SOI meeting 3/18/10

We did not have SOI today because our president, Jade Borgeson, was at a Model United Nations conference. Therefore we did not get to discuss possibilities and ideas concerning our “big event” for seniors at the end of the year.

Game Development Group 3/17/10

This week me, Sebastian and Ben met up with Mr. Knittle to discuss progress on the game. Although we have not gotten much farther in the game, it was nice to reflect on all of the work we have put into, and how far we have gotten since we last met up with Mr. Knittle. We were able to stand back and take a look and how far we have gotten and how much we still have to achieve. We left the room with a better understanding of how close we were to completing the game.

SOI meeting 3/11/10

Today we had a short meeting to check everyone's jobs for tomorrow. I am planning on making cookies for the sale. We didn't discuss much else, but talked a little about having a party for the seniors after the IB exams were over. We will probably talk more about that next week.

Game Development Group 3/8/10

Over the past week I have not be able to do much. I made the room larger and created temporary cloning machines with different spawn rates to make a test version of the game. Sebastian has been doing some networking, but the charger for his laptop broke and he cannot program more until he gets a new one. Ben has created sample sprites for the player with different weapons. I also spoke with Mr. Knittle about more meetings so I could continue to receive CAS, which I will do in the upcoming week.

Game Development Group 3/1/10

This past week progress has improved greatly. I figured out the flamethrower and officially changed the name, from the old "zombies_and_mouse" to a brand new game that is much more like the final product. Like the final product, enemies actually die when hit instead of respawning. To go along with this, I have created temporary versions of the enemies, including the walker and exploder, and have tweaked them so that they have appropriate speeds, damage rates, behavior, sprites and health. The sprites (what the enemies look like) are temporary until Ben can finish the enemy sprites. We have also decided on a newer simplistic style for the characters. Sebastian has been having trouble with the new networking but is working hard to fix the issues. Because of networking I also need a different way to drop weapons, and a different way to do bullet collisions.

Game Development Group 2/22/10

Over the last week were not able to speak with each other about the game, however I was able to port over many of the weapons from my personal build of Sebastian's old game. I also created a checklist to make it easier to figure out what we had and had not finished. I figured out how to make an "angle" and therefore could make the shotgun, minigun and rocket launcher. There were many instances where I had to relearn how to do things from my old game by looking at my own coding from months past. I have now relearned everything I knew about programming and much more. I am currently working through doing collisions with lines. We have also managed to get some art from Ben Doane, who has done lots of background art and will now work on the characters. Sebastian has done a little more networking, but unfortunately discovered that he needs to redo most of the structure. Hopefully next week we can have some character sprite ideas as well as more weapons, some sound effects and a good start on networking.

Game Development Group 2/8/10

Today we discussed plans to further work on our game. After a 4 month hiatus, a new version of Game Maker and the discovery of a way to do networking as planned have started. I have started working on adapting the "extra" weapons I had previously added to Sebastian's zombie game. I will make them more balanced, clean up the programming, and change them slightly in order to better fit our needs. Sebastian will be working on networking and trying to port what work I get done into the networked game. Ben Doane will be working on artwork, and we will see if Alan Haynes does sound. Hopefully a lot of work can be done on the game over February vacation.

SOI meeting 3/4/10

Today we managed to get even more people into SOI. The members from the previous meeting were there along with Katie Owen. Before watching the movie, we discussed an upcoming bake sale. We set the date for next Friday, and assigned jobs. I will be making more food from the organic sugar and flour I used before. We then watched the reminder of the movie. It talked about food industry screwups and then gave a list of ways to eat healthy and keep a clean food industry. We then discussed how the movie was biased, but that this was an important factor in convincing others of our views. I think we managed to get a lot in considering the meeting was only 15 minutes long.

SOI meeting 2/25/10

Today we continued watching Food Inc, but we managed to snag one more person (Eric) to watch the movie. Our disccussion today was about the nature of organic foods in the industry, and how they are bought up by major companies and industrialized. This got me thinking about many of the organic foods I eat today and how "organic" they may really be. Also, these organic foods have to travel just as far as inorganic ones. Eating locally is probably the best idea. Next week, we will finish the movie.

