they work as microorganisms. They do not just limit themselves to organism’s functions; they also go into the history about their changes throughout life.  From their vegetative division to them dying and leaving behind their shells this site has it all. Finally, this has greater pictures of varying diatoms. Overall, this site gives good general information to compare to others I find for validity.



  • Stevenson, R. Jan et al.. “Development of Diatom Indicators of Ecological Conditions for Streams of the Western US”. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 27.4 (2008): 1000–1016. Web.


Annotation:

When I first read this paper I believed that it was a simple overview once again, but I found that the it held a very strong effect from showing the applications of diatoms. Many of the past and present uses for diatoms can be seen in this paper and it is really well made. It can also be connected to other sites in its explanation of how the environment is affected by diatoms. Overall, I will use this site to explain the different implications and applications diatoms have on the world, as well, I will connect it to the rest of the other site on the environment.



  • Simons, Paul. "Cool Aid Aquatic Test." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 5 Feb. 2003. Web. 4 Feb. 2016. <https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/feb/06/research.science>


Annotation:

This site once again overviews diatoms, but it goes mildly deeper than the previous sites. They go over their effects, uses and even evolution; the difference seems to be they focus on their shells. They go into detail how the main point of the shell’s glass appearance is to let in more photosynthetic light, as well this adaption, while not entirely unique, shows very specific qualities through their species. Overall, the reason I had chosen this site is its ability to convey information about a particular aspect of diatoms, but still show more widely varied aspects of these little creature.


​

  • Weckström, Jan, Atte Korhola, and Tom Blom. "Diatoms as Quantitative Indicators of PH and Water Temperature in Subarctic Fennoscandian Lakes." Rctic Fennoscandian Lakes. Springer International Publishing AG, Mar. 1997. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1003091923476>


Annotation:

This details a paper written by a few scientist on the idea of how diatoms affecting pH. This is kind of the exact opposite of what my project is, given I wanted to find how pH affects diatoms. To see the exact opposite make me question which one actually affects the other. I personally have seen change in my diatoms, intern I question how they know this experiment is valid. Other than that, I do see potential in its explanation on how diatoms change the pH. Overall, I can see a lot of interesting questions coming out of reading that and explaining it to fellow skeptics.


Felix d'Hermillon Capstone

Posted by Felix D'Hermillon in Capstone - Kamal - Wed on
My name is Felix d’Hermillon, and for the last eight months I have been working on a project to give back to the community somehow. For a while I wanted to record an album that I would be able to post on icloud but It didn’t really feel right. After watching Back to the Future, a specific scene from the movie caught my eye. The scene where Marty McFly plays the gig at prom, and I realized how relatable that scene was to the scenario that I am in, considering I would be having prom soon. My final project that I decided to go with was a musical performance at prom. The requirements of the capstone project were to give back to the community in some way, and I think that music is one of the best ways that you can relate with somebody and everybody enjoys some type of music especially if they’re at a prom! I managed to scrape a band together and here we are! I have learned what it’s like to get a show together.

Bibliography
Presentation
IMG_6122
IMG_6122

Super Freakonomics Podcast Part 2 - Ava Olsen and Michelle Friedman

Posted by Ava Olsen in Statistics - Miles - B on
​In the second installment of our podcast series about Superfreakonomics we discussed the first chapter, How Is a Street Prostitute Like a Department-Store Santa?, and the second chapter, Why Should Suicide Bombers Buy Life Insurance?. Though the two chapters covered a plethora of questions, studies, and data, we chose to discuss only a few of the topics that were the most interesting to us. We talked about the significant wage gap between equally qualified, professional men and women. Then, we investigated the critical emergency room procedures that make for the best and worst patient outcomes. Chapter two also showed us that doctor review criteria can be extremely flawed and ought to be taken with a grain of sand when choosing your doctor. Overall, these two chapters showed us a lot of new numbers on interesting subjects and we’ve learned to always investigate the nuances that can affect data results.

Kevin Horton Capstone

Posted by Kevin Horton in Capstone - Jonas - Wed on
My capstone is a collection of writing from over the years. I have shown my growth by ordering my writing from oldest to newest. I also have included a sample monologue. While I haven't done a huge writing-based project, I have grown continuously from 9th grade to 12th Grade, and I will continue to excel my skills. The process was very rigorous, and by no means, easy. I have spent hours after hours looking through my archives of quality writing, and I have various pieces to show my growth.

Below Is a piece of writing I did during my 11th Grade year.

Spectacular Now Monologue- March 2015


Have you ever felt you might just be the biggest joke ever? Like you want to be rich, famous and remembered for something great but all you can do is hang up shirts and get paid and be known for being an alcoholic? Well I’ve been there many times before. Like, more than I can count. Well, on my hands at least. Never have I cared about anything but downing my daily alcohol, seeing my girlfriend,  and partying with Ricky, who was my wingman. I also find myself staring at my feet when walking. It's weird. Whatever. Anyway, I thought i was on the right track when I thought that me and my now ex girlfriend was gonna move to St Louis while she chases her dreams through college. I was about to, but once I met my father, then it hit me. I'm suppose to be a drunken failure with social smarts. So here I go, cutting my co-supportive relationship with someone who mattered the most, pushing my family away because my mom refuses to get a new job and my sister is just another bratty sibling. Of Course, school didn't work out so i got one less burden on my back. But here I am ready to disappear. My name, is Sutter Keely. I'm from Oklahoma City, and I'm living the spectacular now.



<Tharp, Tim. The Spectacular Now. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Print.>



Tobi Hahn Capstone

Posted by Tobi Hahn in Capstone - Manuel - Wed on
This year, I made a game called Swat Team with my best friends August and Josh. I believe that we were successful. Our goal was to create a game that looked nice and that we were proud of. Additionally, we wanted the game to be fun. I believe we were successful in all parts. We started the game last year, but since making it our capstone we have revamped all aspects of the game. August redid the art. I completely rewrote the menu system and much of the gameplay. Josh made a lot of new music! We showed the game at Philly Tech Week to a huge audience. People young and old were filled with glee when they played Swat Team. We're excited to show you our work!

