All Good Things Must Come To An End :(

On the way to Mrs. Martin's to thank her :)

Hopefully she likes the gift :)

From the very beginning, Rachelle, Kenneth and I worked very well together. And throughout the course of a single quarter (mere weeks, really), we became close and accumulated enough data on the Konia bus stop to make it a better place. We did not always succeed (gosh, we've been through a bajillion plans that didn't work) but we never gave up and kept moving forward with a new goal in mind. So what did go well? Team bonding, for sure. And we kept a consistent stream of communication going with adults in positions of authority; so we managed to be somewhat responsible and levelheaded in our emails. Even our final plan went quite well— we managed to work with a viable solution and came in after school to the office to announce when buses were approaching Konia.  And our surveys indicated that students thought our solution was helpful to those catching bus home; so I would commend my group for being fairly successful. What didn't go well, however, were the circumstances beyond our control. Sometimes we would send an email or make a phone call, only to not receive one in return. So we would continue to press our parties for information and correspondence in a friendly manner, but sometimes it took a little pushing to get any response. Overall, I learned that patience is a virtue I need to keep (we often had communication lapses when certain parties failed to get back to us) and that perseverance is key to success. If we had merely given up after being shot down in one of our plans, we would have never gotten ANYWHERE, and I have a feeling we would have been hit in the multiplier.
To make this a better project, I would suggest starting it the last week of fourth quarter, because we felt a little rushed at the end. Working hard from the beginning, instead of cruising for three weeks (Spring Break and all that) is probably the better way to go so that future students don't panic TOO much during the last week or so. (Not like we were panicking much.) But it would help us manage our time better.
Although this was supposed to be a PHYSICS project, it didn't really feel like one. I mean, we found a problem that was solved with the help of physics (sound waves and frequencies on the radio), but it didn't really feel like we were doing science. It felt more like a feel-good "help Pauahi" project, not a science project. But I liked it better that way; had Mr. Blake forced us to incorporate lots and lots of science rather than coming into our own as a student scientist, I think we wouldn't have been as enthused.
Overall, this project was a great way to end my year of physics and I would definitely recommend this to other classes. Plus, the added bonus of NOT having a final physics test was nice. :)

And our journey comes to a end.. :')

As we bring an end to the fourth quarter, we also bring an end to our Ho'oulu ia Kamehameha physics project. Although I'm happy that this project is done and I feel like we did well, it's a bittersweet feeling to be leaving my group. We've worked so well together throughout this entire quarter and I'm so fortunate to call them my group members.

From day one I had a feeling that our group would do well. I'm not trying to sound conceited or anything, but just by looking at my partners, I knew that they were people who wanted to do well too. The major thing that went well in this project was spreading out the work evenly. Our group kept on task and made sure to turn everything in on time; this allowed us to not stress one bit. We also used our time wisely both in and out of class, so we didn't have to commit too much time outside of the classroom towards this project. Well, of course, besides going to the office everyday after school :P

Out of everything we did and went through during the course of this project, I think the only thing that didn't go as planned was the communication. This was a factor beyond our control and was due to the fact that we were working with people who had way more power than us. This may have delayed our project just a tad bit, but in the end it didn't hurt us because we ended up getting on project done.

From this project I learned a lot about teamwork. Working in groups isn't always going to be as easy as the group I was put in this time. I also learned the value of patience...especially when you're relying on other people. Since we wouldn't be able to execute this project in its entirety alone, we had to make sure that we had support from the people who would allow us to make it happen. These people (like Mrs. Martin and Mr. Cardenas) already have busy schedules and other duties they're committed too, so we have to understand that our project is not the first thing on their "to-do" list. Patience is a good trait to have even later on in life......especially when we all start to have kids.

I don't feel there's really anything that needs to be changed about this project to make it a better activity because there's not really any rules that you need to follow. I mean, the only rule is to relate it to physic's somehow. Besides that, you have all the freedom in the world to solve whatever problem you see fit.

I can honestly say, I didn't think we were doing science at any time during this project. Okay, well besides the fact that we walked into a science classroom every time we had class, we weren't literally learning about just science. I think the only time I felt we were doing science was when we were writing how our project connects to physics in our report.

All in all, this was a fun project and very enjoyable :)

auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu PAU!!

ahhh the journey is finally nearing its close. it has been quite interesting to learn so much about the processes of life that are not so streamlined as we would hope them to be.  we learned all about the going ons of adults at our school which is not something that we would have been able to experience in any other way than by doing this project. i honestly think that there is great value for us in having done this project because this school is supposed to be preparing us for success in our future lives so that we can progress to the best of our abilities. having had this experience puts us ahead of the game when we graduate because we now have a much better grasp of how the process of working with others and with problem solving will benefit us in the future. somethings that went very well for us in this project is that right off the bat i believe we were given the best group members possible. we worked together flawlessly in dividing up the work between each other evenly and then all following through with completing our parts efficiently and timely. also we were able to come up with a problem to solve rather quickly which gave us the most possible time to brainstorm different ideas for solving it and to work on implementing our project and working out the kinks in it. some things that did not go quite as planned were the speed of responses from people who were helping us. we naiively expected instant responses but that is just ridiculous of us to have done because we were working with people who had lives outside of our projects and definitely more important things to be worrying about. if we were able to change this activity to make it better i would say that maybe forcing students to move along a little bit more might help because i dont think that any of us had much of an idea of what we were getting into when we began this project. i realize that the whole point of the project was for us to figure this all out on our own as much as possible but yeah thats really all i can think of because this was a very good project in my opinion. unfortunately i dont not honestly think that i was thinking much about physics for the most part during this project, it was more of a life lesson than anything else. it could be changed in the future to require a direct relation to physics but i dont think that it would be necessary. 

