Category Archives: Tech Team

Teach Team Quarter 1 Reflection

Tech Team

What are some things you have been involved with?

This quarter with TechTeam, I have been mostly involved in the Pumpkin contest. Although my Pumpkin did not win this year, I would believe it was a strong contender. My partner Sarah Ansari and I, 3D printed minion goggles and cricuted eyes to attach to our yellow with blue overalls painted pumpkin to create the believable effect that this was in fact a minion.

What have you learned? What are you’re strengths?

Whenever we do a project, a get a refresher on how to use the Circut, button maker, and 3D printer so I have learned again how to operate each of these. My strengths lie in the printing part, and not using the Circut Design Space.

Challenges, Where to Grow, Stretches?

As mentioned above, my greatest challenge and stretch is in using the Cricut Design Space to create a unique print. This is where I can continue to grow throughout the year and push myself by creating things I haven’t before.

Improvement? Want to Learn?

I want to prove in my stretches to try and change them to strengths and I want to learn how to confidently use the 3D printer and not need to ask for help before printing. I want to be confident that I know how to use the machine properly, so that I can teach others with no restraints and doubts in my mind.

Cricut Assignment

Tech Team

What are some things that were challenging?

The most challenging step for me is always using the Cricut Design Space to create the design I will be printing. However, because of the 3 years of practice creating things using the Cricut, it was fairly easy to type and prepare the sticker I wanted to print.

What are some things that worked well?

Once I had created my design, the process of connecting to the Cricut machine and printing out my sticker worked very well. I was happy with the results and it was simple and easy to remove the letters that I wanted to put onto my laptop.

What did you learn? How can you apply this?

Doing this Cricut assignment at the beginning is always a helpful refresher on how the Cricut machine so that now with my knowledge I am able to help other students who come into the MakerSpace wondering where and how to start their print.

Tech Team Quarter 4 Reflection

Tech Team

During this year, I was involved with the Wall of Excellence, I learned to use the 3D printer while creating a Shrek pumpkin, and spent my free time in the library being available to others to help them.

With the Wall of Excellence, my role was first to interviewed Mr. Muro with Samhitha. This was an incredible experience, as Muro has been an influential figure in the Riverside community and SD43 in general. I was able to confidently carry and keep a conversation with Mr. Muro as well as ensure he was involved and engaged by asking questions. This is a strength I have developed over the school year: speaking comfortably with new people. Another strength, is my newly found proficiency with the 3D printer, thanks to the pumpkin decorating contest. I was also involved with the social media team and posting onto RapidEvent, which I believe we did fairly well, but I would like to get the information up faster in the future.

When presenting Mr. Muro and Mr. Vea as they were being inducted into the Wall of Excellence, a challenge I discovered was the courage to speak before the people in the awards ceremony. I am not confident speaking before large groups of people, but the more often I present, the easier it becomes. I would really like to continue improving my ability to speak before others and to present well. I also believe that I was not as involved in the school community as I should have been. Next year, I would like to speak easier to the people around me that I don’t know in my classes as well as generally be of more assistance to everyone.

In general, I really enjoyed this year of helping others with technical problems, but also anything else that students in the library needed a hand with. My goal for next year, is to be more outgoing to the people in my classes and make it clear that if they require help, I am available.

AI Critical Thinking

Tech Team

1. The AI I have chosen is the Snapchat AI feature. The purpose of this AI (from what I understand) is to be a friend and help teenagers with hard conversations by giving advice on what to say. It can, however, also be used to help complete school assignments as many AI can.

2. Effectiveness: Yes, this AI completes the goal it was created to do. You are able to have a conversation with the AI as well as ask it for help in regard to friendships. The Snapchat AI, however, lacks emotion and understanding, which is expected as it is not human.

Accuracy: The AI is reliable in the ways it was set up to be used. I have written poems and descriptions for people which AI has helped with. You can ask the AI about their day, and they do a good job of continuing a conversation briefly without coming off as creepy. It will also give advice based upon the conversation. For example, after asking the AI about its day, it asked about mine to which I replied I was going camping in the rain and looking forward to it. The AI responded saying to pack layers and that listening to the rain hitting the tent can also be very nice.

Bias: The AI treats the Snapchat users the same. Each user has their own AI which they can customize to appear in a way that is attractive to them.

Transparency: The information the Snapchat AI uses has no sources displayed. If asked, the AI will say that they do not have access to the internet to provide specific sources, but that it is documented on a multitude of news sources and historical records. It will then say that it is recommended to check reputable sites for confirmation. A sponsored link then came up for me that leads to newspaper archives.

Safety: Yes, the AI is safe to the environment and the people using it. If there are thoughts of committing suicide, the AI will even mention and provide the link to a suicide talk line.

3. Benefits: A safe place to talk about family or friendship issues without being stressed that someone will find out. Provides helpful advice about what to say to friends, albeit formal advice that may need to be changed and worded differently. Although many will say it is unethical, I believe the fact that children can find an unjudgmental place to talk with no fear that the information will spread or rumours will arise, is ethical. If the AI is used to collect information for schoolwork or something similar, one must be aware that the sources may not be reliable and to double check the information provided.

Drawbacks: The phrasing of things are obviously written by technology. The AI does not have the same ability as humans to alter their wording to be effectively received by the type of person we are talking to. There is also no source provided after a fact is mentioned and there should be. This is partially unethical because the platform is easily accessible to all students and can be used to complete homework without them having to do the work themselves.

Tech Team Button Creation

Grade 11, Tech Team

What are something that were challenging?