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c5e4jdBVhftXQzvcaiBk0YCibCLC8tufUdk6ThDRkKo/edit?usp=sharing
PLAY GAME: http://paisleygames.itch.io/swat-team

Mia Weathers-Fowler Capstone

Posted by Mia Weathers-Fowler in Capstone - Kamal - Wed on
Since the end of junior year I have been really intrigued by the way that high school and teenagers are portrayed in media, especially in movies with teens as the target audience. Last year when I saw DUFF, a teen movie about the Designated Ugly Fat Friend, I decided to make my capstone about the realities of high school, specifically for senior year. In the beginning I set out to make a documentary style film. That idea has since changed to a scripted short film, but the core ideas are still the same. I wanted to explore the key themes of senior year that never get talked about in the movies; stress, relationships, friendships, and saying goodbye. Senior year is hard. In real life friendships sometimes fall apart, relationships have to come to an end as we all part for college, and the immense stress to get into college and start living your own life is almost crippling. I have attached a collection of the videos and interviews I originally collected for the documentary as they will still appear in the final product. I also attached the screenplay of the short film (I'm still putting the final editing touches on it). This year I had the pleasure of working with Philly filmmakers and actors to try to make my vision come true. Hopefully my film can paint a brief picture of some of the real hurdles and joys students will face during senior year!

Annotated Bibliography: 

Screenplay: 


Wilson Biggs Capstone

Posted by Wilson Biggs in Capstone - Jonas - Wed on

Abstract

Coming up with a capstone was fairly easily. It was practically handed right to me. My friend Nebil told me that Zack was planning to do a house band" for his capstone. I saw this as the perfect oppurtunity - I would work with his band to get a few songs recorded and published onto CD for my capstone! Zack assented, so we began!

Over the course of the year, me and Zack's band, which, in the end, included Nebil Ibrahim (senior, bass), Kia DaSilva (junior, piano + vocals), and Adnan (senior, guitar; used to go to SLA), worked together to practice three songs to being able to record them. It really helped to have a stepfather, Ted, who runs his own recording studio, that could be my mentor and give me a space to use.

Once we had the songs down, we spent two evenings at Ted's recording studio recording the songs. He guided us through the recording process, leaving me with studio quality tracks for me to mix. Then, through May, I mixed the three songs, using tips from Ted and the band and guides I found online to help me get a good end result. I then used Kunaki to publish the album to CD. But the process is ongoing! We are planning to tag along to the end of the Music Club concert and sell CDs! All of the profits from the CDs are going to SLA to help them get new equipment for the music room.


http://302b.bandcamp.com/


Annotated Bibliography

Audio Animals Ltd. "How To Pan Live Drums Tutorial." Audio Animals. Audio Animals Ltd., 5 Apr. 2014. Web.


While this source isn’t the most polished and professional looking visually, the content is what counts. The graphics in the tutorial were immensely helpful, as they gave me a starting point for panning the drums in the songs, which helped them sound much more realistic and less cramped. I referenced it constantly when mixing the drums in the tracks.


This source is quite credible, as it was written by a group that runs not only the website it was posted on, but also a mixing and mastering house, recording studio, and record label. That shows how much experience with the subject the writers had when writing the tutorial.



"Mixing Top and Bottom Snare." /r/AudioEngineering. Reddit, 10 Apr. 2015. Web.


This source is a conglomeration of answers to a user’s question about mixing snare drums that have been recorded in two tracks: a top snare and a bottom snare. This is how the snare was recorded for our songs as well, and I was unsure what to do with them, so this helped a lot. There were a lot of ideas expressed in the responses, which gave me some ideas of my own. I ended up muting the bottom snare on all of the tracks, as it sounded better without it, but without the response by “aderra”, I would never have thought of just doing that.


This source is probably the least credible of all of my sources, as it is an open forum, but it is still credible, as there are many responses by professionals in the industry with experience with this subject.



Bandcamp. "Bandcamp for Artists." Bandcamp. Bandcamp, n.d. Web.


This source explained how I could use Bandcamp to host the album digitally and allow people to listen to it and download it whenever they pleased. I decided to use the site after reading this, and it has been very easy to use because of it. It also provided general information on how payment works on the site.


It is written by the site about the site. It’s as credible as can be.



Benediktsson, Björgvin. "A Powerful ‘n’ Punchy Guide to Mixing Your Drums." Audio Issues. Audio Issues, n.d. Web.


This source helped me immensely with mixing my drums, as I wasn’t sure how to make them sound at all decent when I first began to mix the songs. The kick drum sounded dull, things were kinda all over the place, and it sounded like crap. This guide really helped me fix these issues; I now know how to make the kick and toms sound punchy, and how to use compressors when mixing drums. It also helped me mix everything else, as I wasn’t sure how to use compressors beforehand, but it described them well enough that I knew how to use them for the rest of the song.


This source is credible as the author writes these articles professionally for amateur producers in home studios; I am part of that demographic. The website has also been mentioned in a number of professional music publications, which lends it more credibility.



Benediktsson, Björgvin. "7 Advanced Guitar Mixing Techniques for an Amazing Guitar Production." Audio Issues. Audio Issues, n.d. Web.


This source helped me a lot with mixing the guitars, played by Adnan throughout the EP. I had a hard time with them sounding very harsh and clashing a lot with the piano and vocals. While panning helped this somewhat, there were still problems. This article gave me a few ideas for improving the guitar mixing; the EQing at 800hz was immensely helpful, as was EQing the reverb.


This source is the same as the one directly above: “This source is credible as the author writes these articles professionally for amateur producers in home studios; I am part of that demographic. The website has also been mentioned in a number of professional music publications, which lends it more credibility.”



Fredv. "EQ Tips Cheat Sheet." Cheatography. Added Bytes Magento Development, 15 Nov. 2011. Web.


This source was incredibly helpful and useful. I wasn’t sure where to start or how to EQ tracks before I read this source, but reading it really helped. I used it as a reference for much of my mixing, allowing me to have a better sounding mix than I would have otherwise. It also helped me solve problems I was having with some of the tracks.


