Elena Blogs for a Change

Dear Hillary Clinton, My name is Elena, and I am 12 years old. I currently live in California, and am in the seventh grade. I have been a tremendous fan of yours since 2008 when you ran against President Obama in the Primary Election. My parents would gather the family, (then just my Mother, Father and I) and sit in front of a very old antenna TV to watch the Democratic debates and convention. I’d like to think that I, only 4 years old at the time, would speak with them intelligently about the political issues being addressed among the candidates, but it was not so. I barely understood what half your words meant, much less the importance of the event taking place on the screen. It all sounded awfully boring to four year old me, but I didn’t care. I liked to watch. Why? Because I thought you were great. Of course, I didn’t understand how great at the time, but pretty great. Great enough for me to sit at the table and draw detailed pictures of you in your orange pantsuit. ...

It was hard to wake up to the news this morning that America chose Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton. We did have a few bright spots, though: 1- Nevada turned blue. 2- Nevada elected the first Latina senator, Catherine Cortez Masto 3- We elected some great new women senators: Kamala Harris from California, Tammy Duckworth, Illinois and hopefully Maggie Hassan from New Hampshire. Maybe one of them will become president one day?!? Maybe there's hope because if you look at this map on how young people voted, it is clear that they would have given us a different president. Here we are at the beginning of the evening when we still thought Hillary's path to the White House would look like this: Imagine if we didn't have the Electoral College. Hillary Clinton (like Al Gore in 2000) would be our president because she won the popular vote by more than 200,000 votes (and counting). Maybe it's time to consider whether we should have an El...

We are so proud to be part of a large group of volunteers who came from places outside of Nevada to help the local Democrats get out the vote. As we compared notes with other volunteers, we started asking them why they came. Why did they take time away from work and their regular lives? The answers were always heartfelt and very moving. For example, Leland from Alameda (a gay activist) and Pat from Grass Valley, CA met when they were working in Ohio in October to help with early voting. They became good friends and now are here in Reno together doing what they can to help. Pat remembers seeing John F. Kennedy speak and Leland remembers working for the 1972 Democratic candidate, George McGovern. We've met so many interesting people who came to Reno to work on the campaign. One of the teams we met was a mother, Jacqueline, and her daughter, Ashley, who are both from Sacramento. They have worked together in swing states since Obama first ran 8 years ago. Ashley has become a commun...

Day two of campaign canvassing was interesting. Why? Because we learned that looks can be deceiving. When we went door to door, we tried to imagine who would answer and how they might respond. At this one door, we were a bit anxious that maybe we had knocked on a Trump supporter's door.  There was loud music, the smell of cigarette smoking, and we could hear lots of men laughing inside. A bearded guy with a shaved head and a lit cigarette and baseball cap came to the door. As we introduced ourselves in the most polite way possible, we cautiously asked if he supported Hillary's campaign. To our surprise, he said that he was a BIG Hillary fan and that the other guy was an idiot. I think we were totally surprised. He went on to say that Trump did not respect people and that respect was really important to him. His stepson was our age and seemed very pleased that his stepfather was talking about his values in this way. After we left him, we both admitted that we were totally shoc...

It's a weekend day and ordinarily it would be filled with soccer games, family parties and chores, but our job this weekend is to help get out the vote to put Hillary Clinton in the White House. So we head to Reno, Nevada from CA because NV is a swing state with 6 electoral votes at stake. Little did we know that the very afternoon we we were arriving in Reno, Donald Trump was as well. How did we know? Well, we encountered a very proud Trump supporter with a t-shirt that said "Build the Wall, Trump." He then proceeded to tell us that Hillary Clinton didn't do anything as Attorney General and the conversation went downhill from there. His own mother had to correct him (as we did) that Hillary wasn't Attorney General but Secretary of State.  His mother was a Hillary supporter and she told us her son "didn't know anything" and that we should ignore him. He got even more in our faces, so we decided to take the high road as Michelle Obama has suggested ...

