Comic Project

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A few weeks ago in Language Arts class we did a project where we made a comic from a wisdom tale. If you don’t know already, a wisdom tale is a story that was told in the past that is now in this big book called, Wisdom Tales From Around the World. But, a few weeks before that a illustrator named Brittain Peck came to our school to show us how to draw a story with simple shapes like circles, squares, triangles and many others so we don’t get frustrated trying to figure out how to draw somebody’s hand. 

I chose a story that was told in South America called Paca and the Beetle, the story is about a parrot who finds a beetle that’s going on an adventure. Then a rat like creature called a paca comes along and brags to the beetle about his speed while also telling the beetle that he’s slow. The parrot sees this and challenges them both to a race. The paca thinks he’s going to win so he goes slow but in the end the beetle won because he flew. Another part of the project was the moral of the story. For this story, the moral is to be humble. I chose that story because it seemed a little bit funny and I liked the concept of the story and how it was told. 

Some tips for the apps we used to make the comics like Sketchbook, and Comic Life 3. Some tips for Sketchbook are:

  1. If you have multiple different parts for one drawing put them on different layers

    2. You can change the type of pen/brush/marker your drawing with on the left side

    3. Use the ruler function to get straight lines when needed

   4. Use the symmetry function if you need something to be symmetrical

Some tips for Comic Life 3 are

  1. Make sure your images and title are a little more in the center of the paper than the default is so the edges dont get cut off when printing
  2. Use different bubble shapes when characters are talking to convey more emotion
  3. You can change the color of your title and background to make your comic look more appealing
  4. You can choose different presets for your comic to start with to make your comic look more relatable to what you’re writing.

So that concludes my comic project that was fun, tedious, and practically everything in between.



Planking

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Every day from September 25th to December 14th we did a plank which we increased by 15 seconds every week. By the end of it, it was 2 minutes and 15 seconds. If you don’t want to do the math, that’s about seven weeks. For this challenge, we did something called the compound effect. Compound effect is when you have something and then you keep adding to that something, not just replacing it. So, over time if you keep doing a plank and adding 15 seconds every week, it should get easier to do a plank that was once hard. This doesn’t just apply to planks, you can do this in almost anything. To keep track of our planking, we used something called a habit tracker which is just a paper sheet with all the days of the year, and when you plank for one day, you color in the square for that day. (image at the top) On my tracker, the only time I missed a couple of days for planking during Thanksgiving break when the last thing I wanted to do was something related to school. On the last day of the challenge, we ended with the plank challenge. The objective of the challenge was to plank for as long as possible. I lasted for 4 minutes and 10 seconds. I do think I could’ve lasted longer if I knew there was candy involved.

Reading…

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Image from Unsplash

Reading’s fun, sometimes, like I would not read at high noon on a Sunday with friends, but I would at like 9:00 if there’s nothing to do. I don’t like reading when I’m forced to do it but I’ll still do it. I enjoy reading when it is quiet and comfy, so not like hard plastic chairs. I don’t like reading when it is not comfy, or my dad is watching Instagram videos at full volume.

Image from Unsplash

I normally read for WAY longer than I mean to read for because I just lose track of time and end up reading for like 40 minutes. I am currently reading Code of Honor by Alan Gratz. It is a book about someone whose brother is a terrorist. I plan on just reading the rest of Alan Gratz’s books, because I think he’s a good author and I don’t like when I have to choose a book, so I just choose one from the same author or a similar book from a different author. When I do read all of an author’s books, or I get tired of a type of book, I just go on Amazon and scroll until I find a book that I think I will like.

 Some books that I would recommend reading are, Tiger in the Sea, by Eric Linder, Projekt 1065, by Alan Gratz & Prisoner B-3087, by Alan Gratz, Although I would recommend Prisoner B-3087 a little bit less because it does get repetitive. I like to read historical fiction. I like it because I like learning about events that happened that I would otherwise know nothing about while also having an engaging story. 





Allies, Mirror or Window?