This was a very credible source as the writer was an audio professional and music enthusiast. It was also commented on by many amateurs and professionals alike for how helpful and accurate it was. It’s been given a 5 star average rating based on 19 people’s ratings, which is also a sign of how credible a source it is.



Gugulethu. "Advice On Mixing Piano Sounds." TalkinMusic. TalkinMusic.com, n.d. Web.


This source helped me mix the pianos on the album. Much of the EP focused on the piano, so it was important to make it sound as good as possible. I was having problems making the piano sound realistic and not cheap, and this source allowed me to fix that problem. It goes in depth, which is helpful as well.


This source is quite credible as the author is an audio professional; he writes articles like this all the time as well. His site is used very often by home producers for tips as well. These facts lend to its credibility.



Kunaki. "Kunaki Distribution Capabilities." Kunaki. Kunaki, n.d. Web.


Kunaki is a music publishing service that allows you to sell CDs cheaply. I have read about this service before and this page on the site described how it works and convinced me to use it. CDs can be bought in bulk from the site, as well, which is the plan for selling physical CDs; we will buy a number of CDs and sell them at a higher price to generate profit for SLA to use.


This source is credible as it is written by the company about the company. How much more credible than that can you get?



PSW Staff. "Tech Tip Of The Day: Using EQ To Conquer Hum - Pro Sound Web." ProSoundWeb. ProSoundWeb.com, 29 Sept. 2010. Web.


I was having problems with some hum in the bass tracks, which was noticeable after compression and effects were added to the drums. It was a bit annoying, and I needed a way to at least quiet the hum down. This source helped with that, as it outlined the best ways to remove the hum from the track.


This source is credible as it was published on a website catered specifically to audio professionals and was written by audio professionals. It was also “provided by” (read: the website received money from) Sweetwater, a professional audio company that is very well respected.



White, Paul. "Improving Your Stereo Mixing." Sound On Sound. SOS Publications Group, Oct. 2000. Web.


This source is about panning and using stereo to your advantage when mixing tracks. This helped me mix the album and pan more than just the drums well. I used panning very often on the album because of this, allowing me to separate sounds that would clash otherwise. It also makes the track sound wider and more realistic.


This source is very, very credible. It was originally published in Sound On Sound magazine in October 2000. Sound On Sound is a professional audio magazine that has been around for many years and is followed by many professionals. It is highly touted within the music production industry for its in depth articles.

Sandra Avery Monroe Capstone

Posted by Avery Monroe in Capstone - Manuel - Wed on
​

Abstract:

Over the past 4 years, I feel like I haven’t really taken the time to get know each and every person at the school, and I still don’t know every person. This year, I wanted to make an effort to get to know new people and talk to them. I also wanted to show people who all of the different students at SLA  are and how they make the community the way it is now. SLA is such a diverse school in so many different ways. We have people from all different neighborhoods, cultures, races and ethnicities. There are also so many different people with different personalities that it made it very interesting to hear about them and then to put a face to those pictures.

With the help of Myrna Yousuf and Ms. Giknis, we created a blog where we interviewed students, teachers, and even a few visitors in the school. We wanted to get a chance to talk to them. The outcomes were different depending on who we talked to. We got some funny stories, some sad stories, some random stores. All of it put together created an awesome, diverse page. By myself, I created a magazine where I had a couple of people write poems and articles about being human and being a human of SLA. Myrna and I had the chance to collaborate with so many really interesting people to create a diverse experience and blog throughout our senior year of high school.

Here is the link for my magazine: http://joom.ag/9gYQ
Here is the link to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/humansofsla/


Annotated Bibliography:

  1. Benaroya, Ana. Illustration Next: Contemporary Creative Collaboration. Thames & Hudson. Print. This source provided me with a couple of questions that could be used in interviews with different students. I selected this source because as I looked through it, I really liked the questions that they asked. There were about 6 questions that were asked to every artist in the book. I thought it was very interesting to see the responses that the interviewer would get. I wanted to know how the students at SLA would respond to those questions and how similar they were to the answers I was seeing in the book. I found this source useful because at times I was stuck with what to ask people and I stumbled upon this book and I really liked what I was seeing. One limitation to this book was that some of the questions couldn’t really be applied to the real world and many of them were too broad.


  1. Carrier, Nicole. "Four Ways To Get People's Attention Online." Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. This information was helpful for what I am going to do with both the HumansofSLA pages and also the magazine that will be created. This was helpful because often times it is very difficult to get people to pay attention to what you want them to pay attention to. This gave me good pointers for that problem. I selected this because as soon as I saw the first suggestion, I knew that is what I wanted to do with this entire project and that it would have more great information. I think the only flaw with this site was that there wasn’t more information about how to catch attention.


  1. Isreal, Shel. "9 Tips on Conducting Great Interviews." Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Web. 10 Jan. 2016.As soon as I saw this source, I knew that it would be very helpful and very reliable. The source provided me with a lot of great tips and pointers on how to conduct an interview. There was information on what types of questions to ask, and information on how to make sure it was a comfortable and personable situation. I thought it was helpful to have all of this information on how to be successful when interviewing somebody, especially if it is somebody that I don’t know. I selected this source because it was one of the first and best sources I found when looking for information on conducting a successful interview.


  1. Kotter, John. "The Power Of Stories." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 12 Apr. 2006. Web. 20 Nov. 2015. This source was a very interesting read for me. This made me want to get more stories from people that were at my school and hear about what they have to say. I think that through doing this, I have learned so much about people. I have learned and changed from doing this project and that is what the article talks about. I used this source because it showed me how important this could be to me and the other people that are reading the stories. I like that this source showed what happened when people didn’t tell stories and how it wasn’t as effective. I also like how they showed what it was like when there were stories told in places instead of just people talking at you with a presentation.


