My Proposal

I have decided to do a personal make on something called an Erector set. What this is. An Erector set is somewhat like a logo set only with completely different set of building materials. Instead of simple blocks there is metal parts and screws to hold them together. There are many different types of erector sets ranging anywhere from a car that moves around to a helicopter that has a working propeller. These Erector sets have always been intriguing to mw simply because they are harder to build ten legos but are still very interesting and fun. Ideally, I would want to try and build this without any sort of instructions. I think that not having the instructions would be even better than with because it makes you think more and you can put your own creative twist on what you are building. Another really interesting aspect of this to me is the way that parts work together to make something move. I have always had an interest in engineering and these sets allow you to see that work first hand without having to build something massive. You get to build every part of the set, including the engine, by hand so you can see all of the intricacies and work on all of them. I think that this interest stemmed from a young age because my dad was a woodworker on the side, I was always with him at his shop when he was building and usually helping. I was way more interested in how the machines worked than how the wood was put together so while he was working with the wood, I would be studying the machines. The only thing that I am really worried about is not being able to collect enough research to meet the requirements of the project. Im not sure really how much is out there about these sets, I hope there is enough!

This is an example of one of the sets!

Pros and Difficulties of Boom Beach

Boom Beach has many pros clearly, I mean it is one of the biggest communities worldwide, one of the top sold games on App Store, and one of the top grossing free download games on iTunes! I think that the facts speak for themselves when your hear stats like that, obviously people love the game and the way it plays. I would say the biggest pros about the game are how much it relates back to common life, people can start even with only a basic knowledge of military terms and be able to relate to what is going on. The terms used for troops and defenses and weapons are easy and only get more developed as the game goes on. Another big pro of this game for the person and creator, Supercell, is the fact that it starts out as a free download, but then allows you to excel as fast as you want based on how much money you are willing to spend. This is good for Supercell because people are inherently competitive and want to be the best around, so it encourages them to spend money which keeps the staff payed and allows for frequent updates, never allowing the costumer to get board. The positive for the player is similar. The player can chose to either just play for fun and excel at their own pace, or if they have extra money laying around and are really committed, they can get going as fast as they want, depending on how much they are willing to spend. The only negative that can be conceived comes from the same idea surrounding the pay to get better idea. If the best players are all just rich people who can pour tons of money into their island and buy everything new with every update, then it creates an unfair advantage for those who are rich and people who can't pour tons of money in are at a disadvantage to getting on the leaderboards.

This is a perfect example of someone who can just spend tons of money to get as good as possible. 

Boom Beach jargon

Boom Beach has a very unspecific and easily adaptable vocabulary and it is really easy to understand from the start as long as you have a common knowledge of military words. Some examples of this are   there are defenses for you base called boom canon, mortar,  and sniper tower. These are very relatable and understandable terms to anymore who has any sort of experience with the world. The vocabulary that is more difficult to pick up on is the vocab that involves the intricacies of the game. For example, someone who doesn't know about supercell and the way they do things wouldn't know that there is a minimum and maximum range that something can shoot. A sniper tower can only shoot for a range of twelve tiles, while a boom canon can shoot twenty. These types of understanding are developed over time and can be learned quickly if you just simply pay attention. another example of jargon that could be hard to pick up on is when talking about troops used to attack other bases. There are several different types of troop and different combinations are used to attack different bases. For one base you might use all heavy men in order to take a lot of damage without the worry of dying, where in another you would use all mercenaries because you need to more quickly and efficiently. These different types pf troops can have a great outcome on the battle and will play a big roll in the game. The only other real jargon I can think about is when you talk to other players who have played for awhile they refer to different troops and defences by abbreviated names. For example, a boom cannon is referred to as a boomer, and a Guardian is called a Big. Simple things like that which can be learned over time will increase playing fun and ability.

My new community

Joining my new community, the Boom Beach community has been not only challenging, but also quite repetitive and monotonous. The reason I chose this community is because I have been an avid Clash of Clans (CoC) player for the last  two years and Boom Beach is made by the same company that mad CoC, Supercell. I though by joining this Boom Beach community I would have somewhat an understanding of what was going on and terminology going into it so the transition wouldn't be super challenging, but I was way wrong. The Boom Beach community is way different in their values, terminology, pretty much everything about the game is different and the adjustment hasn't been easy. When I was joining the CoC community it took a few days for me to get into the swing of things, to learn the usual way of playing, etc. But, with Boom Beach there is no one to help you firstly. Meaning, when you are trying to learn to upgrade things or how to set hop your base there is not immediate feedback by your can mates, your doing it all alone. The only way to learn things is to get online and hope you can find enough people online that are willing to help at that time. The only real similarity between the two is that you are in complete control of what you are doing within your own clan, or island in the boom beach lingo. There is endless possibilities on what to do and how to do it in regard to setting up and attacking. Ultimately, I still very much prefer CoC and the way it is set up and played, but Boom Beach is appealing and I can understand why people want to get good at it, competition runs the world!

This is a picture of what Boom Beach looks like in gameplay.

My beginning experience

My maker manifesto and my beginning experience here at Regis have been alike in a simple way, and very different  otherwise. The three main points of my manifesto where..
1) For something to be considered a make, it doesn't have to have a material outcome
2) For something to be considered a successful make it can find that success at the expense of another person
3) To be a good maker you have to be creative and innovative, you can't be afraid to fail
For me, the only one of these ideas that really relates back to my experience over my first month of school is the last one. I know that college is going to be hard, especially playing sports and balancing school so I have had to come up with creative and innovative ways to get everything done as efficiently and on time as possible. Many nights this includes not sleeping to much and often napping between class so that I can have prolonged hours after class to study or work in things. As of now this routine I have created for myself has worked out decently and I am achieving success academically. The only real problem with this is the fact that when I do fall behind it is a real uphill battle, and failure is not an option. There are always going to be those days where I am sick or something has come up and I have to miss class or skip homework time, and that never works out well. Like right now, I am way behind and am spending every waking moment doing some sort of school work. My manifesto doesn't relate directly to what has happened in this first month and I know I am going to have to be continuously creative and innovative to get all of this work done, I just really hope that it works out well in the end.

