Designer Species Project Blog 11/5/17

Summary: The bezeus is a marine animal that lives in the lakes of tropical rainforests located on planet C. Its shape and structure is almost identical to a seal except for the fact that its tail does not part in the ends. It stays cool by living in the water, for one, and its seal-like skin is designed to keep it cool. Not only does it absorb water, but it doesn't have blubber or a furry texture. The climate of planet C is very warm so it doesn't need to worry about the cold, but it does move to the top of the water if it does become cold. The bezeus gets its water from the lakes it resides in and eats algae, seaweed, and small fish. As well as that, it uses its two front limbs to eat the vegetation that surrounds the lakes. It will sneak up on its prey because it's the same murky color as the water. In addition to camouflage, the bezeus can use its tail to inject poison into both birds and bigger fish that try to consume it. The first few months, the babies look somewhat like a tadpole and the mother feeds its young like a bird, in the sense that it chews it up and spits it into their babies mouths.



Backward-Looking: Does this work tell a story?
In every single project, I play a role in, I want them to tell a story and I want them to represent who I am and how I work. This project does show whoever is watching some of my personal strengths and weaknesses and how the group works as a whole. The project contains a lot of information and art, which are two very important things, but in this particular project my originality shines through. For instance, it was my idea to make our sketch or model out of cardboard to make it look like our animal is swimming. No other group did it this way, in fact, only two other groups even made a model. Also, one of my partners suggested that we make an animatic to enhance the quality of our project and give us a better grade. We all jumped on board because this idea was very original and differentiated us from the other groups. Lastly, we made a video to stand apart, but the audio wasn't all that great. This shows that as a group we aren't specialized in video editing and it's something we should devote a bit more time to have a better video. This project does tell a story of a group who has an extremely original and imaginative look on things but still needs to work on their editing skills.

Inward-Looking: Find another piece of work that you did at the beginning of the year to compare and contrast with this. What changes can you see? How did those changes come about?
Another piece of work I completed was the Geologic Time Scale Project. Something I noticed was on this project my group and I applied some of the collaboration skills we learned during elective. In the other project, when a team member had an issue we put it aside and waited for it to disappear whereas for this project when we had an argument we took a deep breath, stepped back, and tried to come to a compromise. I think the reason behind such a drastic change in the way my team worked was that we were all willing to use the tools we had to make a better end result. This application of our conflict resolution skills did give us time to create some extra components because we solved the problem instead of letting it linger in the air. Something that we should have done was give more time for the art because it always takes a bit longer than you expect. On the last project I did that and it turned out beautiful. We didn't have a cushoin time for the art so my partners and I had to rush to complete it even though it still turned out good. All in all there were somethings I canged that were good and somethings I should have left the same.

Outward-Looking: What grade would you give it? Why?
If I were the teacher grading this project I would give it an A, and not only because that's the grade I hope to get. I would give this project an A for many reasons, some of which include, originality, effort, and going above and beyond the requirements. My group was very original in the sense of the way we chose to present things. This project was very open-ended allowing us to use our creativity to our advantage. Like I mentioned above we made our model "museum quality" by painting it with extreme detail and having it stand on its own. As for effort, we made a video when no one else did. I presentation requires effort, but a video isn't something you can slap together last minute the night before. It takes time to plan out a schedule, make a script, film the actual video and edit and upload it to Edmodo. I say we went above and beyond the requirements because we made an animatic which wasn't on the rubric or the website. My group and I made time to make an animatic because we knew it would show how our animal moves through water and give some pizazz to our presentation. These are the reasons our project was great and the reason I hope to get a good grade.

Forward-Looking: What's the one thing that you have seen in your classmates' work or process that you would like to try in your next piece?
Something I would like to try in the future, especially with a big project like charity fair, is finding a good medium to present your work through. Although we did make a video and it turned out well, I noticed the group that made the skit was not only entertaining, but I paid more attention to the information they were presenting. I have made skits in the past and they tend to have both the teacher and the students engaged and interested so that is something I should remember for the future. Another thing I saw one of my classmates do was creating a chart or calendar for who will bring what the next day and what pieces of work should be completed. I really like that idea and my group and I used it for this project and it turned out to be more useful than I imagined. Both of these are good tips to remember for upcoming projects and I have to thank my classmates for their ideas.