Samuel Sirochman Public Feed

Abstract + Artifact of SLA Bike Week

Posted by Samuel Sirochman on
Sam Sirochman
Rosalind Echols/Diane Laufenberg

My capstone was hosting/organizing a ride your bike to school week.


What I did for my capstone, was decide that May 21st-25th was going to be bike  week. The main goal of bike week was to increase the number of people who ride to school, in order to get a larger turnout I created a raffle with a grand prize of a $50 gift card to Modell’s and also created 4 different posters that I plastered around school everywhere to get the word out. Over time it became more clear that some people weren’t interested in riding alone. My next step was to group people up that are from the same neighborhood, so I started email chains within the communities of people, thus giving people a safer way to ride to school. My main objective was to get 50 more people to ride to school. Also with the influx of people riding to school, we were going to need a more efficient way of getting people to store bikes, so I also had to make the bike rack we had more useful by clearing all the stuff off of it and making it more accessible.



Sticker Final
Sticker Final

SLA Bike Week!

Posted by Samuel Sirochman on

SLA BIKE WEEK!

If you plan on participating fill out this form. 


Hello everyone! This is Sam Sirochman, I am hosting SLA Bike Week, it will be happening from May 21st - 

May 25th. It is my Senior Capstone and I am doing this to promote a healthier and happier community at SLA. My goal is for everyone to ride their bikes to school, although that may be unlikely, I would like for as many people to ride to school as possible.

Why should you ride? Well because exercising in the morning is a great way to lose weight, increase brain function, and increases overall happiness. Now if you are planning to ride in the mornings, I highly suggest that you take a look at the Preferred Commuter Routes. I must also ask that if you plan on riding, please wear a helmet! We at SLA, are all very bright people and I would hate for any of us to fall and get seriously injured.


Now the best part, if you plan on riding and are interested in getting a PhillyLove’sBikes Sticker. Let me know and I can save you one. (I’ve got 250, they will go fast!) Finally, the SLA Bike Week Raffle, we will be raffling a $50 Modell’s Gift Card. Everyday you ride your name will be entered in the Raffle. You ride once, you have one chance. If you ride everyday, your name will be entered 5 times. There will be a spreadsheet by the bicycle rack, you must write your name and bike model, I will put a check for everyday you ride.



Please remember to use the Bike Rack!

Thank you for your time, I hope to see you all riding!

Read up on some safety guidelines!

Russia vs. Vietnam Collapsibility Benchmark

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in Globalization - Laufenberg on
I chose Russia and Vietnam. Vietnam is a country that is up coming but just can't take the next step into some amount of international amount of power. Russia on the other hand, is a country that had massive power in the 1990s and is trying to reestablish itself as a superpower. 

I had general thoughts, but as I began to make my presentation, I found the sources that perfectly proved my point. It was straightforward, it wasn't impossibly hard but it was more difficult than I expected. I wish I could have put videos into my presentation, however Google Docs doesn't have that feature. I want videos because it would make it more dynamic and interesting.

Russia Vs. Vietnam Collapsibility Benchmark

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in Globalization - Laufenberg on
I chose Russia and Vietnam. Vietnam is a country that is up coming but just can't take the next step into some amount of international amount of power. Russia on the other hand, is a country that had massive power in the 1990s and is trying to reestablish itself as a superpower. 

I had general thoughts, but as I began to make my presentation, I found the sources that perfectly proved my point. It was straightforward, it wasn't impossibly hard but it was more difficult than I expected. I wish I could have put videos into my presentation, however Google Docs doesn't have that feature. I want videos because it would make it more dynamic and interesting.

World of 100 Analysis

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in Globalization - Laufenberg on
Religion world of 100
I think it's impressive as to how close the class is with every religion, except for buddhism, which somehow is off by about 10.
Languages(World of 100)
This is just about the opposite of religion, we are wrong on just about every single language. I think that should be put to the fact, that in America it really is a one language country (east coast at least), but in other countries there are many different languages from region to region.
Age of World
The class is wrong about everything, but I think it is mind-blowing that 65+ only makes up 8% of the population.
Analysis/Reflection
I am most accurate with religion, I don't know exactly what to attribute to it, but most of my answers were semi-guesstimates. I thought about all of my friends and how many people were the same religion and just hoped that I was right. I was most inaccurate with the language, I know that would be because I am not exposed to different languages regularly. At home, my parents speak english, with the occasional Ukrainian word here and there. In school, we speak english, although I did take a spanish class. It's just that in America we are very narrow minded about language, which if you never leave the U.S. makes sense, but in the middle east or most european countries, most people are bilingual (if not more languages.) 
The most-shocking, real answer has to be about the 8% of the population being older than 65, the average life span in America is about 75 years old, but in the rest of the world it is about 69 years old (researched after graphed.) I assumed that people just lived to about 80-85, pretty regularly. I was spot on in my guesstimates of how many speak chinese, that's because I took in to account they have two different languages, and they have more than a billion people, which is a huge percentage of the population.

