At the start of this project, I immediately knew which of the two programs I wanted to work with immediately and that was VSXU. After the tutorial workshop, I was fascinated by its simple yet complex building blocks to creating a visual. When it came time to begin creating drafts, I went straight into it. However, I soon realized that not having any ideas would amount to nothing. Utilizing my resources, I downloaded several patches sent to us by our teacher and carefully reviewed them. After a careful examination, I selected a patch to be my foundation for the patch. After recreating the patch, I let my imagination go free. The goal of this was to see what I could create even if it is not visually appealing. That way, I could get inspired for new ideas for the visual. When I was content with what I had created, I started formatting the visual to fit with our story. My visual would take place in a family scene. For this, I decided to use colored rectangle modules to frame the outside of the visual to make it appear as it was a memory. There was not a moment's time when I was not bored with VSXU. There was so much to accomplish and I am glad that I gave it my all during this project. I would say I exceeded the expectations that was required of me for this content area. I came into this with passion and an enthusiasm to learn.
Stage 2: Cross Disciplinary Goals
I love helping people succeed in their work. During this project, I had a good friend in my group. The two of us decided to team up and help with each other’s visuals instead of us creating separate visuals. This way, we could get invaluable feedback on the other person’s work while also having a good time while completing them. I felt that the collaboration worked really well for us because we both pushed the other person to achieve greater things. There were times when we were at a point of content for our visuals, but we always came up with new ideas to incorporate into the visuals. I also helped my other group members with their various problems. I wasn’t there with them every step of the way, but I would enthusiastically help them if they ever asked for my help. Before senior year, I was a stubborn worker. I always wanted to figure things out without asking for help. Sometimes, it worked but for the majority of the times, it didn’t. High Tech High has taught me the wonderful qualities of collaboration and how it can make everyone succeed. This project especially. This project's’ success would be determined by the group’s ability to work together. If each person only cared about their own work, then our project would have failed miserably. However, that wasn’t the case. Each member of the group wanted the other members to succeed and offered help whenever the need arises. Because of this, we were able to work past the obstacles that blocked our path throughout the project.
Stage 3: Self-Identified Goals
A personal goal that I gave myself in the beginning was to put out my best possible work. Throughout the course of High Tech High, I had a tendency to finish work fast and to not refine it at all. I would turn this product in, which would usually give me an A or above. The problem was I saw no point in putting out a work with more effort. Eventually, after college visits and a deep reflection, I realized I was wrong. In college, professors want high quality work from the students. If I continued my previous work ethic, they would immediately notice the poor quality. This would reflect poorly on my grade. So, I decided to push myself to make my best possible work. I wanted to make sure that it was not half-assed but something with lots of content and quality. For this project, there were numerous times when I could have turned in my visual and my group members would like it. However, I wanted to make my visual better. There was always things to be fixed and issues that needed to be addressed. I wanted to make sure that when I finished my work, I could confidently stand behind it. Now, as I am writing this, I am making sure that what I am writing is my best possible work. I can’t say for certain how college life would look like, but at the very least I can start preparing for it.
The evidence I have for this is my movie maker video that I created for the project. This was something that I volunteered for to push myself to create better work. Overall, the creation of the movie was easy. The only struggles I had with it was waiting for my group members to record their visuals and the many Movie Maker bugs that plagued me. However, I had lots of fun doing this and I am proud to have created such a product.
Here is the link to the video.
The evidence I have for this is my movie maker video that I created for the project. This was something that I volunteered for to push myself to create better work. Overall, the creation of the movie was easy. The only struggles I had with it was waiting for my group members to record their visuals and the many Movie Maker bugs that plagued me. However, I had lots of fun doing this and I am proud to have created such a product.
Here is the link to the video.
Part 4: Grade Negotiation
The most significant thing I learned from this semester is collaborating with my peers. By collaborating with others, it can boost work production while also producing high quality work. There were lots of times when I had questions in both programs and having someone to answer them was really helpful. However, there were times when I had a huge struggle and that was with Pure Data. In VSXU, you could see how different modules would affect your visual instantly. Unlike, VSXU, Pure Data was not user friendly. There was no module list in which you could select modules to put into the patch. Instead, Pure Data left its users to figure things out on their own. During this portion, I decided to use the items that I did know about and see if I could come up with some new ideas. This did not work as I was recreating the same patch. Instead, I decided to look on the internet for some ideas. This did not work again, mostly because the patches were very overly complicated with little explanation on how it worked. Thankfully, our teacher sent us links to patches he created and I was able to work from there to create a sound that I liked. I felt that this project has helped me with producing my best possible work. However, I felt that we didn’t get enough chances for me to really accomplish my goal. I will continue using this self identified goal for my work ethic, but I was disappointed that there wasn’t enough opportunities for it to shine. I feel that I should get an A for this project. I made sure that my products were representative of my work ethic and made sure that my group members were successful too.