Maxime Damis Public Feed

Maxime Damis' Bemchmark Q1

Posted by Maxime Damis in Science and Society - Best on
Below is a food slide that I have created, a recipe that Emma Hersh and I have written out and cooked, an analysis of the food we created, and my reflection of the project. Enjoy!

Food rule:

My food rule has to deal with eating ingredients unknown to us. To represent this visually,  I found a wordle of all the ingredients included in a hot pocket. The amount of ingredients is disgusting. This reenforces the importance of my rule.


Recipe, Analysis, and Pictures!

All of these are on my drop box because they are large documents. Click HERE to view


Reflection

            Recently, I have been working hard at erasing my impact to our world through energy and food consumption. This first quarter unit on food has helped educate me on the choices I am making and develop new choices. A year ago I became vegetarian. The choice to do this came from many sources but mostly because it was something I wanted to try. Lucky for me, the people around me mostly already were. This made being vegetarian easy. I never thought it would be something to keep but I am very proud to say I remain vegetarian. This had been a big change I wanted to make after seeing “Food Inc.” the first time. Now, after our study of food, I could not be more pleased with that decision. I would like to think that the impact of me eating vegetarian would be large but it isn’t. Although, I have influenced others into the lifestyle and as a chain we have grown as a larger group of vegetarians. This can make a small change if it were to grow continuously. Additionally, I want to start eating more locally and not buying over-processed food. This will help eliminate gas and energy used to transport food as well as improve my overall health.

            The chapter of “Food Inc.” that stuck out to me the most was the ‘1 dollar menu’ chapter where health implications were discussed. Then later, when researching and discovering information about diabetes, I saw what the biggest problem in our food system and society truly is. Our solutions to poverty is to make cheaper and less healthy food, which in return gives health implications, which then cost you more. We initially pay less for cheaper food, but in the long run end up paying much more for health care than you would for healthier food. Flawed system? I think so. As people who care for their health and the health of the people around them, we need to be more aware of everything we put in our mouth.


History/English BM Quarter 4 "What if?"

Posted by Maxime Damis in American History - Laufenberg on
magazine cover
magazine cover
    For our forth quarter benchmark in english and history classes, we had to pick a point of divergence and change history through that one point. I focused on when President Truman dropped the atomic bomb on Japan during World War II. My change is that he decides not to drop the bomb. Below are links to the magazine that I created in attempt to show this event through a 2011 lens and show how it changed our history.

    I really enjoyed the freeness of this project. We had a completely open range of topics and presentation ideas. It made it very interesting and also fun to be able to choose what we want to focus on. The most challenging part was definitely created primary sources and predicting what history would be like with this big change. Although this was also sometimes fun, it was also very difficult. The most interesting information I found was around the World War II and Vietnam War which I had to research extensively for my history changes.
    The actions of individuals impacts the historical record through the smallest change. In my project, I changed one specific decision in Truman's long life. Because of this one decision, history could play out entirely differently. One human, interestingly enough, can have an immense affect on historical record. Systemic changes impact the historical record in the same way. I focused a lot on how Japans community and economy change drastically because of this event. This then changes historical record to no end. This same important decision of Truman dropping the atomic bomb also affected the entire landscape of Japan. Had it been dropped, (which it really did) Japans environment would be entirely destroyed. They would have to rebuild up their entire community based on this one decision.
    My project could be improved by adding more editorials about each event and decision within my magazine. This would improve the debate aspect of my magazine and also help tell the story that I created from multiple views in more depth. If I could do this project over, I would have started my primary sources earlier. I spent over a week creating them because I felt the need for them to be super detailed and in depth. Obviously, I spent too long on them and then felt rushed in the last 5 days to create my magazine and editorials. However, I do not have any regrets. I worked hard and am proud of my final product.

Here is my Magazine

Here is a document with the primary sources I created which are also displayed in the magazine

Blog #2 Musical Intrument

Posted by Maxime Damis in Physics - Echols on
xylophone/wood blocks
Sound is produced by using a mallet style stick of either metal, rubber, or wood. It is hit against the metal or wood surface. When this happens, the energy from the mallet transfers into the energy of sound waves which are then created. The shape can have two closed ends or one loose end depending on the design. This creates different types of resonance. The vibrations are continued through the shape of the instrument (tubes or blocks). The length of these tubes or blocks is what changes the pitch. When building these wooden blocks or tubes, keeping the width constant is going to be very important. The only varying factor should be the length. This gives less variables to think about. As the length of the tubes or blocks increase, the pitch will decrease.

