Growth and Development Reflection
Student Led Comment (Semester 2)
Sol Manuel Garza
Summary
I enjoyed Math this semester because of the new mathematical concepts I learned through interesting and challenging projects. These new concepts included advanced trigonometry (law of sines/law of cosines), understanding how to read and use Sun path diagrams for both Azimuth and Elevation angles as well as the uses of the Golden ratio in architecture and beyond. I needed to use all of these skills to create the product I am most proud of this year, my digital design for Sine City. This design required me to meet all of the requirements set forth by the San Marcos Creek Specific Plan. Although work intensive, I thoroughly enjoyed blending math with art in creating my own building design. I was very engaged with my in the project and contributed to the learning environment by being a resource to my classmates about the building and math requirements. Although I was engaged with the project and with my peers, I could have done a better job of involving my group members in the project work. If I had communicated more to my peers about what I was doing every day, they may have been more engaged in the project. The work I did on this project gave me the opportunity to apply trigonometry to design and urban planning principles.
Growth and Development Reflection
The two projects that I am particularly proud of this year include my Coding Honors Project and the Sine City project. While they were two very different projects, I am proud of them for similar reasons. Both projects exposed me to new mathematical and technical material. Before the Sine City project, I did not know what Urban Planning was or how to use a sunpath diagram, the golden ratio or Adobe Illustrator to make the best structure. I especially liked learning about the Sun Path diagram. At first, it was difficult to find the elevation and azimuth angle by reading the sunpath chart, but after some practice I understood how to do it and was able to incorporate the sunpath diagram to calculate where to put a window. My buildings had balconies sticking out of the houses and I was able to calculate the shadows cast in June and December and place my windows accordingly. The concepts that I learned during this project apply to architecture and Civil Engineering jobs. I will have to understand how to use trigonometry and sun path diagrams to create the best building and then use Adobe illustrator to come up with my Plan and Elevation views.
In my math honors project, “Math and Coding” I was exposed to coding for the first time. I experience a large learning curve associated with learning the basics of Javascript. Once I understood the grammar of Javascript, I was able to use functions to graph interesting patterns on a canvas and make a screensaver that incorporated linear and conics equations and inequalities as well as some polar coordinates. Coding is a very useful skill in a wide variety of jobs. Understanding the math behind coding is needed to code programs efficiently.
Reflecting on the goals that I set at the beginning of the year, I have shown the most growth in the goal “Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.” I have become more comfortable with using several approaches to try and solve a difficult problem so I can persevere in solving it. One problem was trying to scale the courtyard to be a proportional rectangle to the outer wall. I tried several different approaches until you finally helped me find the missing piece of my set of equations.
Contributions
I have contributed to the whole class discussion in several ways including volunteering to go up to the whiteboard and explain the work I did to find the answer to a problem. I volunteered on several occasions to show and explain my work. This helped struggling classmates understand how to do the problems as well as help me better understand the flaws in my process if I got a wrong answer. I also contributed to small group discussion by helping my classmates with classwork and project work. For example, I helped my partners with the hand drawn sketches from my digital drawings by explaining the measurements and helping them convert between feet and metres.
I worked very hard throughout every stage of the Sine City project: from surveying the site to working on Adobe Illustrator to create the final product for the lazer cutter. I created all the drawings and did the trigonometry for the slopes during the site survey and analysis. I designed the buildings in Photoshop in accordance with all the regulations and taking into consideration the sunpath diagram and the golden ratio. I then worked on creating to scale models of the elevation views in Adobe Illustrator to make or lazer cut buildings. I then created the site plan to be printed on the plotter.
Areas of Development
One of the most challenging subjects this year was understanding the trigonometry with non-right triangles. There were so many new rules and equations that I wasn’t familiar with. One of the most confusing parts was how to get the angle measure using arccos, arcsin and arctan. I kept getting weird numbers because I messed up the conversion to angle measurement. I persevered in understanding this topic by working with friends who better understood the topic and studying the explanations and examples in the Math SAT book and came to understand how to solve the problems.
I think that the topic I least improved on was the golden ratio. Although I learned more about it and was able to incorporate it into my building design, I still do not completely understand how the golden ratio can be used to create a building design and be useful in other contexts. I incorporated the golden into my design instead of using the golden ratio as one of my guiding principles. I needed to have done more research on the Golden ratio and its applications to better understand how to incorporate it into my architectural design.
Overall, I have grown a lot this year and had a lot of fun. My goals in the future are to keep practicing the the math behind statistics such as standard deviation, spread, etc. as well as well as the more advanced trigonometry. I also am looking forward to learning calculus. I want to go into an engineering field and calculus is a requirement. I could take a calculus class at palomar but it would be great to learn calculus in HTHNC.