  1. Kuhel, Beth. "The Secret to a Successful Interview: Great Storytelling." US News RSS. 17 Apr. 2014. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. I used this website because it gave me information on interviews but then it also gave me a lot of information on how to put that into storytelling. This website helped me think of what would be helpful to get a good interview started. This helped me generate questions, even if I didn’t know the person. I selected this source because I felt that when I was brainstorming how to create a good interview this helped me a lot. It made it easier for me to make it a very personal experience for me and for the person that is being interviewed. This source helped me create a good flow for my interviews.


  1. Parr, Ben. "7 Ways to Capture Someone's Attention." Harvard Business Review. 03 Mar. 2015. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. For one of the parts of my capstone, I am going to be creating an online magazine for people to look at and they will be able to submit different pieces for my magazine. This website was helpful because it helped me see what I can do to make the website more appealing to people who will be viewing it. I found this source useful because it was a good starting point on what I could do to make my website more attractive. I think that this source could have been a little more helpful if it had been more focused towards grabbing attention on a magazine.



  1. Resorts, Wynn. "The Power of Storytelling." The Power of Storytelling. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. This is an entire website that focuses on telling stories and how powerful they can be to people. This motivated me to find better questions, and I also liked to see how helpful stories could be to people. One part that I found particularly helpful was when they talked about how people use stories to make sense of different things that they have seen because of the lens that they look through. I liked this because I see this a lot when I am doing interviews, and it was interesting to see this in a business.

  2. Stanton, Brandon. Humans of New York: Stories. St. Martins, 2015. Print.My entire capstone was based off of this website and book. We saw this website and were very inspired to create our own version of it. It was helpful to have something so similar to base our work off of. We selected this source because it was very interesting and we liked the idea of implementing this into our own school. This source really laid out everything that we wanted to do. Even if ours wasn’t going to look the exact same way. Through this source, we could look at how the pictures were taken, and try and backtrack to see what types of questions were being asked to the people he was talking to.

  3. Wolfe, K., J. Carroll, and T. Bush. "Tips for a Successful Interview - 9.151 - Colorado State University Extension." Colorado State University Extension. Web. 15 Jan. 2016. This website was helpful for both conducting an interview and also being interviewed. I used it to give me information on this because at first, even though I knew how to do both of those, I needed the extra information just so that I could make sure I was being professional. The only flaw with this website was that since I didn’t know all of these people, I couldn’t always be prepared for the person. I wish they had pointers on what to do if you are interviewing somebody you don’t know.

  4. "Fun Photos: A Look at What Participants Bring to the Booth." StoryCorps. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. This website was very helpful because with this, I could see the types of pictures that I could take to really represent people. I had other websites like this, but I liked this one a lot because it was a similar type of thing to what I was doing. I think that a flaw with this was that with these they didn’t really have stories with the pictures so even though you saw an interesting picture of someone, you couldn’t really get a story about them. I did like this website as a whole though because they had a lot of different stories on them and that was the whole thing that they did on the website.

  5. "The Octoroon - The Broadview Anthology of British Literature." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016.

For one of the people that wrote an essay for me, they talked about this play, so I wanted to get some photos so that there was a visual of the play that was being talked about.

  1. "The Octoroon: A Play, in Four Acts." Louisiana Anthology. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016.

This was another picture that I used that had to do with the play.

  1. Jacobs-Jenkins, Branden. "The Wilma Theater: An Octoroon [03/16/16]." The Wilma Theater: An Octoroon [03/16/16]. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2016.

This photo has to do with the more modern version of the play that was being talked about. The person that wrote about it, wrote about this version so I had a picture of this and also of the older version.

Claudia Bonitatibus' Capstone

Posted by Claudia Bonitatibus in Capstone - Pahomov - Wed on
​Since the beginning of the year my capstone has taken many different forms. The original plan took the form of a book club focused around the Free Library of Philadelphia’s One Book, One Philadelphia program and organizing events outside of school, including composer Jennifer Higdon's opera based on Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. I also incorporated a physical portion to act as a tangible representation of our interpretation of the text. Since my project involved leading a book group, a key component of my capstone was collaboration because I had to get the group members' input in order for the project to run smoothly. However, over the course of the year my capstone became less book club oriented and more project driven. I created this project by analyzing and illustrating quotes that the book club members picked from their reading. Each of these books represents a major theme of the book, such as resilience, mobility, and hope for the future. In creating the final product I had to do research to gain background knowledge of the historical setting and fully engage with the text. I also include a brief summary about the historical context because the historical setting of Cold Mountain plays a major role in the tone of the book and the fundamental questions that it presents to the reader. This was accompanied by a description of the major characters, which is critical in order to be able to comprehend and interpret the quotes that I go on to analyze later on in the project.
Access capstone project: 

Brandon Yam Capstone

Posted by Brandon Yam in Capstone - Pahomov - Wed on
​For my capstone I decided to interview people in different professions in order to learn what they are like. Going in to college is scary enough, but declaring a major is even harder. I did not know what I wanted to major in and I still do not know what I want to do with my life. I wanted to create a guide for underclassmen that would give them a little insight into the professions that they are possibly looking into. Getting interviews with professions that are relevant today was hard. I could not secure interviews with people in high positions such as lawyers, but I was able to get lucky with a medical technician. A fair amount of my interviews had to deal with the arts which is not bad, but I do wish I had more variety. My partner (Jiwon Choi) and I worked on grabbing as many interviews as we can and we worked with what we had in the end. It was a tough process. There were a lot of emails and phone calls that went unanswered as well as time and effort. Unfortunately, I would not be able to set up an internship program with the individuals I met with (due to schedule conflicts and such). This is a setback for what I originally intended but I feel as though I needed more time/assistance to make it work. Despite the internship program, I am still very satisfied with my work. 

Website: 

Bibliography: 
Cahill, Paula. “Being an Artist.” Personal interview. 03 Feb. 2016
    Paula Cahill, a local artist in northeast Philadelphia, brought the world of art up close and personal. Being an artist is not only her hobby, but her occupation as well. She makes money off of commission from her works and doesn’t plan on stopping. She displayed numerous amounts of her work, all varying in size, color, theme, and style. She states that being an artist is hard, but definitely do-able. Her last words were “If you love what you do, it’ll all work out.” Paula Cahill’s interview will be used to create her individual profile on the website. There will be an in-depth profile of her along with actual footage of the interview itself. 