The Professional Review

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in Digital Video -4 day a week - Herman on

The film, "The Professional," is a action flick, with the main characters Léon (Jean Reno) and Mathilda (Natalie Portman) becoming an unlikely combo. Léon is a expert hitman, who takes care of Mathilda, whose parents are murdered in a drug conflict. She proceeds to learn how to "clean."

The musical score accompanied the movie excellently, with deep bass and undertones along with some frantic higher-pitched noises, it helps make each scene more dramatic. The background music was okay, it didn't help set any scenes up or make the movie better, but it also didn't take anything away. Most of this movie is set up through dialogue, although in some scenes less verbal and more facial dialogue. Most scenes, had very good background noise, except for the final scenes, because they choose not to put background noisen.

Actors: 

Jean Reno-8/10; He did a good job playing the stupid, but loving and serious hitman. He has a sly, cunning side that allows him to do his job better than everyone else can. Some scenes are too far-fetched, but overall badass.

Natalie Portman- 8.5/10; Pesky, persistent, and lonely twelve year old, after seeing her family murdered, certain parts are a little complex for someone her age.

Gary Oldman- 7/10; He plays a good bad guy, but after seeing the Dark Knight he just reminds me of lesser version of the Joker. He does do a good crazy scream, however his whole pill chewing scenes still makes no sense to me.

Visual Element

The camera angles are crazy, they switch between wides, mediums, and close ups, my favorite scene (Spoiler Alert)  had to have been when he is escaping and as he gets to the cop car, the camera makes it seem first person, by opening the aperture a little bit, so everything is slightly brighter and then the camera shakes, a few to the right and some to the left, next it drops half way down to the ground. Finally, the camera hit the ground, then rotates like 40º to seem like a limp head. There were no special effects, besides gun fire and explosions, which were both so seamless, that they aren't even thought about 'til you think about them being fake guns and bombs. Mis-en-Scene, is in 1994, New York City, and a few apartment buildings. The film is so seamless between telling everyones story, it just flashes back and forth spending time on each topic when it is appropriate, there were no bad cuts. 


Act 1(set-up) - Mathilda's family dies, Léon watches most of the issues and lets Mathilda in his house after she finds out about her family. Her motivation is to get revenge and kill Stansfield. 

-Plot Point 1- Mathilda needs to learn how to kill.

Act 2 (Confrontation)- Mathilda wants Léon to kill Stansfield and his crew.

-Plot Point 2-  Mathilda however lacks the money to pay Léon.

Act 3 (Resolution)- Léon ends up killing most of them, after they come to kill him and Mathilda, alo he kills a bunch of the navy and cops.

-Plot Point 3- Mathilda gets what she wants, but loses her best friend and guardian. 

Aftermath- The protagonist is now open about who she is. Before she was oppressed by her parents, but after this and revenging her parents death, she seems much more social.

Plot point 4- Mathilda goes to school at the end and tells her full story, and it fades out as if she has hope to be a normal kid.

StudentCam Benchmark Reflection

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in American Government - Laufenberg on
​Here is a link to my benchmark. 

