Ben C's Blog

Book Talk

NASA lied to us, but it wasn’t about the moon landing. In the book Armada, by Ernest Cline, published July 4, 2015, you will question if we are alone. In Armada, we meet high school senior, Zack Lightman. He lives with his mom in Oregon while they both get over the death of Zach’s father, Ulysses, who apparently died in a freak accident. Zack balances being a senior and working part time at a video game store called Star Base Ace. His boss/friend Ray has always been there and would go to the moon and back for Zack, and he has. Zach trusts Ray, which turns out to get him in a lot of trouble. Zach hates school, but he tries to focus in class, and not let his anger issues get the best of him. He wants to end high school on a strong note. He plays the universally loved video game, Armada, going by the player name IronBeagle. The game is a space simulator where people can play in missions to defeat fake aliens. He plays with his friends Diehl and Cruz, and with the help of Ray, is number six in the world. Zach has seen some weird things recently. He could have sworn he saw a UFO pass by the window at school. Just when he thinks he’s lost it, it happens: a spaceship arrives and takes him to space, where he finds good friends and his idol. If that wasn’t enough, Zach finds out aliens are real and NASA has been hiding it for years. He becomes a pilot for this space organization and takes off into battle. The world falls to pieces in front of his eyes. Zach has to go head first into battle, save the world, (what’s left of it) and make sure he lives to tell the tale, and you will feel as if you are flying one of the battle ships too. But regardless of what he does, the battle scenes are chaotic, violent, heartbreaking at times, and a little comedic.
‘ “Shit! Shit-shit-shit!” we heard Shin yell. “Here they come, Milo! Brace yourself!”
“Come get some!” I heard Milo shouting, his voice strangely gleeful. I could hear the sound of him rapidly firing his QComm’s wrist laser. “Who wants some? From hell’s heart I stab at thee, assholes! By Grabthar’s hammer, you shall-” Milo’s voice was drowned out by another series of massive explosions, followed by what sounded like a hailstorm of incoming enemy fire, and by the terrible hurricane-like howl of the Thunderdome being breached and depressurized, as its atmosphere-and everything else inside-was sucked up and out into the dark vacuum outside on the lunar surface. But the silence that followed was somehow even worse.’ Zach has to go into a war that takes some people years to prepare for, and Zach only has one day. Can you imagine if you were sent to go fight a war today? I would crack under the pressure. What would you do? Think about that. Ernest Cline normally has his characters under extreme pressure, and Armada is no exception. This quote shows all the emotions of the battle. The quote also reflects on the extreme chaos and rising action that motivates Zack to save the world. Can a teenage gamer with no preparation and only experience of war is in a video game step up and save the world?
This book is full of old references, and just saying, there is an album for the book. Name one other book that has an album. You can’t, which shows the pure awesomeness of the book. Ernest Cline’s books are oddly relatable. Even though you won’t find yourself fighting aliens in a spaceship one day, (I hope) the characters normal lives reflect on our lives, and how we perceive the world. I recommend this book to people who like action, emotion, and a little bit of romance. If you like the books, Ender’s Game, anything Star Wars related, the Leviathan series, Ready Player One, and The Martian Chronicles, then this thriller will keep you and the edge of your seat and will change your outlook on the “universe’s” biggest question: Are we alone?

Africans In NYC

Using Africans in New York, who’s stories we discovered by historians, we filled in the blanks using creative writing. Here is mine.