Maker Manifesto

My maker manifesto has a couple different points to it that I think are important to consider when trying to grasp the idea of what being a maker is or considering what successful making entails. First, there is not always a material outcome to something being made. What I mean by this is that when people think of making they think of an end result that is material in nature, not something that cant be seen. I think that the overlooked side of making is more important, that is making feelings, not only for yourself, but also others. Making someone else feel happiness, joy, confident, anything of that nature is crucial to the world. Felling those feeling within yourself make you a better person. On the flip side feeling sadness, humiliation, guilt, can make you stronger. Second, in order for something to be considered a make, it should do it at the expense of someone else. If you want to make a homemade gun just to look at and feel accomplishment in making that's great. If that gun then becomes a weapon to hurt other is should be considered a bad thing, and should be taken away along with your right to make it again. I know that's a radical example, but I'm a little crunched for time so I had to get straight to the point.Lastly, I feel that in order to be a good maker you have to be creative and innovative. Failure is always an option the first time, as long as your willing to pick yourself up and try again. The heart of making lies within us and we need to do our best to keep it moving in a positive direction. These creations need to be making the world a better place for all, not just for yourself all the time, and surly not a worse place for most. This picture I have at the end just represents the second point I made, that making feelings is just as important as any other type.

This quote to me is great because is is speaking directly to the fact that power through someone else is a great type of power. Making someone go on in life through tough times, is the best gift you can ever give. 

my life and writing

Writing in my life, well I think that writing has never really played a big role in my life. I know that I am descent at it. Like, in elementary school I wrote a little essay about why I thought was wrong with teaching styles and I got to read it over the intercom. I feel like after middle school though I realized that writing was not going to be my thing, that my mind is more mathematically and science oriented. Upon this discovery I also came to another conclusion, that no matter what I wanted to pursue in my life it would require some sort of writing. I would always have to write, and therefore needed to be good at it.  In this class I hope to get better at not only the fluidity of my writing, but also my vocabulary, strict, and will to write. This class being structured the way it is I believe could help me very much in all of those categories because it doesn't allow you to get board. There is always a new subject, inside of making, to discuss and that is a real plus for me. Also, I like the fact that the class is helping me realize a skill I never considered myself to posses, the skill of making. Through writing so much about how my making skills have developed over the years, I am realizing that maybe I have been a maker all along and just never though about it. I found this meme that I think is really funny and very truthful about writing.

This is literally exactly how I feel whenever I sit down to start an essay!

Learning ways and experiences

Throughout life we are all exposed to many different people, teachers, and ways of learning. The life that I have lived and the experiences I have had though learning have been very much influential  of the person I am now. Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." I think this quote sums up every thought that every student I have ever met feels and thinks. To many times we go to school all day just to be talked at by our teachers and just sit dormant, ideally by, listening but not retaining. This was my life all the way through Elementary and Middle school. But in high school, when I knew that education actually mattered, I decided to change things. Every teacher I would get, the plan was to sit down with them before the first day of class and explain the them that I can't learn by just being talked at all of the time, I need, and I believe that everyone else needs some sore of interaction, some involvement! Once that plan had been conceived in my head I decided that was the only way, so I put it into motion. I excited my plan to perfection, with every teacher I had and it worked exactly how I wanted to to. I was learning and retaining all of the knowledge that they expected me to know, even more, I was enjoying it! Honestly, when I think about education I think that we are being just shoved a lot of random information to train our brains to make decisions and find important information in the nothingness that is todays media. That is a skill though, and a very important one. If we can learn by the time we are adults to sift through all the crap and find important information that need to be retained we can find success.

This picture spoke to me because I love what it is communicating and trying to represent. Learning should be this way, prom person to person. People talking about experiences and things they have learned from them. Talking about what they believe are the best and worst things in life, about what should be changed or reformed, about how our political system works, about the demographics of the world. People should want to learn from real life, not solely what is in books.

My DIY culture

I truthfully, until this class, had never heard of DIY or the DIY culture. I mean, obviously I knew what it meant to "do it yourself" but had never heard the abbreviation, not to mention heard about a whole culture or following that this phrase created. This new idea of DIY that is sweeping the nation is incredible and immensely fascinating. The creations and ideas that one can find just by simply typing in "DIY" on Google could could keep you interested all day and night, for many days straight! I guess I never really considered myself a DIY type of person, mainly due to the fact that I have always been so caught up in sports I never really found time for personal growth through creativity, other than what I can do on the field. But, as I look back on life I realize that maybe I have done some DIYish things in my day. Growing up I would take loads of string and tape and create spiderwebs all through my house. My mom would one home from work and not be able to get inside because I would have spent six hours that day creating a full web that only had one cove where I would sit and read. Also, I recall making duct tape wallets for my whole family, until I found many of them in the trash. I'm sure they loved the thought and generosity, they just had no use for them and forgot it was my job to take the trash out. If there was ever an item that I look at and think to myself "I could make that for sure" it would have to be something like a lamp, wood chair, bookcase, etc. Those sort of easily constructed, not super creative things. Lastly, this link I found is incredible! Pretty much all of the things on it are simple to build, but simultaneously intriguing! http://izismile.com/2012/06/15/awesome_diy_creations_69_pics.html