I chose Internet Censorship, because it would stifle my growth as a student and person. I think access to the internet really allows me to learn about anything I want on the spot, it's learning from a different, more independent way. I really liked the idea of the project, just taking an issue and finding out why it is related to the constitution, I thought trying to explain what internet censorship was hard. Mostly, because everything on the internet is copied, stolen, or borrowed-and-cited. I think the most interesting fact was learning about how they define internet piracy. This project could be improved, by giving checkpoints, although that seems like its childish and students don't want that. This is a project that sneaks up on you, you think you have it under control, then all of a sudden you need video of this, that and the next thing. I ran into trouble with managing my time, because I also had a math benchmark so I was trying to finish that and still pay attention to this project and it just didn't work as well as expected. I think the editing of our video went better than expected, I tried really hard to incorporate my voice as the back bone, the pictures were going to hopefully help tell the story and incorporating the video from the guardians made it feel more complete. I think I would take a different concept for the video, if I was to do it again. I would ideally interview a number of people so the voices change it keeps it fresh. I learned a lot about Sopa and Pipa, and how the government view the internet and how they plan to handle piracy. I thought the government was just letting it go, even though they knew it was bad.

Large Clear Object

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in Advanced Art - Hull on
This is something similar to what we did in the first quarter, except on a much bigger scale. The paper is 24x36", the drawing itself is roughly 8x18. We were supposed to fill the paper, but after I had started I liked the direction I was heading too much and just kept going.
AkAwrUSCQAQVqwx
AkAwrUSCQAQVqwx

Anti-Drug Commercial

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in Reading, Writing, and Rising Up - Rami on
My product is a poster, showing the differences between people on drugs and not on drugs. Intended audience is everyone, but specifically 13-20 year old kids. I think my advertisement is effect because at this age people care what they look like and these show the difference in how drugs effect you. I would change my medium, I would have preferred video, but it just wasn't going to work out. 
RamiDrugsAreBad

Blog Post #4

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in American Government - Laufenberg on
​Blog Post #4

My plan for communicating with my legislator is to get some people from the STARs organization, then schedule a meeting with either Mike O’Brien or  Larry Farnese. I feel like this is an issue that hasn’t gotten much attention, so talking to them in person might give me a better chance at pushing the urgency of this situation.

I would write a letter to The Philadelphia Inquirer in hopes that maybe I would get more people aware of the lack of middle school athletic programs. My letter would read like this:

Dear Mr. Stan Wischnowski
I am writing to you in hopes that you could run a story about the middle school athletics budget cut. I know you had a little story about the $1,000,000 budget cut, but I feel like this is a huge story that is flying under the radar. I am planning on meeting with both Larry Farnese and Mike O’Brien. I feel like this could be a good situation for both of us, you can write about something many others haven’t even noticed and it would help me right the situation because I would have more support and can fix this problem. This is something that could have a huge effect on the future of Philadelphia’s children. If you wish to write back, my email is ssirochman@scienceleadership.org. If you want to call my number is 215-498-3934. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Samuel Sirochman

Twitter is also something I would like to utilize, if everything goes as planned I would like to get a trend “#PSDBudgetCuts” or something along those lines. I think it would be the most efficient way to see my grassroots and to represent my grassroots. I will attempt to use social media, such as Twitter, to play a big role. If we can get even 25 or thirty people to tweet it, the message will reach thousands of people.


Reflection

I think the letter and meeting in person, will be the most successful part of the plan. The twitter part is a bit of a reach, but it definitely has the most potential though. When I was writing this, I was thinking about Occupy Philly and the Egyptian Revolution, given that this is a much smaller issue. I was thinking about how I could reach the most people, maybe more importantly, the leaders of my situation. Larry Farnese and/or Mike O’Brien, will hopefully listen to the proposals and do what is most important for the youth of Philadelphia.

SCOTUS Blog Case: US vs. Jones

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in American Government - Laufenberg on
In US vs. Jones, the court was investigating whether it was legal or not, for the FBI to without a warrant or permission, put a GPS on Jone's Jeep. He was a suspected drug dealer, he was sentenced to life in prison. 

"1. Whether the warrantless use of a GPS trackingdevice on respondent’s vehicle to monitor its movementson public streets violated the Fourth Amendment.

2. Whether the government violated respondent’sFourth Amendment rights by attaching the GPS tracking device to his vehicle without a valid warrant and without his consent"

So, the police attached a GPS-tracker on his car, in order to track the location on the streets. The court argued that it is not illegal to monitor cars on public streets, if a car is parked on a public street it is not private. Jone's argued that it is not what the police obtained, but how they did it. Jone's argument was whether they were allowed search him or not. After the court case, it came down to the fact that he was always on public streets. That being the case, he warranted his privacy unless he was parked on private property. Another defense was that ten years ago this would've been a bigger operation, but because of social networking, you allow people to monitor you all the time, so why can't the police. I believe that Jones will lose, because the government really didn't do anything. They turned a stakeout, into an easier, less expensive operation.