Good “Fortune”

I remember the stories mama told me. Her village in Lower Guinea raided, husband killed. She told me how she was dragged toward the slave port, on to the slave ship. “I was chained up and beaten…” She had told me. “next to people I didn’t know, and I laid there, until they took me out of the chains. It was the first time I had seen the sun in what felt like years.” She told me how she ran from where she was to New York where she met a nice man, and had me, so I had freedom, but no matter what, it still felt like I was treated differently, and I was. People looked at me in odd ways and kept a far distance from me, no one seemed to like me. But that changed two years ago.
I was in love. She was a slave, I wasn’t, but I needed her. I bought her as a slave, with my son, Robin. It seemed surprising that and man like me would buy a slave, especially after the British passed laws that made free blacks like me less equal to the whites. So I made a big decision, and bought her freedom with the money I had from being a cooper, then I married her. It was a great life. I made the money, she took care of Robin. I was thought of as a rebel, John Fortune, and my name was disliked in the streets. We then had a daughter named Elizabeth, and people were now starting to treat us differently. We even hired a teacher for Elizabeth so she could learn to read and write, something, our family could not do. It was great. Now that we had an educated member in our family, people treated us normally. Now we were the Fortunes, just a family in New York.

Plant Presentation

Plant Presentation

Comparing and Scaling Update

https://app.letsrecap.com/public/r/358f851b48d57b16f6a94d73b1236254

My Woodworking Essay Rubric

My Essay:

Carpenters, The Builders Of America: Woodworking In the Colonial Era
Without barrels, Colonial America’s profit would have sunk and its economy would have fallen. Barrels were a great way to trade and store belongings. With the genius design of the barrel, an average man could push one thousand pounds or more. America’s trade profit rested on the shoulders of the most important type of carpenter, the Cooper. Cooper actually means container maker. They made barrels, butter and milk churns, mugs, and buckets. They were at the top of the middling class, which is another way of saying middle class. Coopers tended to make supplies for ships, like barrels and buckets, but they were the only ones working on the ships. But cooper’s didn’t do it by themselves. They were other carpenters to help. The whole process, from the tree, to timber, to lumber, was the responsibility of the carpenter, the most important tradesperson in Colonial America.
There was a huge variety of wood related trades in Colonial America. Woodworking played a big role in building America. Carpenters were the primary woodworkers, who often split up their jobs. In the book, The Woodworkers by Bobbie Kalman, she says: “As towns grew, skilled woodsmen started specializing, or becoming experts at certain jobs.” (pg.6) Some carpenters had more useful jobs in society, while others had less helpful jobs. Trades like the Cooper paid much better than the Joiner, but they were all in the middling class. It was a very common job and was great for a family who wanted their child to be an apprentice. Carpentry is so important because it was a big source of income, jobs, trading, and expanding the colony into the America we know today. Carpenters had a huge variety of trades, such as the Cooper.
Coopers were container makers. Their products were great for trade and voyage overseas. They made things such as barrels, buckets, butter and milk churns, mugs, and so much more. The used curved planks called spades, and metal bands they made themselves, instead of the blacksmiths. They also used the joining process to attach the planks before applying the metal bands. They were by far the most important carpenter in Colonial America. They were very dedicated and worked 12 to 15 hours a day. The design of the barrel was also very important. Barrels were rounded so that men could transport hundreds of more pounds. Also, only a third of the barrel had contact with the ground, so the barrel could be turned in different directions, instead of picking up the barrel and turning it in different directions. Sea travel was the main use for barrels, but shipwrights were the biggest part of sea travel.
Shipwrights built ships. Ships were a very important part of trade, war, and transportation. The English ships were a common design, but different countries did tend to add their own little things that differentiated them from other ships. The slave ships were just small ships, with barely enough space to fit the slaves. Warships were much bigger than transport ships. Their outside layer is insanely strong, due to the process of seasoning wood, which is a method to make the wood firm and durable. While shipwrights build the ships, there are other things in the ships besides barrels and weaponry on the ships. Things like furniture were the work of Joiners and Cabinetmakers.
Joiners and Cabinetmakers are basically the same things, and there isn’t much of a difference between the two. Cabinetmakers are affiliated with furniture, while Joiners have no boundaries. Joiners joined everything and worked with lots of different people. They worked with shipwrights, housewrights, coopers, and wheelwrights. Cabinetmakers also joined wood, except they didn’t help other carpenters join wood. Cabinetmakers made furniture of all types and of all different qualities. Cabinetmakers also made coffins, which also were different qualities. The longer seasoned the wood was, the nicer the quality. The type of wood was important too. Birch was terrible, and oak was very common. There were trees that could only be found in specific areas. Joiners had tons of jobs, but the pay wasn’t the greatest, while cabinetmakers salary was different depending on the project. Furniture was most commonly found in a house, a house made by housewrights.
Housewrights built houses of all sizes. They were a very mobile job. They had no specific workspace and traveled a lot to get to the different locations that houses needed to be built. Building houses was a very well paying job. They built churches with the help of Joiners. The also did a process called raising the roof, which wasn’t a party. The laid planks called rafters on the top of the structure and nailed or joined the into the rest of the building. They then cut out the shingles or were given stone shingles. Those were then attached to the rafters, and the roof was done. All the wood had to be seasoned, where the wood is left to dry in a log house. The wood must be seasoned for seven years minimum so that the wood doesn’t shrink and leave holes in the walls, ceiling, floors, and stairs. Sometimes the holes caused the house to collapse.
The seasoning was and still is a very important process. Now there are ways to speed up the seasoning process, but we still have to season wood. The seasoning was overlooked by woodsmen. The log houses wood was seasoned in were in a sunny area and had to be protected from rain, snow, and other natural occurrences. You would either find about five gigantic log houses or tons of small ones. But before the timber didn’t just appear in the log house, someone had to cut it down. That is the job of a woodsman.
Woodsmen were the lumberjacks of the Colonial Era. They cut down wood for the carpenters. Before they cut the tree, they had to check the wind, because one small breeze and the tree falls on the poor woodsman. Once the tree is chopped, and before it’s sent to be seasoned, the bark is taken off with a special type of saw. The saw is flexible, so its shape can be adjusted to the timber. Then it’s cleaned of bugs and sent to a log house to be seasoned. Then possibly years later, it will be used for a carpentry project. If it will be used for a carriage, it won’t be seen for seven years. But that wood will be used for European woodworking, but Native and African woodworking is a different matter.
Natives built boats. They made canoes out of logs, shells, fire, and animal fat. They burned a hole in a log and covered the parts of the log they didn’t want to burn in animal fat. Once the fire went out, they dug out the remains with shells. They used thin timber as paddles. They main materials, were stone, wood, and shells. The houses had frames made of twigs and branches, and they also carved wood. What they carved with is still unknown to man today. But the Natives weren’t the only woodworkers in town. The Africans did some woodworking too.
Most of the woodworking Africans did be while they were enslaved. They did the hard and dangerous work that carpenters didn’t want to do. They cut down the risky trees, went to the broken parts of ships, risking their lives, and sometimes even built the slave ships that would bring their fellow Africans to America, “The Land of the Free”. Africans were mostly worked on ships because ships needed the most help. Africans wouldn’t leave their town or city for work unless very necessary, and most carpenters didn’t either.
Carpenters were either urban or suburban carpenters. The different places had their pros and cons. Suburban carpenters could get wood much faster than urban carpenters. The downside was that business wasn’t so good. Traveling wasn’t easy. Only 1% of the population had carriages, let alone horses. Getting to suburban carpenters was much harder for people. Their tools were most likely a worse quality than urban carpenters, due to the fact that they couldn’t go to a nearby store and get new tools. Urban carpenters had a much better business, but got supplies much slower than suburban carpenters, but had very new tools. But suburban, or urban, all carpenters has apprentices.
Apprentices were a very important and helpful part of a carpenter’s job. Parents petitioned their children as an apprentice. Sometimes carpenters took apprentices for free, but other times it cost parents. When the first settlers arrived at Jamestown.having a master was like having a third parent. Masters had complete control over apprentices, and apprentices treated their masters with respect, just as they treated their parents. Masters could discipline their apprentices, just as the child’s parents would. An apprentice could only be an apprentice for a specific amount of time. That time served as an apprentice was decided by the master. The longest amount of time an individual could serve as an apprentice was seven years. It was rare to be an apprentice for seven years. The usual amount of time was four or five years, but if the apprentice disagreed with their length of apprenticeship, they could shorten that term by running away like the great Ben Franklin had. But not all apprentices parents petitioned them. Orphans often were found by carpenters and taken in as apprentices. Few Americans served seven years; five or four were more usual, and sometimes the boy shortened that term by running away as Ben Franklin did. Because of this, there were constant advertisements in the newspapers for a missing apprentice. But masters had much more to take care of than their apprentice.
The carpenters without apprentices had problems. He had lots of rival carpenters who most likely had an apprentice. He had a short of help, which wasn’t good for business. If he had a workforce, they all lived with the master as one big, but not always happy, family. It was the master’s responsibility to take care of his men’s problems and to make sure that they showed up to the church on Sunday.
Woodworking was a very important part of Colonial America and still is. From raising the roof to joining a barrel, carpenters were a necessity to trade, travel, and building the America we live in today. The tools and processes from then are still used today, which was how advanced carpenters were and why they are so important today. While some tools have been modified like power tools, other tools only have minor changes due to modern day technology. Carpenters are now more of an artisan than a tradesman. They now make crafted goods instead of necessary objects. What would America be like without carpenters? Would there be an America? Would we exist? That’s a question with no answer. Who would have thought that a man with metal tools and wood would affect the outcome of the America we know today?