De Selincourt, Basil. 1907. “The Ethics of Passion”. International Journal of Ethics 17 (2). University of Chicago Press: 181–94.http://www.jstor.org/stable/2375843.
    Basil de Selincourt, an editor at the University of Chicago Press, wrote about the ethics of passion. Basil described the societal boundaries of passions and essentially, what was cut out to be a passion and what was not. Basil talks about how these societal norms is what limits people and if there is hope for a diverse future, people must venture further and test the “limits”. This will be used to create the description of the project itself on the website along with contributing to the foundation. This will be the underlying message before visiting the profiles of the interviewers. 

Gaskill, Monica. “Being a Researcher.” Personal interview. 18 Nov. 2015. 
    Monica Gaskill, a medical researcher at Abramson Research Center, gave an exclusive interview of her workspace and occupation. There were many machines and tools lying around, their purpose unknown until Monica explained. It was everything a person could expect it to look like documents, graphs, flasks, etc. She also gave an explanation on her current project with genes and her experiences in getting into the field. This source will be used as one of the many profiles created on the website. There will be a page for Monica individually explaining her occupation, answers to interview questions and gallery of pictures of workspace. 

Kelly, Darien. “Being a Musician.” Personal interview. 04 Feb. 2016 
    Darien Kelly. a freelance musician in central Philadelphia, takes music seriously. He takes on jobs from performances at local communities to performing with the Philadelphia orchestra. He composes his own music as well and is fluent in a variety of instruments ranging from the trumpet to tuba. He showcased his pieces with a sense of accomplishment. His most rewarding moment in his career as a musician thus far was when he traveled to Memphis and taught a group of kids. One of those kids wrote to him in an email months or years later expressing his/her gratitude and that they would be the first to attend college in their family and they wanted to pursue a degree in music education. This source will be used in creating Darien’s profile for the project. 

PALMER, GEORGE HERBERT. 1914. “WHAT IS A PROFESSION?”. The Journal of Education 80 (20 (2006)). Trustees of Boston University: 537–39.http://www.jstor.org/stable/42798386.
    George Palmer, a member of the Trustees of Boston University, talks about professions and the best way for them to thrive. For instance, he talks about teachers and how their salaries are not cut out for their living expenses. With the anxiety of not being able to pay bills, the teacher brings that into the classroom, thus minimizing his or her potential in teaching. He explains that in order for one to maximize their potential to the fullest, they have to be free of stress and negative energy. He tells how it’s hard to go out and do what you want to do in life due to the unstableness of it all. This source will be used as ground knowledge to enhance the website. 

MACDOWELL, LAUREL SEFTON. 2001. Renegade Lawyer: The Life of J.L. Cohen. University of Toronto Press.http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442679214.
    Laurel Sefton Macdowell, the author of Renegade Lawyer: The Life of J.L. Cohen, talks about the life of an average lawyer back in the 1900s. Laurel gives insight of the workings, day to day life, troubles and upsides of the lawyer profession through the eyes of J.L. Cohen. Though not all lawyers have had the same experience as Mr. Cohen, the workload and procedures are no different. This source will be used to fill the space for the lawyer section since getting an interview with a lawyer could not be scheduled. This is not the only source being contributed to the section.  

McDonald, Steve, Nan Lin, and Dan Ao. 2009. “Networks of Opportunity: Gender, Race, and Job Leads”. Social Problems 56 (3). [Oxford University Press, Society for the Study of Social Problems]: 385–402. doi:10.1525/sp.2009.56.3.385.
    Steve McDonald, an editor for the Oxford University Press, Society for the Study of Social Problems, talks about a multitude of factors that affects your job and how you got there. He analyzes deeply into gender roles and race to grasp the essence of getting ahead in the field. McDonald reveals that white males have a significant lead in jobs as opposed to white women or even other minorities. It really makes one think about how this came to be.This source will be used in the closing statements of the website when addressing the issue of individuals being barred from their professions due to social problems such as this. 

MERCHANT, CAROLYN. 1918. “THE LURE OF OTHER PROFESSIONS”. The Journal of Education 87 (22 (2182)). Trustees of Boston University: 594–95. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42826961.
    Carolyn Merchant, a member of the Trustees of Boston University, talks similarly about occupations that are stuck in time and are underpaid, just like George Palmer. Carolyn mentions that people such as merchants and middlemen live soundly because financially, they are better off than a teacher, butcher, or candlemaker. As people in these professions struggle to make ends meet, it makes the professions that have no problem meeting their bills that much more enticing. She tackles the idea that professions that help build nations are paid less than those who put bricks together. This source will be used to summarize the rise and fall (financially) of certain jobs. 

Ross, Edward Alsworth. 1916. “The Making of the Professions”. International Journal of Ethics 27 (1). University of Chicago Press: 67–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2376957.
    Edward Ross, an editor at the University of Chicago Press, published a journal about “The Making of the Professions” where he explained exactly where these occupations stemmed from. He talks about the pathology, mentorship, and all of the inner workings of jobs in general. He even goes into the social aspects of jobs and how it can affect someone mentally and the world around them. This is a great source in building up the “base” to the capstone. It helps lay the foundation for the interviews to follow. With this text, it makes it easier to understand how others get into the professions they do along with the experiences and passion. 

Terkel, Studs. “Working” (1974)
    Steve Terkel takes career exploration to another level. He went out around the nation and interviewed people with different professions ranging from farmers to people in corporate America. Steve Terkel is certainly a jack-of-all-trades with this book. His interviews are very thorough and provide great insight to the lives of these people. The dialogue and writing has a sense of “rawness” to it as if the reader was right there. This source is great because this is what the project essentially is just in a different form. This will serve as the mentor text for future interviews to enhance the final product. 