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The book Allies is written by Alan Gratz. It is a historical fiction book about several different peoples perspectives on the allied landing in Normandy, France on D-Day. To start off though, I have to explain what a window and mirror are. They’re not the normal glass ones, in a story a window is a story that shows you a story and not one that you think you have experienced. Meanwhile a mirror is a story where you have felt like you have experienced that story in real life or something similar, and yes, stories can be both.

In my opinion, Allies is a window for me because it is like I am looking at someone else’s story while reading this book and I have never seen, or felt anything close to D-Day in my lifetime. I do not think that there are any details that could make this a mirror if added. This could be different for other people, but it is like this for me.

Eflite Habu SS 50mm, worth it?

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The Eflite Habu SS 50mm, or as I will call it, the Habu is a great plane. The Habu is a RC jet with a 50 millimeter EDF (electric ducted fan), it runs on a 3s 2200mAh 11.1v battery with a EC3 connector. 

Assembling the plane is really easy, you only need to screw in nine included screws, two on the elevator, six on the wing, and one for the nose gear. The landing gear slides in very easily and just pops into place, the nose gear gets screwed in. I put my control arm on the elevator to the most inward spot to increase elevator throw, because if you do what the manual says, and put it in the most outward one, you’ll barely have any elevator authority. Also, the plane is small enough where it can fit into almost any car without removal of any part of the plane.

The jet flies great, it has dogtooth seams on the wings which create a vortex of air over the wing so it doesn’t stall at high angles of attack, so to say, if you crash this plane by stalling, you’re really talented. I would not recommend this as a first plane, because normally jets are harder to fly than a conventional plane so the risks of crashing are higher, and nobody wants to crash, but this is a great second plane. You can also hand-launch this plane, using the built in grips on the fuselage of the plane, just be careful not to throw it into the ground, like I did.

Some bad habits of the plane are losing lift on the wing quicker than a conventional plane would, but this is to be expected because this is a jet. Also, it has a shorter flight time than a conventional plane, but again this is to be expected because this is a jet. Other than those I can’t really think of any other bad habits. Although, one thing I really like about this plane is that, IT HAS A WORKING RUDDER!!! Why am I so excited about this, because most other jets in the 40-64 millimeter range don’t have working rudders, but this one does!

If you know how to fly an RC plane and you have shiny jet syndrome and you want to learn to fly a jet, get this plane. P.S, shiny jet syndrome is a real thing, Look it up!



Camp Kirkwood

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Our first trip of the year was to Camp Kirkwood that lasted from August, 30th to September, 1st. We left on Wednesday at about 8:45 and got there at 11:00. There were three nice charter buses that we rode on, they were packed with duffle bags. When we got there it was pouring and we got all of our bags into a big pavilion. The camp was huge, there were 8 cabins, a dining hall, a pool, a giant swing, a zip line, a lake and a big bouncy thing called Kanga Jump. Did I mention that Hurricane Idalia was coming right to us? It was raining really hard the first day and there was mud everywhere! The lake even flooded a little bit.

The activities were really fun and were the best part of the trip. Some of the activities were tree ecology, swimming, team building, Kanga Jump, V-swing, canoeing, ziplining and gaga ball where we got to see Bubbles the pot belly pig!

My favorite activity was the Zipline, when you were on the zipline you got to go over the lake and see the other people canoeing! More activities that I really enjoyed were the V-swing, and Kanga Jump. The V-swing was really fun, you got pulled up by everyone else and when you got to the top you let go and you swung really high! Kanga jump is a big blob sort of thing that you jump around on and play games, it got really fun when the teachers came on! The pool was fun too. There was a not so deep part of the pool and a deeper end where you could jump in and get everyone wet! There were also these floating things that spin around and everyone was trying to get on it. The first night we were there we watched a movie and had snow cones, the last night we had s’mores at a big fire and sang songs!

When we started to leave we loaded all of our bags onto the buses and got on and drove home. When we got back we got our bags and got in our cars and went home. Overall, I had a really great time at Camp Kirkwood and I’m sure other people did too.