Bad And Good Notetaking

Good:

Bad:

Colonial Woodworking Note Card Example

Note cards
Colonial Woodsmen
Source:
Kalman, Bobbie. The Woodworkers . Crabtree, 2002. Colonial People.
Pages:
8
Quote:
“Woodsmen cut down trees and prepared the wood for other woodworkers to use. Woodsmen were also called axmen because they used a felling ax to cut down trees. Skilled woodsmen looked for healthy trees with straight trunks because they knew that these trees produced the best lumber to construct homes and other buildings.
Cutting down trees was dangerous work. A falling tree moved so fast that sometimes a person could not get out of it’s way. A tree could easily crush someone under it’s weight! Woodsmen had to be very careful when they felled, or cut down, trees. Before they made any cuts, they checked the direction of the wind. Even a slight breeze could change the direction in which a tree fell.”

Paraphrase:
Woodsmen were the first step in a woodworking project.
More advanced woodsmen look for trees with good trunks.
Chopping trees was a dangerous job.
Woodsmen could get crushed by a tree if they weren’t careful.
Tree’s could easily crush anyone.
Before they started chopping the tree, they would check which way the wind was blowing, because the wind can effect which way trees would fall.
Even a small breeze could change the way it fell.
My Ideas:
Being a woodsman sounds like a really bad job. It was probably a very low paying job. I can infer that no woodsmen every past the middling class. I wonder how common it was for woodsmen to get crushed by trees. Would a woodsman have an apprentice. Where would woodsmen live? It wouldn’t make sense to live in the city, because there isn’t much wood, but it’s hard to get wood to urban carpenters in the city if you like in the country. How long would it take to prepared one log? Natives and Africans would use a different type of ax. African axes would have almost a hook that they would use. They would get it about halfway into the tree, and then turn it like a can opener, until the tree fell. The Native ax was a long stick that was sharp on the end. On the side was a rock that was smooth. Then they would whack the bottom and dig the roots up, until the tree was out of the ground.
History:
Created: 10/26/2016 10:09 AM

Rotocopter Design

The rotocopter helped me learn about design. Having to design the rotocopter to make it go slower and faster was really fun and hard. We had to make our own design from scratch. We didn’t get a template for the rotocopter, so we used lined paper. We made the wings bigger so it would catch more air and fall slower. For our fast rotocopter we added tons of paper clips. It was really fun and in the end the two teams ended with a tie. (Which really sucks)