The first challenge that I encountered during my creation of this beautiful button, was designing it in Canva and then transporting the design onto the Cricut Design Space platform. While designing I had a brief issue trying to find out how to curve my writing, but in the end was able to accomplish it. The next issue was multiplying it to the correct size and printing it correctly. This worked pretty well, the only issue was choosing which sized cut out would work best for the appearance I wanted. Overall, I was trying something that was new to me and with that, came challenges that the people I was working with and I were able to overcome.

What are some things that worked well?

I already had some proficiency with the creation of the button before this project so after printing the design, I was able to use this knowledge to successfully create, what I believe to be, a beautiful button. Furthermore, I was able to save the design I used today to a folder I already had, and will be able to remake the button if my current one ever gets broken or lost. The general creation of this button came with a lot of learning, but I was able to overcome my deficiencies and persevere.

What did you learn? How can you apply this?

Almost everything in regards to using the Cricut machine and design space was new information to me. This being said, I learned how to adequately navigate it and will use this knowledge in the workshop some of my classmates and I are creating. We will be printing a Tech Team design onto T-Shirts for our class, and with my newly acquired knowledge, I will be able to help if anyone is struggling in the process.

Tech Team Semester 1 Reflection 2023-2024

Tech Team

The most significant events I’ve been involved with this semester, include the grade 9 orientation day, and the grade 8 parent night. The most recent of these events that I will be reflecting on, was the grade 8 parent orientation night. I have been a part of this event before and it was just as fun as it was then. This is one of the events that Tech Team participates in that I often mind myself looking forward to. The ability to be a part of the welcome committee and to talk to the parents of the grade 8’s is a privilege and I look forward to telling them all the things I enjoy about our school in hopes of easing their worries of their own child’s transition.

The skill and ease that I feel talking about my school with the parents of the grade 8’s is something that I want to cultivate so it can transfer to a similar event next year with the grade 9’s. This year, I struggled to talk with them about the school simply because of a fright of saying something wrong. But I’ve learned now with the grade 8 night, is that talking about a school environment where I feel comfortable is really easy, and all I need to is encourage the grade 9’s to be open to growing to feel the same way about the school as I do.

3D Printer Introduction

Tech Team

This luggage tag, was not made in a store, but instead, by a 3D printer in our school.

The process of creating this luggage was not too challenging, because I’ve tried to make things on Tinkercad before, and it is a easy to navigate website. The biggest issue I had, was creating all the letters to be an equal high. However, this is where a feature Tinkercad has comes in very handily. In Tinkercad you can adjust your view to be able to see the item you are creating from any level, this includes looking at it from a side view where I was able to see if a letter I was creating was the same size as the others. Applying the letters onto the tag was a quick process that was a lot of fun to do although sometimes annoying when trying to figure out the right spacing.

The reason that I chose to do a luggage tag, is that I wanted to show myself and others that there are things you can create on Tinkercad that you can continue to use in your day to day life, not only for decoration. My family enjoys travelling, so when I saw a tutorial for how to create a luggage tag, it was the perfect opportunity. I attached my own name onto the tag as well as my address and anything else a luggage tag needs before printing it and picking it up after school. This was a great project and I’m glad we did it because it truly has helped me become more comfortable with the 3D printer and the process around it.

Tech Team Q1 Reflection

Tech Team

Volunteering that I have been involved with in the past term is mostly with the Grade 9 Orientation day. I was able to connect with some of the new students coming into our school and since I was part of the school culture room, I hoped that I was able to convey the excitement and fun that can come with changing into a bigger school. Having to talk with the grade 9’s and homeroom teachers challenged ability to speak with people listening, and as I talked with more and more groups, I felt myself growing more comfortable and confident in my public speaking.

Something that I learned recently from being involved in the pumpkin decorating contest, was how to 3D Print and use the Flash Forge. I have done two 3D prints since the start of the year, one was of 2 Shrek ears that found off a website called Thingiverse where I only needed to learn how to splice with Flash Forge before printing, and the second was more recently of a luggage tag as part of the Tinkercad assignment.

The next thing to learn is to operate the cricut!

Prior to this semester, I had never spent any real time trying to learn how to use the 3D printer or cricut machine, but now that I have realised the 3D printer is not as complicated as I thought it was, I am ready to try and learn how to use the cricut. In addition to this, I want to use my access to things like the school Instagram to continue to help promoting school events and making sure everyone in the school knows of big events happening in our community, and helping the people and teachers in my class more if they have any kind of tech problems.

Tech Team Q4 Reflection

Tech Team

The biggest volunteering initiative that I have been involved with was the Grade 8 Orientation night. It was only a few hours but I felt more connected with the school. I enjoyed talking to the parents about all the different courses and opportunities their children would have at Riverside and answering any questions.

The Orientations Night is where I really learned that I was good with talking to parents and it felt good. It was really nice to be able to help them with their questions and telling them my personal opinion on the school (very good things of course).

It think next year however, I need to learn more on how to use the machines. I can do the button making fairly well and creating the objects to 3-D print is also going well so far. Where I struggle is then moving what I have on my computer, onto and into the machines in the Maker Space.

Tech Team Q2 (Q2 – Q3 – Q4) Reflection

Tech Team

I volunteered with the Grade 8 parents’ night recently for around 2-3 hours. My job was to greet the parents and answer any questions they might have about the classes and extracurriculars offered at Riverside. I think it went well and I enjoyed talking with all the parents and telling them what my favourite things about Riverside are. The more I talked with the parents walking in, the more comfortable I got and the more open to explaining in more depth I became. The next time I participate in something like this, I’m going to try and be outgoing right away instead of starting shy and slowing getting comfortable. I would like to continue to improve my ability to be a leader in the school and talk to people that I don’t normally interact with.