Summary
I enjoyed Math this semester because of the new mathematical concepts I learned through interesting and challenging projects. These new concepts included advanced trigonometry (law of sines/law of cosines), understanding how to read and use Sun path diagrams for both Azimuth and Elevation angles as well as the uses of the Golden ratio in architecture and beyond. I needed to use all of these skills to create the product I am most proud of this year, my digital design for Sine City. This design required me to meet all of the requirements set forth by the San Marcos Creek Specific Plan. Although work intensive, I thoroughly enjoyed blending math with art in creating my own building design. I was very engaged with my in the project and contributed to the learning environment by being a resource to my classmates about the building and math requirements. Although I was engaged with the project and with my peers, I could have done a better job of involving my group members in the project work. If I had communicated more to my peers about what I was doing every day, they may have been more engaged in the project. The work I did on this project gave me the opportunity to apply trigonometry to design and urban planning principles.
Growth and Development Reflection
The two projects that I am particularly proud of this year include my Coding Honors Project and the Sine City project. While they were two very different projects, I am proud of them for similar reasons. Both projects exposed me to new mathematical and technical material. Before the Sine City project, I did not know what Urban Planning was or how to use a sunpath diagram, the golden ratio or Adobe Illustrator to make the best structure. I especially liked learning about the Sun Path diagram. At first, it was difficult to find the elevation and azimuth angle by reading the sunpath chart, but after some practice I understood how to do it and was able to incorporate the sunpath diagram to calculate where to put a window. My buildings had balconies sticking out of the houses and I was able to calculate the shadows cast in June and December and place my windows accordingly. The concepts that I learned during this project apply to architecture and Civil Engineering jobs. I will have to understand how to use trigonometry and sun path diagrams to create the best building and then use Adobe illustrator to come up with my Plan and Elevation views.
In my math honors project, “Math and Coding” I was exposed to coding for the first time. I experience a large learning curve associated with learning the basics of Javascript. Once I understood the grammar of Javascript, I was able to use functions to graph interesting patterns on a canvas and make a screensaver that incorporated linear and conics equations and inequalities as well as some polar coordinates. Coding is a very useful skill in a wide variety of jobs. Understanding the math behind coding is needed to code programs efficiently.
Reflecting on the goals that I set at the beginning of the year, I have shown the most growth in the goal “Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.” I have become more comfortable with using several approaches to try and solve a difficult problem so I can persevere in solving it. One problem was trying to scale the courtyard to be a proportional rectangle to the outer wall. I tried several different approaches until you finally helped me find the missing piece of my set of equations.
Contributions
I have contributed to the whole class discussion in several ways including volunteering to go up to the whiteboard and explain the work I did to find the answer to a problem. I volunteered on several occasions to show and explain my work. This helped struggling classmates understand how to do the problems as well as help me better understand the flaws in my process if I got a wrong answer. I also contributed to small group discussion by helping my classmates with classwork and project work. For example, I helped my partners with the hand drawn sketches from my digital drawings by explaining the measurements and helping them convert between feet and metres.
I worked very hard throughout every stage of the Sine City project: from surveying the site to working on Adobe Illustrator to create the final product for the lazer cutter. I created all the drawings and did the trigonometry for the slopes during the site survey and analysis. I designed the buildings in Photoshop in accordance with all the regulations and taking into consideration the sunpath diagram and the golden ratio. I then worked on creating to scale models of the elevation views in Adobe Illustrator to make or lazer cut buildings. I then created the site plan to be printed on the plotter.
Areas of Development
One of the most challenging subjects this year was understanding the trigonometry with non-right triangles. There were so many new rules and equations that I wasn’t familiar with. One of the most confusing parts was how to get the angle measure using arccos, arcsin and arctan. I kept getting weird numbers because I messed up the conversion to angle measurement. I persevered in understanding this topic by working with friends who better understood the topic and studying the explanations and examples in the Math SAT book and came to understand how to solve the problems.
I think that the topic I least improved on was the golden ratio. Although I learned more about it and was able to incorporate it into my building design, I still do not completely understand how the golden ratio can be used to create a building design and be useful in other contexts. I incorporated the golden into my design instead of using the golden ratio as one of my guiding principles. I needed to have done more research on the Golden ratio and its applications to better understand how to incorporate it into my architectural design.
Overall, I have grown a lot this year and had a lot of fun. My goals in the future are to keep practicing the the math behind statistics such as standard deviation, spread, etc. as well as well as the more advanced trigonometry. I also am looking forward to learning calculus. I want to go into an engineering field and calculus is a requirement. I could take a calculus class at palomar but it would be great to learn calculus in HTHNC.