When Donald Trump first started campaigning for President, we all laughed. My 7-year old brother even perfected a hilarious impersonation of the Donald based on Trump's many speeches about his beautiful border wall. But now that Trump is the Republican nominee, we are more worried than amused. My little brother even asked my immigrant parents whether Trump would deport us to Mexico or Ireland!  I am far too young to vote and am glad Paulina and I can go to Nevada and try to make a difference there.  I am excited to help elect our country's first female president,  Hillary  Clinton. Paulina and I researched both candidates' positions on several issues we care about and it reinforced our commitment to help Clinton win.  Here's what we found in our research: 1)  Who is their running mate? Trump                                    ...

I'm excited to introduce my friend Paulina to my blog. She and I are very big supporters of Hillary Clinton and we are going to Reno, Nevada to help get votes for her. We would be very proud if Hillary became our first woman president. We leave with the hope that she will be elected.  We know it is important to have as many of her supporters vote as possible. This is us, before we leave for Nevada: In preparation for the trip, we looked at the different opinions between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump so that we could answer questions if an undecided voter asked why we are supporting Hillary Clinton. We watched videos, did research and made a comparison chart on how they differed. See more nonpartisan information here: http://presidential-candidates.insidegov.com/compare/40-70/Hillary-Clinton-vs-Donald-Trump Next blog, we will share our chart based on information that we found from trusted sources.

Yeah, video games are cool: Buying them, playing them, talking about them... But you know what's even cooler? Making a video game. Designing, building, advertising, and everything else.  In STEAM class we recently designed and produced our own video games using a game engine called Kodu Game Lab. With Kodu, we could easily work on our games using a simple and reliable method. Let me tell you a little about Kodu Game Lab. Kodu is an application for windows PC's that you can use to create and edit your very own video game. The engine uses a block-like learning structure, making it easy for users to drag and place commands, instead of typing them.  There are also some customization features, such as land forms and colour preferences. Kodu Game Lab also comes equip with premaid characters for users to program. This kind of product is aimed at children or students, but if you have never coded before, it's a great way to learn the basics. To design our game, my partner and I ...

The ball moves down the ramp. It makes a swirling sound as it moves through the funnel.  The dominoes tumble over each other in an orderly fashion. The last one pushes the car. The car spins through the scale. The pin rolls over... and BOOM!! The balloon pops. What causes this chain reaction? It's called a Rube Goldberg Machine, or in simpler words, a series of events that provoke something even bigger; like the example we just had, the ramp, the funnel, the dominoes,.. they all worked together to make the ballon pop. These series of events are called simple machines, which are several working manuevers (in this case 6) each assigned to complete a different simple task. The impact of one is not great, but together, they can cause an expolsion. Here are the six simple machines: Wheel/Axle: Used to carry around heavy mass with less effort Pulley: Uses wheel and rope to raise, move, raise, and lower a load Lever: A rod balanced on a fixed point that can move more wheight effor...

Have you ever been to an LED fashion show? We actually just completed one in our STEAM class, and it's pretty awesome. You go into a pitch black room, with a catwalk surrounded with white lights (so that the participants can see where they're going). Then loud music comes up, and you see these bright lights moving down the runway, outlining clothing, or swords, or accessories. It looks amazing, but it's not that easy to pull off. It takes a while, and whole lot of effort.  Honestly, this project was very frustrating at times. The connection between my wires was constantly breaking and I had to start all over a couple times! But in the end, it was all worth it. ---Here's how to make your very own LED light-ups--- The first step is making a sketch or an outline of your design, including measurements for the wires you're hoping to attach onto your clothing etc. Then, you must sew or tape the wires onto their designated place on your design. Once you're finis...

I recently finished the holiday LED project where we created holiday cards containing small LED lights connected to circuits made of copper tape. First, you created image or pattern design using paper scraps on the front of your card. Then, you make a plan for the circuits. Your circuit design must be thoroughly thought through in order for the lights to work. The type of circuit you must build is called a ladder, because the LED wires look  like steps of a ladder, placed on the two main beams on either side of the circuit (made of copper tape). See how the circuit looks like a ladder After that you solder metal onto the breaks in the copper and use the melted metal to stick the LED wires onto the copper tape as well. And then, after adding a coin battery and ending the circuits, your card should be all set. I think I learned a lot about circuits and engineering in this project. If I could change anything about it though, I think I would have a more organized way of buildi...