Sergei Mass Capstone

Posted by Sergei Mass in Capstone - Bey - Wed on
When I came into SLA in September of 2012, I was the kid that was obsessed with Jordan's and would impatiently wait till 11 a.m. on a Thursday morning for the newest Supreme drop. Fast forward to now, I am no longer that kid that is obsessed with Jordan's, I am an entrepreneur that still impatiently waits for the Supreme drop. 

My original Capstone idea was to host the first Dodgeball Tournament for SLA, after a road of denial and stress, I had to accept the fact that it would not workout. I scrambled a little bit, but I grasped my motive for my capstone and what I came up with is an e-shop to buy, sell, and trade my sneakers and clothing. A little background on why I sold sneakers from the beginning was to be able to buy myself a pair of Yeezy's. When hitting the reality of the real world that college is extremely expensive, I had to save every penny  This e-shop would allow me to sell my sneakers and reach customers directly rather than dealing with a site that charges a fee. When developing my e-shop, I collaborated with colleagues to help out. Within days of launching my social media account and launching my e-shop, I had messages and emails galore of inquiries from buyers. The e-shop defiantly improved my sales as well as helped me save money for college. My e-shop is also a resource for others to learn from. I am fortunate that I have the opportunity that I can capitalize off of my passion. 

Below, you will see pictures of some of the products I sold as well as my e-shop and social media account. Enjoy!

Follow VSOP Shop on Instagram @veryspecialoldpreserve

or

Check out the site at http://veryspecialoldpreserveshoes.weebly.com/


Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 5.51.49 PM
Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 5.51.49 PM
Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 5.52.16 PM
Screen Shot 2016-05-19 at 5.52.16 PM
IMG_3744
IMG_3744
IMG_3358
IMG_3358
IMG_4544
IMG_4544

Dylan McKeon Capstone

Posted by Dylan McKeon in Capstone - Kamal - Wed on
fullscreen
fullscreen

Virtual Reality is a idea that is currently being explored deeper to bring immersion to video games and simulations. However how can this be applied to a learning environment?  For my Capstone I worked on a virtual simulation of our solar system that can be viewed with the Oculus Rift. This is part of Project Stargazer, my ILP for the past two years where the group has worked with making an representation of the solar system with VR for The Franklin Institute.

I started out working on the design of the simulation in the Unreal Engine creating the cockpit and menu displays of the spaceship that would serve as our HUD. However as the only one in the group with knowledge of Unreal, I ended up also working on the code. During the year I finished the design of the spaceship, tried to get the ship to move, made a planet map for each in the solar system complete with HUD’s showing information on the planet and made starry background. However I was never able to finish the coding and could not get the ship to move even after a month of troubleshooting and consulting with Unreal coders. However I taught several of the sophomores in the project how to use Unreal and will continue to help out throughout the summer.

During this project I learned about the benefits of VR for education with it’s added immersion allowing for greater focus and more effective visuals.


Link to Levels (must be placed in Unreal Engine to Work) https://drive.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/folderview?id=0B2hdSK9AO85-N3NNc1BjMERQRXc&usp=sharing

For More information about Project Stargazer: http://projectstargazer.weebly.com/

For images of the simulation and time at Educon are below

Stars1
Stars1
Stars2
Stars2
Earth
Earth
Stars4
Stars4
Stars5
Stars5
Stars6
Stars6
Stars7
Stars7
Stars8
Stars8
Stars9
Stars9
ellpise
ellpise
full2
full2
cart_1024
cart_1024
oculus__tester_1024
oculus__tester_1024

Biblography

Antonio Gonçalves Vilas Boas, Yuri. "Overview of Virtual Reality Technologies." (n.d.): n. pag. Final Paper. University of Southampton. Web. 4 Feb. 2016. http://static1.squarespace.com/static/537bd8c9e4b0c89881877356/t/5383bc16e4b0bc0d91a758a6/1401142294892/yavb1g12_25879847_finalpaper.pdf

This article is an overview of VR showing its history, goals, and evolution. It goes over the principals of VR in terms of immersion, perception, and telepresence.  It discusses the educational value of VR by showing the ScienceSpace application which allows a student to learn about physics, electrostatic forces, and visualize the structures of molecules.


Biglari, Ehren, and Yusheng Feng. "Interactive Virtual-Reality Driven Learning Framework for Engineering and Science Education." Center for Simulation, Visualization and Real-Time Prediction (2014): n. pag. American Society for Engineering Education. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

http://asee-gsw.tulane.edu/pdf/interactive-virtual-reality-driven-learning-framework-for-engineering-and-science-education.pdf

This Article discusses the usage of several VR devices and motion trackers and the usage of the technology in the modern day. The setup of their device is described as well as several of the strengths and weaknesses of the various VR devices. The Oculus is explained in terms of hardware, describing how the headset generates the an undistorted 3D environment.


Castillo, Anna. "Virtual Reality and Education." Stanford Teaching Commons. Stanford University, 22 May 2014. Web. 02 Feb. 2016.

https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/teaching-talk/virtual-reality-and-education

An article looking at Stanford’s Virtual Reality lab and applications of the technology. The level of immersion that the lab provides is shown as an example of how to provide the students with realistic environments to better educate them about the subjects. However the biggest drawback is shown to be the development of such simulations which often take a year for each. The immersion of VR is being compared to watching a normal video of the same information to compare the difference and find just how effective it would be.


"Learning Through Exploring Virtual Worlds." Global Warming Intro. University of Washington, n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/learning_center/pf/whyvr.htm

This site shows a project that attempted to use VR to explain and show a representation of Global Warming. The projects plan was to allow students to manipulate environmental variables to see how the atmosphere is affected. The site also explains the role VR could play in education explaining how the immersive experience can be used to present lessons.


Orlosky, J.; Weber, M.; Gu, Y.; Sonntag, D.; and Sosnovsky,S. A.  2015c.  An interactive pedestrian environment simulator for cognitive monitoring and evaluation, March 2015. Web. 02 Feb. 2016. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jason_Orlosky/publication/276848891_An_Interactive_Pedestrian_Environment_Simulator_for_Cognitive_Monitoring_and_Evaluation/links/55c0e2dc08aed621de1506a6.pdf

This article looks at using the Oculus Rift in a test for observing and monitoring pedestrians with cognitive impairments. The test uses VR to determine reactions and the pedestrians vision. The article also discusses problems with having the user physically interact with the world in a way that feels natural and use of the Leap Motion Control to track hand motion.