SOI meeting 2/11/10

Today we continued to watch Food Inc.. As far as the movie segment, it was about the nature of corn and is use in America, which he had learned about when we read Pollan's book in TOK. However, what was interesting was the attendance for this particular meeting, as well as the decline in between meetings. Attendance had been steadily dropping, and today it reached a new low of 3 people: Jade, myself, and Marissa. This has prompted action on Jade's part to oversee who does and who doesn't get CAS hours.

SOI meeting 2/9/10

This week we continued watching Food Inc. This segment was mainly about the animal treatment in factories. Again I noticed the pro-vegetarian nature of the shots. No argument was made for organic farming of cows or chickens, they only mentioned that what was there was bad. The movie has been one sided and has presented a sort of loaded question in the way that it bashes things that are not organic without showing support or negativity towards organics. I am curious to see the reaction of the club to the movie at the end.

SOI meeting 2/4/10

We were not able to meet in the past few week's due to Jade's absence. Today, we starting watching Food Inc, a documentary which includes Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemna which we read in Theory of Knowledge last year. So far the movie has been very insightful, but I have started to notice how the overtones of the movie help make it practically organic propaganda. It reads like a novel rather than an encyclopedia, unlike a traditionally unbiased documentary. This week we also decided to have two meetings next week, in an effort to finish up the movie.

Physics Study Group, 11/31/09-01/12/10

Over the past couple of months, the Physics Study Group has been unable to meet. The main reason for this is we have been unable to help each other out as the group is currently structured. The founders of the club are planning a revamp and a different structure should be ready after midterms. Until then, all meetings have been cancelled.

SOI meeting 1/14/10

We had no SOI meeting today. However, I have been able to fit more organic foods into my diet.

SOI meeting 1/7/10

Last week we had a very brief meeting. Its sole purpose was to hand out surveys about responsibilities and times for upcoming events. In the meantime I have been attempting to eat more organic and local foods when possible.

SOI 11/23/09

Today we had our SOI Food Festival. We didn't have a specific theme but generally we tried to have "international" food. Nearly everyone brought something, and everyone was able to attend. Some people who were not in SOI also attended. We tried to have members bring their own utensils, but we ended up having to use some extra tableware that we had. We also had the misfortune of scheduling SOI on the exact same day as Mr Hyer's Chili day, which distracted from our comparatively smaller event. Next week, we will discuss poster ideas.

Caffeine Formula 11/16/09

Over the past two weeks I have been attempting to acquire data for my formula. I first made googledocs spreadsheets for each of the three testing areas: Coffee, Tea, and Soda/Energy Drinks. I then made the form as simple as possible, eliminating all factors except the amount of liquid and the time until crash. I reasoned that enough data would overpower the error made by such a simple formula. I then posted links to the formula on Twitter and Facebook, and at a suggestion made a Facebook group. Initially it seemed I had a lot of interest, with about 3 sets of data per chart in the first day. The Facebook group grew to about 30 members in 2 days, and it seemed like I would be able to collect real data. Unfortunately, besides the initial turnout all the data has since been my own. I hope to further simplify the process by making the submission process into a survey-type document. I will also be adding an entry for day or night by suggestion of my advisor.

Physics Study Group 11/16/09

Over the last two weeks we have two meetings. During the first meeting we discussed a new topic, relativity, to help those taking the SAT II. This was different then our usual topic selection, and attracted about 10 people due to the nature of its selection. The next week we returned to our "review" topic of Current and finished off the worksheet we had previously done. With the relativity topic, however, I was not able to contribute. I hope I can help people more next week.

SOI meeting 11/16/09

Over these past two weeks our main focuses have been raising money through food sales and organizing a "food festival." Although our first attempts at raising money through food sales failed due to a lack of food, we hope to start up sales this week. We have assigned jobs for who makes the food, the day it's made for at who will staff. We also discussed having a food festival, which will commence on the Monday before Thanksgiving, a half day. Instead of our originally planned "Bring in $5 or food," this "practice" food fest will be exclusive to SOI members, and everyone will bring food. Soon we hope to raise enough money to possibly make a garden.

Physics Study Group 11/2/09

This past week we did problems on circuits. Although only three people were there, I was able to learn from them, as well as help them derive formulas. On a few problems I was able to show others why a formula worked. Next week I hope there is a greater output.