Researching the Issue

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in American Government - Laufenberg on
Middle school athletic cuts have flown under the radar, besides one Philadelphia Inquirer article and the STARs Organization, there has been no attention on it. State legislators Mike O'Brien and Larry Farnese are both against the budget cuts. My opposition was mostly, Arlene Ackerman, who is no longer in power. Yet, the $1 million cut, was possibly the $1 million that Ackerman was paid to leave the district.

There has been no legislation written to fix this, mostly because it hasn't had any attention. If one is written it would most likely have to be done by a school district official. The stake holders are all the legislators that want to make a brighter future for Pennsylvania youth. I need to have Leroy D. Nunery II on my side if I want to have the budget cuts reversed. I honestly don't think anyone can oppose this, because the youth is the future and you see the obesity rates in the current generation of kids. The STARs organization, Sports Teaching and Reaching Students, is an organization that I can work with on this topic. The time frame for this is to fix the budget by August, so that it will be fixed for the 2012-2013 school year. 

Defense of Marriage Act

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in American Government - Laufenberg on
​Click here for access to my Prezi about the Defense of Marriage Act.

  • I chose DOMA, because I feel like it was a big topic that would have a lot of resources about it. I chose a Prezi, because they always look good, before you even polish the project it looks better than other forms. I had to overcome the challenges of researching a bill that was passed before the internet was a common thing. I really couldn't find much, besides that Clinton said he would legalize gay-marriage than passed this instead. It was easier than I imagined, because I assumed this would be impossible to find anything pre-2000. 

Clear Object

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in Advanced Art - Hull on
This was my favorite work of mine so far this quarter. It still isn't amazing, but I really liked seeing something that only I could see. Everyone can look at a beaker, but because of the lighting everyone sees it differently. I really liked using the charcoal, however I tried to color in the lighting with a white crayon, it just made the charcoal all waxy and then I couldn't change it. Unlike my last project I think I did a really good of drawing what I saw. Also, Emma helped me get my head on about how I should do this.
339414_10150358164825920_566880919_8449170_338388013_o
339414_10150358164825920_566880919_8449170_338388013_o

Who are my representatives?

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in American Government - Laufenberg on
Governor Tom Corbett, he proposed the $1.5 billion budget cut. He believes in cutting the strings from Harrisburg, which allows individual schools to do what's best for their students. Corbett has a lot of power, but the real focus is on the two latter politicians.

Representative Mike O'Brien voted for my topic, saying that statewide budget cuts were not a good thing. He is district one. His public policies are mostly for public education, he believes that full-day kindergarten, smaller class sizes, and pre-k learning are most important for his people. His biggest community interest is to make sure casinos pay the taxes directly into the community like they are supposed to.

 Senator Larry Farnese, elected in 2008, is in charge of district one which ranges from Port Richmond, Fairmount Park, South Philadelphia, Center City, and the Navy Yard. HIs policies are for public safety, economic development, and job creation. He led the passing of "Caylee's Law." He voted against the budget cut, saying that it would "devastate" both the education and job market.

Smurf Sam Boyd (Figure Drawing)

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in Advanced Art - Hull on
Although this was an assignment meant to look identical to the model, mine came out a little more of a caricature. I started to draw the upper body then the lower body, that's why it came out so awkward looking because they are not proportional. I really like how she looks like a cartoon, although that wasn't the goal, my picture makes me feel like I drew what Sam Boyd feels like, not so much looks like. My little yellow piece of charcoal was my favorite because they had a really nice flow to them when I started drawing with them. 
samboyd
samboyd

Lobbying Against Middle School Athletics Being Cut

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in American Government - Laufenberg on
​I am lobbying against the cutting of funds for middle school athletics in Philadelphia public high schools. The middle school athletics funding has been cut from $1.4 million  a year to a miniscule $400,000 a year. They are replacing interscholastic competition, and replacing with intramural competition. The only sports that will continue to have interscholastic competition are boy's football and girls' field hockey and lacrosse. 