this was an awesome group and i am very grateful for their work in this project as well as all the help of the people who helped us out along the way. mahalo everyone!!!

The Penultimate Post :(

The word 'penultimate', in case you didn't know, means 'next-to-last', and this is the second to last post for this physics blog. I don't know if I feel happy, sad or relieved... I guess I'm a mix of both, considering how much stock Kenny, Rachelle and I have put into our Ho'oulu iä Kamehameha Project. As Rachelle remarked in a previous post, we did quite well during our presentation. We showed up to Konia 108-109, smartly dressed, and shared our Prezi with a room of our peers. I think we managed to make our presentation both interesting and fun with some well placed humorous remarks and an enlightening presentation. We've come so far— this confident trio of presenters was not present on the first day of fourth quarter. Now we've only got two days of class left; and we've got to make the best of them. We've learned so much about group communication and how many times plans don't always work out; even though our project wasn't perfect, we did make the best of it, and I think we did quite well considering the circumstances. :)

We. Are. Done!!!!....(son)...lol

Ohmygosh! The day has finally come where we finished our physic's presentation! Good job to all of the groups who presented tonight, everyone did a fantastic job! We can finally say that we are done with physics. You may say we still have our final report due; yes that's true, BUT our group finished it already! Weeeeee :) Here's a picture of us presenting tonight:

Surprisingly, our group wasn't that nervous about going up there to present. Surprisingly, I wasn't nervous...and it's funny because I usually get nervous having to talk in front of just a speech class, let alone a room full of students, adults and teachers. I really want to thank my entire group for always willing to go the "extra mile" because throughout this project I've learned a lot about hard work and what it takes to actually get things done. We are very glad this project is done, and honestly I feel our group did a pretty respectable job up there. We were all dressed in our "formal" attire and opted to show enthusiasm for our project. Hopefully people liked our presentation! Adding in the little act to demonstrate how we used the PA system was a last minute decision (like literally last minute) because our youtube link wasn't working, but we really enjoyed it! We thought that it was a good break from just talking at our audience. Plus, people were laughing so I think that means they liked it :P

We would also like to go ahead and thank Mr. Hooper (picture of our group with him above) for showing his support and coming to watch our presentation. Sadly, he walked in literally seconds after we finished, BUT it's the thought that counts :)

To sum things all up, today was a great day! It might've been a wee bit stressful, but definitely well worth it :) good job everyone!!

ahhh it seems like just yesterday we had 54 days do complete our project..

unfortunately all that time has left us forever and we will never get it back. luckily for us, we spent that time quite efficiently in my opinion! this past quarter has been pretty intense and we had a lot of work on our plate but we managed to complete something pretty great! we just got back the results of our post survey, and as it turns out about 80% of students would like to see the announcements of buses continued next year! that is amazing for us because we know we have all worked very hard on this and are pleased with ourselves for what we have accomplished but it is a whole nother thing to have the actual student body appreciate what we have worked on. it feels quite good to be almost done....even though tomorrow is the "big day" (even though every night seemed like it was the hardest) i think that we are fairly well prepared and will do fine. i am confident in our group and that we will be able to perform well for our guests and classmates (and our class grade!). just a few more grades going into that book and we cant afford to mess up now! good luck to us and all of the other groups tomorrow!

We managed!....even with 33% of our group not here!

To start this blogpost off...
Dear Nikki,
I hope you get well soon! Finals are coming up, just hang in there for one more week! :)
Love, Rachelle & Kenneth
But yes, as you can see, Nikki is sick and was absent during our class yesterday. On the other hand...this did not stop us from being productive! As Kenny explained in the previous blogpost, we used class time wisely and put up our signs. THIS, blogpost is going to be about our 2nd test run for the bus announcements that Rachelle and Kenny did Tuesday afternoon. Even though we only had two people, we were able to manage decently.

(I was the new Kenneth and listened in on the transportation radio):

We had a rough start though; we didn't know how to actually get the PA system to work in the beginning because we forgot to press "#". This delayed our announcements a little and we missed announcements for the first 3 buses. Secondly, Ms. Martin came back into her office halfway at about 3:45 and let us know that we need to be a bit more "lively". She was in a meeting with Mr. Blake for a possible new teacher and I think the bus announcements were a little disruptive to their meeting. There were also a few more combinations yesterday, which should've actually helped people who were catching those buses.
Although we had to face some difficulties, they were minor and we were able to push through! Can't wait to see what will happen this afternoon!