In order to build a scribble bot, you need the following materials: * A cup * Markers * Paper                       *A battery * A motter * Wires 1) Build the battery circuit by connecting the wires to each end of the battery and the other side         attached to the motor. It should make a vibrating motion and a mumbling sound in your hand. 2) Tape the cups (or boxes) together and also tape the circuit into the cup. Make sure that the motor is sticking out of the cup. 3) Use a drill to connect the wheel onto the motor, and be certain that it's able to roll around on the table. 4) Tape the markers onto the cup (box) and make sure they are not touching the wheel or motor. It could cause the drawings to be bumpy and rigid. 5) Uncap the markers and let your robot roll around!!! I  really suggest trying our scribble bots They are a fun and easy activity, and I've ...

Today in STEAM we worked on scribble bots. They're little robots made of cups and batter circuits, and you attach a few markers to them so that when they're running, they make cool patterns on the table!! We just started our project today, and I'll share more details once I've learned more about what the project is like. What a finished scribble bot looks like.

Today in STEAM we learned about electricity and circuits using a Java-based download. We were given a worksheet full of instructions and ideas for our exploration. For example, the packet would show a circuit design, and we would copy it onto our computer. Then we were asked questions, like-- why did/didn't this design work? Or,-- What happens if you add another battery, or reverse the energy source?-- and so on. I thought this was a good way of learning about electricity, and I look forward to working with more circuits-based-projects in the near future!!  

Sadly, my partner and I did not meet the deadline for the simulation, and I fear that we might not get a very good grade for it. But, although it sounds strange, I think I learned more from our rollercoaster failure than we would have learned from a perfect project. Here's my theory-- *We learn more from failure than from from success. As an athlete, I have experienced this before. When you lose a soccer match, you are more likely to analyze your performance than when you win. *Also, I feel like the relevant principles of physics are now solidly ingrained in my brain because we struggled so hard to make our roller coaster work. *Finally, I think the key concept we failed to grasp was time management- you need to assume things will go wrong and plan for it. We experienced a lot of technical difficulties, including glitchy software and outdated computers, but we should have made up for that by asking Mr. Aringo if we could come in during lunch...

As I read the requirements list on my roller coaster project, I noticed that we were instructed to add in supports to our structure. I remembered Mr Aringo teaching us how to insert them a couple days back, so I took in that information. First, I chose which supports to add in (there were many options, such as box support, arc support, or single-sided support). After this, I got straight to work. I added in a couple structure frames (supports), in places that would need them most. I haven't yet finished inserting them, but I hope to do that tomorrow. Personally, I kinda wish I'd gone faster putting them in, because now I have more work on top of all of my roller coaster modifications, but hopefully that is a skill I can improve upon- working with more speed.  S E C U R I N G  S T R U C T U R E W I T H S U P P O R T S

Right now, I'm currently still working on my simulation. I think everything is going well, considering we just started. There are somethings about the ride that need to be changed, though. For example, our g's keep passing the limit, which is not acceptable, and there is one point in the ride where the cart completely slows down unintentionally. These are some things that need to be tweaked, but I'm pretty confident we'll meet the deadline.  

Today was the first day of our 3D simulation roller coaster. I thought it was super fun, and I think I like it much better that the physical roller coaster project. Mr. Aringo wasn't there today, but he told us what to do the previous day so that we would be prepared. My partner and I made a simulation draft that worked okay. We're going to hopefully redesign it and tweak some parts of it tomorrow, to make our ride even better!

Ok, so I think we finally finished our physical roller coaster project. I didn't get the chance to blog yesterday, so I'm going to write about Monday's class in this blog. Yesterday we did our roller coaster presentations. Our ride finally worked, and we named it "The Suicide", because almost everyone who rode it died!! Anyway, our presentations was not that great overall. Some of my teammates were really shy, and when it was their turn to speak, they backed out. But I don't think it was their fault. We just didn't have much time to practice our presentation. I think if we'd had more time to plan and talk it out, the outcome would have been better.                                                              

Today in STEAM class we learned about the 3D rollercoaster simulation. Basically, it's like and animated roller coaster ride, where you get to experience what it's like to ride your roller coaster. We haven't yet started it, but Mr. Aringo showed us the basics of the activity, and he thinks we will be able to start next Monday. I'm really excited, because it looks like a lot of fun. I just hope I follow all the roller coaster physics  and don't crash the cart or anything bizarre like that!!                                                               What the simulation should look like from the passenger view.