Piovesan, Sandra Dutra, Liliana Maria Passerino, and Adrian Soares Pereira. Proceedings of the International Association for Development of The Information Society (Iadis) International Conference on Cognition And Exploratory Learning in Digital Age (Celda) (Madrid, Spain, October 19-21, 2012). Virtual Reality as a Tool in The Education. Universidade Federal Do Rio Grande Do Sul. Web. 4 Feb. 2016. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED542830.pdf

This article discuss the idea of using VR in education, explaining how it allows a student to explore and build their knowledge. It focuses on how VR can be used to simulate environments which would be too difficult or expensive for the student to visit normally. The article describes how the subject of Formal Languages was implemented into a 3D environment to allow for a VR test of the subject.


Reiners, T., Teräs, H., Chang, V., Wood, L. C., Gregory, S., Gibson, D., Petter , N. & Teräs, M. (2014). Authentic, immersive, and emotional experience in virtual learning environments: The fear of dying as an important learning experience in a simulation. In Transformative, innovative and engaging. Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Teaching Learning Forum, 30-31 January 2014. Perth: The University of Western Australia. http://ctl.curtin.edu.au/professional_development/conferences/tlf/tlf2014/refereed/reiners.html

This article describes how the addition of the Oculus Rift can improve the experiences of VR to be used to educate students. The article shows the comparison between passive and active learning and how VR would work compared to typical teaching methods. The article also shows a test run through VR where a person navigates a dangerous factory to determine how much a person would value their avatar’s safety in VR.


"Solar System Exploration." Planets - Solar System Exploration. NASA, n.d. Web. 2 Feb. 2016.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/

NASA’s guide to the aspects of our Solar System with a list of the planets and other celestial bodies. Provides information about the statistics of the planet's size, distance, and orbit, as well as an overview of the planets and their history.


"Unreal Engine 4 Documentation." Epic Games, Inc, n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2016. https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/index.html

A guide to Unreal Engine 4 including tutorials to the basic aspects of Unreal and creating a video game. The site provides a great deal of information about the program to assist a beginner in the creation of a basic game.


"Virtual Reality Technologies for Treating Obesity." - NHLBI, NIH. N.p., Nov. 2010. Web. 04 Feb. 2016. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/research/reports/2010-vr

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute held a meeting to discuss the potential use of VR to monitoring and controlling weight gain. The article discusses how VR can be used to suggest healthier eating through the social networking and the motivational and teaching aspects of VR. It discusses the ways to control an experiment with VR and the applications of it in the future.


Esperanza Gonzalez Capstone

Posted by Esperanza Gonzalez in Capstone - Manuel - Wed on
​

For my senior capstone I decided to do something that was relevant to who I am and what I love to do. I noticed that many of the cultural and traditional values in the Latino community tend to fade away in U.S. because they're not in their country of origin. My overall goal was to restate the importance of Latino values and why it’s so important to pay tribute to them.With this project I touched on the following topics; family, social justice, stereotypical views, the role Latinos play in the U.S, and Religion. These topics play a role in my personal life and also in the lives of many others, which I why I chose to do them. I wanted to bring attention to these topics to give the audience a sense of what many families with Latino/Hispanic descent have in their lives. My inspiration for this gallery was the artistic style of Frida Kahlo. Most of the work is inspired by her life and the way she lived it. This is specifically focused on the traditional ways of Latin American art. I learned more things about my culture and discovered new ways to view the world. This capstone process was a very long but has finally has come to an end. This project definitely reflects who I am as person, and defines my interests and the way that this country has changed me.

Click here for my Bibliography 

Raz's Capstone

Posted by Raz Reed in Capstone - Jonas - Wed on
​ For me, coming up with my capstone was easy. Last summer I took a course in web development at the New York Code + Design Academy. I really enjoyed it and once I completed the course, I had a strong feeling that I wanted to find a career in web development. It’s a really interesting field and it’s growing more and more as years pass. So, I decided to focus my capstone on improving my knowledge and experience with web technology.
Learning by practice is the best way to learn, so that’s what I did. I started a website, and roughly every month of 2015-2016 school year, I made projects and put them on my website. These projects were mostly just web games, written in the standard web languages: Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and JavaScript. I devised these projects with the help of my mentors, Mr. Miles and my dad. The process of making each project was designed to teach me some aspect of web development. For example, one of my projects was a jigsaw puzzle game called “Jigsaw Joust” that used a leaderboard to keep track of top times. For this, I needed a database, and that’s the area of learning that that project covered.
My website has more than the projects -- I am in Senior Computer Science and I wanted an easy way to keep track of the assignments I completed, so I put them on my GitHub account. I have provided a portal to my GitHub on the website as well as a page detailing some of my favorite projects I’ve done for the class. I also have a blog on tumblr where I have kept track of my capstone’s progress over the months.
The final product is online at http://raz1.com/.



Bibliography

NOTE: some of these sources I did not cite in MLA format because I was citing the entire website as a source.



Stack Overflow is the most popular branch of the Stack Exchange Network. Like all Stack Exchange sites, it is a question and answer forum. Stack Overflow specifically is centered around programming and coding topics. It has a system that allows users to vote for the best answer to a question, assuring that the original asker and any other viewers with the same question are answered as completely as possible.
Stack Overflow is a popular option among web developers and has been extremely useful for me over the past several months that I’ve been working on my capstone. Its voting system combined with a round-the-clock team of moderators (who are mostly professionals in computer-related subjects) makes it a very trustworthy source of information. If you have any sort of programming or coding question, chances are it’s already been asked and answered on Stack Overflow.


