Reflection 1
Date: August 24, 2015
Question 1: How is the beginning of your senior project? What
do you like and dislike? Video games are a huge passion of mine, I like that I am going to be able to design my own. I am excited to learn how to work new programs and work with my mentor. I am not entirely excited to write a paper about the history of video games, while I enjoy writing I do not enjoy writing informational things. Having to research multiple facts while also incorporating all of the facts into my paper will somewhat diminish the flow of writing for me.
Question 2: What do you feel you can do better in order
complete your project? I feel like I should not procrastinate my project like I do with most of my other work, this project is not something I can do the night before it's due. I need to plan and organize how i'm going to work on my projects and accurately document my hours of working on my project and working with my mentor.
Question 3: What are you most excited about and what do you
feel you are doing well? I am most excited about learning new pieces of software, once I learn how to operate the program it will help me tremendously in the future. I feel like so far I am doing well in turning in all the required pieces of my project when they are due, I have also organized a schedule for how I am going to get the needed hours of the project.
Reflection 2
Date: September, 18 2015
1. Have you found a mentor yet? If so, who are they, and why do you think they will be a good mentor? If you haven't found a mentor, then where have you looked? Yes I have found my mentor, he is a computer engineering teacher at Erwin High School. I do believe he will be a very good mentor, is in incredibly skilled in multiple languages of coding and is open to teach me what he knows.
2. What are you planning on doing for the first 3 hours of your project? I plan on starting to create the vectors of my game, I can do this in a different program than the game maker such as photoshop.
3. How much money will your project cost? What type of materials will you need? My project will cost no money, I already have all the programs I plan on using downloaded and I have my own computer. My mentor has agreed to help me for free, the only cost will be the cost of transportation to and from my mentor.
Reflection 3
Reflection 4
Self Evaluation
1. Upon reflection, did you choose the right senior project topic? Why or why not?
2. Did you conduct enough research for the paper? Why or why not?
4. Did you ask your teacher for help when you did not understand a particular assignment or aspect of the project?
5. Explain what your physical product was. How much time did you spend on your physical product? Could you have put more effort into it?
6. Did you put forth significant time and effort into your portfolio? Is it professional in appearance? Is it creative? Is it complete? What would you change about it?
7. How much effort did you put into preparing your oral presentation? Describe your efforts. Did you prepare early enough?
8. Do you feel proud of this project? Does it represent your very best work?
9. What was the most challenging part of senior project?
10. What is the most significant fact or skill that you learned by completing this project?
11. How do you think completing senior project will help prepare you for college or a future career?
12. What letter grade would you give yourself on the entire senior project? Why?
Date: August 24, 2015
Question 1: How is the beginning of your senior project? What
do you like and dislike? Video games are a huge passion of mine, I like that I am going to be able to design my own. I am excited to learn how to work new programs and work with my mentor. I am not entirely excited to write a paper about the history of video games, while I enjoy writing I do not enjoy writing informational things. Having to research multiple facts while also incorporating all of the facts into my paper will somewhat diminish the flow of writing for me.
Question 2: What do you feel you can do better in order
complete your project? I feel like I should not procrastinate my project like I do with most of my other work, this project is not something I can do the night before it's due. I need to plan and organize how i'm going to work on my projects and accurately document my hours of working on my project and working with my mentor.
Question 3: What are you most excited about and what do you
feel you are doing well? I am most excited about learning new pieces of software, once I learn how to operate the program it will help me tremendously in the future. I feel like so far I am doing well in turning in all the required pieces of my project when they are due, I have also organized a schedule for how I am going to get the needed hours of the project.
Reflection 2
Date: September, 18 2015
1. Have you found a mentor yet? If so, who are they, and why do you think they will be a good mentor? If you haven't found a mentor, then where have you looked? Yes I have found my mentor, he is a computer engineering teacher at Erwin High School. I do believe he will be a very good mentor, is in incredibly skilled in multiple languages of coding and is open to teach me what he knows.
2. What are you planning on doing for the first 3 hours of your project? I plan on starting to create the vectors of my game, I can do this in a different program than the game maker such as photoshop.
3. How much money will your project cost? What type of materials will you need? My project will cost no money, I already have all the programs I plan on using downloaded and I have my own computer. My mentor has agreed to help me for free, the only cost will be the cost of transportation to and from my mentor.
Reflection 3
- You should now be halfway through with your product hours. Please detail what you have done for 7 hours of your product. If you have not completed 7 hours, give a plan for how you will catch up on your time and get back on track: I have spent 3 hours of my project watching and reading tutorials on the GameMaker program online. I've spent 4 hours with my mentor, i've interviewed him and shown him the progress i've made so far in the game, my mentor has also taught me many valuable skills about computers.
- For your presentation, how will you show the judges what you have learned? I will show the judges my completed video game, and I will tell them what I have learned from the research.
- If you were to make a 3 minute video, or segments adding up to 3 minutes, what would you film to show your project? I would show a video of me working on my project, I can record my computer screen as I am actively creating the game.
- What can you do better to ensure your project will be a success? Procrastinate less on working on my video game and paper, if I keep a schedule on when and how much to work on I can complete the project in a timely manner without being overwhelmed.
Reflection 4
- What do you need to do in order to finish your project and be successful? I need to complete the game I am working on, complete my paper, and complete my powerpoint presentation.
- What about the presentation are you most worried about? Showing the judges how my game operates, and if there is some kind of technical malfunction that leads my game to stop working.
- Is there anything Mr. Copeland can do to help you towards the end of the project? No, Mr Copeland has been supportive and as helpful as possible throughout this whole project.
Self Evaluation
1. Upon reflection, did you choose the right senior project topic? Why or why not?
- Yes, it was something I was easily able to master and it involved something I was passionate about so I enjoyed working on it.
2. Did you conduct enough research for the paper? Why or why not?
- Yes, I was easily able to finish the paper with the information I gained from my research.
- I was completely willing to revise my paper after reading comments from my peers and teacher, I began writing the paper early enough so that my teacher could edit it. Having a rough draft is always beneficial because there is always room for improvement.
4. Did you ask your teacher for help when you did not understand a particular assignment or aspect of the project?
- Yes, I always asked my teacher when I had questions and they were always sufficiently answered.
5. Explain what your physical product was. How much time did you spend on your physical product? Could you have put more effort into it?
- My physical project was the actual video game I made, I spent about 30 hours working solely on the game design itself. I could have definitely put more effort into my game, however making it more complex was not my objective.
6. Did you put forth significant time and effort into your portfolio? Is it professional in appearance? Is it creative? Is it complete? What would you change about it?
- Yes, I took extra care to make sure my portfolio was legible and contained everything it needed.
7. How much effort did you put into preparing your oral presentation? Describe your efforts. Did you prepare early enough?
- I wrote a script in preparation for my presentation and practiced presenting 3 times.
8. Do you feel proud of this project? Does it represent your very best work?
- I am very proud of my project, I feel like it does represent my best work properly.
9. What was the most challenging part of senior project?
- The most challenging part of the project for me was making the video game, I had to learn how to code and then apply my knowledge to actually coding the game.
10. What is the most significant fact or skill that you learned by completing this project?
- How to crate my own video game in the program GameMaker because it is a skill I can continue to use.
11. How do you think completing senior project will help prepare you for college or a future career?
- Writing a formal research paper will prepare me well for college, and learning how to create my own game will help me as I plan on going into game design in college.
12. What letter grade would you give yourself on the entire senior project? Why?
- I would give myself an A, I had all my assignments in on time and is was quality work.