I believe that youth that are in better shape lead a happier life, than teens that are overweight and obese. Currently, the biggest supporter is Michelle Obama, she is running her own "Move your Body Campaign" along with her pushing legislation on a bill that will make food in school cafeterias healthier. Locally, however an organization by name Sports Teaching and Reaching Students (otherwise known as STARS.) Opposing middle school athletics is the Philadelphia school district, it's not as though they hate it, they are cutting it because they think it less important than other 

Locally there is no pending legislation, however the bill proposed by Michelle Obama to improve school lunch's has been approved. I would like to see all middle schools have interscholastic sports and possibly intramural sports too. 


What If.. Osama Died in the 1980s.

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in American History - Laufenberg on
  • I enjoyed this project because it allowed to me to show the world the direction I wish America would go in without pushing my opinions on anyone else. The most challenging obstacle was overcoming my fear of "What if I do this? Then someone saying well that's not how it would've happened. The project really showed me that the world is a lot more like teenagers in high school, than it would be like adults. In my project, I have one person completely changing the way the past 30 years happens, and he isn't even American. Systemic change causes the history of everything to be altered, because all we really have is within one system or another and if we change one little event, it could start the snowball effect. This project could be improved by.. I don't really know this was a well designed project. Maybe turn this into a quarter long project, the first half being about making your change, then the second half being grouping up with 3 or 4 others and seeing debating how the world would change if we all did our events. If I had to change my process, I would find different sources, less about Osama and more about Middle East relations.
View the Newspaper online.

WashTub Bass

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in Physics - Echols on
​My original idea, standup bass, was changed to a washtub bass. Which is a bucket with a hole in the middle and a knotted string, tied to a broom handle that is to be rested on the edge of the bucket and used as a fulcrum (I think thats what it is?). The sound is produced by plucking the string, which is tight, then the vibration from the string produce waves which are transferred into the bucket. You can change the pitch by moving the broom handle, the closer to the hole the more bass and the farther from the hole the higher pitch. I am already done building, I used a bucket, string, and a broom handle. How can we determine which angles play certain notes?

Women in Combat

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in American History - Laufenberg on

    We chose Women in Combat, because after looking at all of our research from our individual papers the research Brenda did was the best. Also because after consideration we figured it would be the best and easiest topic to explain in the time allotted (for the video). We chose a video because, none of us had the public speaking skills to perform live, the website was something none of us were familiar with, and a paper written by three people never turns out well. Finally, Brenda and I both take digvid, which gives us skills with film editing which gives us an advantage in this category over other participants.
    We ran into trouble with looking for a time when all three of us could work together in person, so our thoughts and ideas on the project all made an impact on the video. Although we had little time together, what time we did spend together we worked extremely efficiently in it, causing us to have a very good video that represents all of our individual ideas of the topic into one video.
    If we had to do it over, I would work on the computers in Herman's room and not these laptops, because they are much faster and would have allowed us to have an even higher quality video. I learned a lot about the struggles women had in order for them to be in combat. Also from a working standpoint, I learned how to work together with two other people on a topic that I was still learning. It was a progressive project, for me because as I was taking in the knowledge I was pushing it back out into a video.

Edgar Allan Poe Historical Site

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in American History - Laufenberg on

The audio file attached to this post is my English/American History Quarter 1 Benchmark; the project is titled BuildingHistory. My project was about the history of the Edgar Allan Poe Historical Site, which is located at 7th and Green St. In the podcast I talk about the physical history of the building, the symbolism of the site, and what the actual tour was supposed to entail. The link below will take you to my sources.

Through difficulty with uploading an mp3 onto the site, the iTunes file podcast will be present on a different post under the account of Maxime Damis but with a tag of Sam Sirochman.

My Annotated Bibliography.

My Election Day Adventure

Posted by Samuel Sirochman in American History - Laufenberg on

Kathleen Williams (my neighbor)

 

What motivated you to come out and vote?

Nothing really motivated me to come out and vote, its just something I was raised to do. My parents did it, so I do it.

Do you vote in every election?

Yes, I vote in every election I get the chance to.

Where have you encountered the highest amount of ad campaigning?

I would say it would have to be ads in print, they are everywhere I am taking one off of my door handle everyday.

What was the most memorable ad campaign ad that you have encountered?

None, I ignore all those campaign adds. I vote for the candidate who seems to have the best interests for Philadelphia or Pennsylvania.

What changes do you hope to see in Philadelphia as a result of this election?

I hope to see the city stay the same, no candidate really ever changes anything. Maybe make the streets a little safer is my biggest wish.

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