W3Schools Online Web Tutorials. www.w3schools.com

W3Schools is the largest online web developer information website. It offers tutorials on all the following web languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, Bootstrap, and jQuery. It offers quizzes and exams on these languages. It also has a YouTube channel with guides on making websites. It also offers the very useful “try-it-yourself” webpage editor, which contains examples of how a certain functionality in one of the languages works and allows the user to modify these examples and observe the result.
W3Schools has been criticized for making its content too simplified for users who are new to web development. I think this criticism is accurate but I think its simplicity is helpful -- when learning a new concept or trying to wrap your head around object-oriented programming the easy explanations and basic examples are conducive to “getting it.” For the more experienced developer, Mozilla is probably a better option.


Mozilla Developer Network. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/

MDN, created by Mozilla, the same group who made the Firefox browser, is a community-maintained resource for web developers. It offers a thorough and detailed explanation for all functionalities of web languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript and NodeJS. MDN’s web APIs (application programming interfaces) are especially helpful because of their comprehensiveness and organization.
MDN is useful for the above reasons, though its guides often lack examples. Despite this, it always provides solid explanations -- for some JavaScript functions it will even show the user how the function is written (as in, it shows what the code does with more code). I believe it is best used in conjunction with W3Schools because both sites have strengths in different areas.



Firebase is an online application that does cloud service providing and data management. It is integrated into JavaScript as a library that allows the developer to read information from and write information to one of its servers. It was acquired by Google in 2014 and just this month underwent some big structural changes.
One of the projects I did required the use of a database. I thought that learning SQL (Structured Query Language) or one of its variants would take too long and probably delay progress on other parts of the capstone, so I tried using Firebase. I think I made the right choice in using it because it’s fairly easy to comprehend for someone who has experience with JavaScript (which I do).


Udacity Nanodegree. https://www.udacity.com/

Udacity is an online classroom offering “nanodegrees” in web development. These “nanodegrees” are certificates that one has completed the Udacity course, which takes roughly 6 to 8 weeks with a few hours spent learning per day. It was founded by Sebastian Thrun, a former Google VP and Professor of Computer Science at Stanford (read: really smart guy). Udacity also offers courses on other computer-related subjects, such as building robotic cars.
Once I’m near the end of the year I plan to start the Udacity nanodegree in web development. The goal of my capstone is to learn as much as possible this year to prepare myself for a potential career in web work, so though I have not used this source yet, it will be useful in a few months. I am waiting for the end of the year to start it because I will have more free time then to complete this fairly demanding program.


Ellingwood, Justin. “How To Launch Your Site on a New Ubuntu 14.04 Server with LAMP, SFTP, and DNS | DigitalOcean.” DigitalOcean. N.p., 13 May 2014. Web. 12 Jan. 2016. <https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-launch-your-site-on-a-new-ubuntu-14-04-server-with-lamp-sftp-and-dns>.

DigitalOcean is an online cloud infrastructure that provides developers with online servers. Basically, it’s a website hosting program. It’s the one I chose to host my website. This article I found on their forums is a guide on how to launch a website on an Ubuntu server using their service.
This source was very helpful as there isn’t a guide for this particular process anywhere else on the internet. It’s accurate, readable, and isn’t too technical. It does rely on the user’s knowledge of other process required for the launch such as installing a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack, but it provides links to guides on these processes.


Carranza, Pablo. "How To Use Filezilla to Transfer and Manage Files Securely on Your VPS | DigitalOcean." DigitalOcean. N.p., 17 October 2013. Web. 12 January 2016. <https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-filezilla-to-transfer-and-manage-files-securely-on-your-vps>.

DigitalOcean is an online cloud infrastructure that provides developers with online servers. Basically, it’s a website hosting program. It’s the one I chose to host my website. This article I found on their forums is a guide on how to transfer and manage files using Firezilla.
This article was super useful because transferring files from my computer to the server is roughly ten percent of the time I spend working on a project. In order to make changes to my website, I have to modify its files on my machine and then upload them to the server. This process is especially necessary during debugging, when I need to make changes and until I fix whatever problem I’m having.


Ellingwood, Justin. “How To Install Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) stack on Ubuntu 14.04 | DigitalOcean.” DigitalOcean. N.p., 18 April 2014. Web. 14 January 2016. <https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-apache-mysql-php-lamp-stack-on-ubuntu-14-04>.

This is another guide I found on DigitalOcean’s site that I used to launch my website. This article specifically explains how to install Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP) on an Ubuntu server.
This article was useful to me because Linux and Apache are, for my website, necessary components. In order to manage the site’s files I need control of the terminal, which is provided by the Linux operating system, and in order to actually host the files I need a web server, which is provided by Apache. MySQL is a database language and PHP is a dynamic content language, both of which my website has alternatives for.
The guide itself, like most of the other DigitalOcean guides I have found, is very clearly written and not too technical or abstruse. It can be a little intimidating to someone who has never used the terminal before and the guide doesn’t completely parse and explain the lines it tells you to run, but it’s reasonable since the audience of this source most likely has at least some experience running shell commands.

Zoe Schwingel-Sauer Capstone

Posted by Zoe Schwingel-Sauer in Capstone - Bey - Wed on
​  Recently there has been a movement to address the criminal justice system within the United States. The truth is the “United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet we have almost 25 percent of the world’s total prison population.” (Hilary Clinton) There has been a lot of focus on the system in general, which is majorly important since the system includes a multitude of racism, sexism, and class discrimination. 
    Ever since reading Native Son in 10th grade, I have felt particularly passionate about learning more on the criminal justice system and discussing with others on how to improve or fix it. After talking with various people within the field of study, I was interested in how ex-prisoners re-enter their community after being in jail, and what could be done to help the transition. Then, on July 7, 2015, I watched John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. The show’s main segment focused on bail in the United States and its impact on impoverished people. This inspired my senior Capstone project. 
    I wanted to do a research project where I could investigate what was going on with bail within the criminal justice system. The biggest goal of this project is to bring awareness to an aspect of the criminal justice system, which can be fixed if there are many advocates for it. This website is for the purpose of learning and I hope it helps the readers to become more knowledgeable about the bail system, and motivates you to make a difference with this cause.