Violet Band: Project Season

Welcome back and happy new year!The Violet Band is in full project-mode. After the holiday break, everyone was anxious to get back into their work. And rightfully so! Check out what they're all focused on (taken from their independent project declarations):Jack: This arc instead of doing a normal seed based arc project, I want to put my time into the ultralight project (UL). This project will teach me many skills I can use later in life.  It will teach construction techniques and basic aerospace design skills. Because this such a long project it will require me to develop long term project management skills. The Ultralight Project will last a couple of years and is a very major project, both because we have large goals to accomplish and because building an airplane is something i have always wanted to do.  I have been working on it since the beginning of the seed arc and would like to make serious progress before the end of the year. I am very passionate about aircraft and air travel, as an added bonus, and this project would look very good on a resume and help me get into the aerospace field of work. for these reasons, doing a seed arc project would not be nearly as beneficial as working full time on the UL. Josh: During this arc, I will do research on plants to find which ones might affect cats and why. After talking with experts and gathering information, I will find these plants and add them to KitTea to help new cats adapt to the space. I hope to create cat friendly planters and holders for the cats to enjoy both the aromatic benefits as well as the physical benefits of the plants. Ideally when I put specific plants in the space, it will help them adjust faster and make them happier so they can get adopted.Harry: Video games have always been a passion of mine, and with this project I’m hoping to make a deeper foray into video game design and development. I’ve created smaller games and demos before, but this is my first time creating a full game. This experience will be invaluable asset for potential game development opportunities later on. In short, the project I’m working on is a game, made in Unreal Engine 4, centering around an airship captain attempting to dismantle an oppressive regime run by robots, and all the while trying to find and rescue his kidnapped daughter.The deeper details of the game are outlined in this document, free for your perusal. Cassandra: My long-term project is an entry into the NASA Ames Space Settlement contest.  This is a contest done by NASA where students and sometimes teams design a space settlement and send it in to be judged.  I decided to do this because it will be extremely interesting to design all the systems to keep people alive, indefinitely, in space.  The contest doesn't call for the settlement working for forever specifically but I would like mine to.  This will be a project that will require research, engineering, math and tons of science.  It's going to be difficult because I intend to win the contest.Cyrus: My goal is to create a small, fully-functioning game by the end of the year. The game would demonstrate use of Lua’s basic to advanced functions and be connected to a terminal for debugging purposes. I will be using the game engine MOAI (which is built in Lua) to compile and export everything. MOAI is another widely-used engine in the gaming industry, and is almost identical to vanilla Lua, but with an array of basic programs and optimizations hardcoded into it.Sayuri: I have chosen to accomplish several bundles of mini-assignments and in doing so, embracing this otherwise encumbering need for multiplicity... This plan aims to both do away with the traditional single-focus arc project and emphasize the lessons learned in a project-based learning environment. Although I have allowed myself to choose multiple focuses as my project, I will also be fighting against my tendency to do everything at once and instead attempt to finish my projects one at a time. Learning to focus on a short-term goal and knowing not just when and how to keep going but also when to give something up or change an aspect of my expectations is important to me. For me, this arc is all about recognizing bad habits and devising strategies to control them, and nurturing good habits in order to achieve my maximum possible capabilities. Max: But only one vehicle project piqued Jack’s interest for flying, and my interest for engines: ultralight aircraft. Ultralights have been around for quite some time. They are popular because they can satisfy one’s need for flying, without breaking the bank, similar to Frankencart, they have a much lower top speed than most aircrafts, and are generally not flown aerobatically; they are just for getting a feel for what flying an airplane really is. And we want to build one.Laurel: For the seed arc, I plan to create an Arduino-based automatic plant watering system. I have thought about pumps, servos, valves, and gravity, and I finally decided on a tank suspended above one or more flowerpots, with plastic tubing feeding into each pot. At the end of each tube will be a valve, and this is connected to the Arduino. The Arduino will know when to release the valve because of constant feedback from a soil sensor in the flowerpot. So, basically, the Arduino makes sure the soil is the perfect wetness for growing plants. I have some drastically underwatered poinsettias at home that I want to test my project on.Zada is in India for the next two weeks, but has plans to continue her sewing. Right before break, she finished her first dress. And over break she created another dress - this time the corset even had boning! She wants to adapt her sewing practice to help create costumes for circus.Grace is exploring the concept of "age" and how people interact with their age. She intends to research and explore how different age groups - both within the school and outside of it - express and think about their age.