As far as the actual construction of the instrument goes, I am not entirely sure whether I am going to be making wooden blocks put together in a xylophone style or an actual metal xylophone. I think this will all depend on the actual plausibility of building the wooden blocks which were my original idea. I need assistance from Echols on this one. Building either will be a lot of work but I can use my engineering class periods to work on it. I will be playing this instrument using mallets. The only outstanding question I have is whether wooden blocks seem possible to Echols or if I should do a xylophone instead. 

Musical Instrument Blog #1

Posted by Maxime Damis in Physics - Echols on
cp_wood_blocks
cp_wood_blocks
I decided to focus on the wood blocks. I am not sure that it will end up being my final instrument, but I would love it to be if possible.

The wood blocks are played by taking a stick or a drum stick/xylophone stick and hitting it against the different blocks. To change a note, you have to hit a different block. They are very similar to xylophones with the exception that they are wooden. By hitting a block of a different size, a different note is produced. The wooden blocks are, as expected, shaped as a block. They are 3D rectangle boxes essentially. They have holes in the side and are hollow. This is what produces the sound. This makes me think about how size can affect sound. Using different sizes and shapes of holes, I can create different sounds and notes. I think this has to do with resonance. Hitting hollow blocks creates resonance which in turn creates sound. I think that I can connect this to what I know about waves by how they move. The construction of these blocks is going to be difficult because of the exact placement of holes and size to create the right notes. This is all based on the sound waves produced and the motion of those sound waves when the blocks are played.

Three Mile Island Nuclear Meltdown

Posted by Maxime Damis in American History - Laufenberg on
What went well?
Our group worked really well together. We all did our share and kept our word during this project. There were no moments during the process where one person was holding the group up because of incomplete work. We all did research outside of class and we all produced quality work that resulted in a great poster.

What did not?
Honestly, I can not think of anything that did not go well. Although I ended up doing the actual construction of the poster visually, we all contributed and I did not mind to put in a little extra work out of class. We got our stuff done on time and did not have any issues.

What would you do differently next time?
Next time, I would spend more time trying to get the sizing of the text and pictures right. It was really difficult to visualize when putting together. Usually, an 8.5x11 piece of paper is simple to see printed because it is generally the size of our computer screen. When working with something feet long, it was much harder to actually think about how large each word would be. Next time, I would spend more time thinking about this so that it prints perfectly.

10 infographic tips
I think our group was very good at being concise; we spent a long time making sure our information was clear, to the point, and supported one idea the whole way through. As well as visual; we spent a long time making our chart visually appealing and using primary sources to make it further visual. We were different because we used a layout of a reactor and stars indicating faulty areas to represent what happened in the meltdown as well as using newspaper articles and comics from the time to help display the overall point. We were accurate by using all accurate information and using a layout of a reactor that has all to scale parts. This helped demonstrate how little or big each fault was to the machine. We were varied because we used a picture of the reactor as our background and used pictures and bubble to make it look interesting.
We could have worked harder at being 'smarter,' attractive, and creative because we used a lot of text in our infographic that could have been demonstrated in other ways. We also could have worked more at being transparent. Although we had many primary sources and took down all cites used, in the end we did not include this to our infographic because of lack of time to make proper citations.
env disaster poster2

City on a Hill- I'm on a boat version

Posted by Maxime Damis on
maxime, julia, luna and rita
 song *censored*


Oh s**t, get your towels ready
It's about to go down
Everybody in the place hit the f*****g deck
But stay on your motherf*****g toes
We running this, let's go

I'm on a boat, I'm on a boat
Everybody look at me
'Cause I'm sailing on a boat
I'm on a boat, I'm on a boat
Take a good hard look
At the motherf*****g boat

I'm on a boat motherf****r, take a look at me
Straight flowing on a boat on the deep blue sea
Busting five knots, wind whipping out my coat
You can't stop me motherf****r, 'cause I'm on a boat

Take a picture, trick, I'm on a boat, b**h
We drinking Santana champ 'cause it's so crisp
I got my swim trunks and my flippie-floppies
I'm flipping burgers, you at Kinko's
Straight flipping copies

I'm riding on a dolphin, doing flips and shit
This dolphin's splashing, getting everybody all wet
But this ain't Seaworld, this is real as it gets

I'm on a boat, motherf****r, don't you ever forget

I'm on a boat and it's going fast and
I got a nautical themed, Pashmina Afghan
I'm the king of the world, on a boat like Leo
If you're on the shore, then you're sure not me, oh
Get the f**k up, this boat is real

F**k land, I'm on a boat, motherf****r
F**k trees, I climb buoys, motherf****r
I'm on the deck with my boys, motherf****r
This boat engine make noise, motherf****r

Hey ma, if you could see me now
Arms spread wide on the starboard bow
Gonna fly this boat to the moon somehow
Like Kevin Garnett, anything is possible

Yeah, never thought I'd be on a boat
It's a big blue watery road
Poseidon, look at me, oh, all hands on deck
Never thought I'd see the day
When a big boat coming my way
Believe me when I say I f****d a mermaid

I'm on a boat, I'm on a boat
Everybody look at me
'Cause I'm sailing on a boat
I'm on a boat, I'm on a boat
Take a good hard look
At the motherf*****g boat


modified version for City on a Hill

I’m on a Boat verison:

Oh snap, get your bibles ready
it’s about to go down.
Everybody in this place work together now
but keep up with your effin prayers
we running this, let’s go

We’re on a boat, We’re on a boat
Everybody look at me
'Cause We’re sailing on a boat
We’re on a boat, We’re on a boat
Take a good hard look
At the motherf*****g boat

We need to work together in the great new land
drop anything we don’t need in our hand
Brotherly love, in this family afloat
you can’t stop us, motherf****r, cuz cause we’re on a boat!

Take a good look, trick, I'm on a boat, b****
We drinking old ale champ 'cause it's so crisp
I got my suitcase and my crissy-crossy
I'm finding lands, you in England
Straight being bossy

We’re on a hill and
we honor god and
we will live in peace by god’s hand
He’s the king of the world, and you should bow low
if you’re not with god than you’re sure not me, oh

Hey ma, if you could see me now
arms spread to my god right now
gonna show everyone, He’s the one right now
Defeat a thousand enemies, anything is possible

Yeah, never thought I'd be on a hill
It's a big green high hill
People, look at me, oh, all hands on deck
Never question what he say
or all the non-believers will perish away
Believe me when I say, today is gods day

We’re on a hill, We’re on a hill
Everybody look at us
'Cause We’re standing on a hill
We’re on a hill, We’re on a hill
Take a good hard look
At the motherf****g hill


Q3 Benchmark: NHD Gay Rights

Posted by Maxime Damis on
This is the Quarter 3 history benchmark of Maxime Damis, Julia Boyer, and Luna Frank-Fischer. It is a website featuring the debates over Gay Rights throughout history. Enjoy!

Our website is HERE

    I those this topic for my NHD paper and project because it was always something that interested me. The struggle and debates that surround gay rights have changed and developed largely in my lifetime. I had learned a lot about those changes but I was intrigued by what happened before my lifetime that I had not yet known. It interested me deeply, so I chose to use gay rights as my topic. My group chose to do a website for our presentation because it was able to incorporate the most aspects possible. We chose to include a video of historical speeches, a Prezi interactive timeline, and a word analysis for each. These were best represented through a website.
    We were able to create an attractive website that effectively showed the debates through history of gay rights. This we did very well. We had an incredible amount of information and pages of primary and secondary sources. This we did very, very well. Where we went wrong was our lack of reading the specific guidelines in the website submission for National History Day. We failed to see the rules against embedding Prezi's and videos. We also exceeded the word restriction for the website. Had we deleted the Prezi and video, our project would not have been an effective way of representing our knowledge. From there, we made the decision to turn our website in for our school benchmark but adjust the video clips to eventually come up with a video representation of what we learned for the competition, within the documentary category instead. If I were able to do this project again, I would have made sure every single one of my group members read the guidelines thoroughly so that we would encounter this problem again. It was a minor setback, but a setback nonetheless. Otherwise, I would not have done anything else differently. I was very proud of the work my group produced.
    Through this project, I learned a large amount of information about the changes and debates around gay rights. I had known some previous knowledge but did not know as many specifics. I learned about Harvey Milk and all of his struggles as well as a copious amount of information about "Don't ask, don't tell" and the government's involvement in the evolution of gay rights. Through the creation of the presentation, I learned how to be flexible and adaptable because of our sudden changes in what we were to do to be able to submit to NHD. I also learned how well I worked with both of my group members throughout this project and how efficiently a project can be created, changed, and recreated when your partners are all on track and working hard.

Saint Agnes Hospital

Posted by Maxime Damis in American History - Laufenberg on
saint agnes
saint agnes

For my presentation on the Saint Agnes Hospital in Philadelphia, I have created a presentation through prezi that tells the story of the building. Attached is my annotated bibliography as well.


Saint Agnes Hospital on Prezi

Annotated Bibliography

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