Balsa Bridge Building Contest

The Balsa Bridge Building Contest takes place on May 6 at Notre Dame Regional Secondary High School. This contest invites both physics 11 and 12 students that attend Notre Dame to build a bridge that can support as much weight as possible. This contest has many rules and regulation that must be followed to be able to compete in this contest. The current record held by Matt Sullivan is 209.4 kg and last years winner was Holden Lee with a total mass of 107.90kg. There are many photos taken during last years contest that could be found here. This contest was sponsored by many organizations and companies. Here is an interesting site from the additional links on the Balsa Bridge Building Contest site. This link shows you the basic bridge types.

Vancouver is a city of many interesting bridges. Here is my favorite

Multiform Project

For the past month our ict12 class has been working on a major multiform project. This project includes a number of our previous works done in class. The projects also have themes to them and the theme I have chosen is the Justice League. My multiform project consists of a number of programs and one Easter egg. An Easter egg is a special key you press to unlock a special feature in the program. To access the Easter egg you must hold ctrl then “s” to open the Easter egg feature.

C++

Our class is now nearing the end of the use Python and we are to begin the program C++. This program is used to write many of the programs we use today. This program is also used to make the shell for video games. I cant wait to see what programs I will make using the program C++.

Computer Dissassembly

On December 20, 2007 our ICT 12 class began a computer disassembly project. We were in groups of two and each group received a “retired” Compaq computer and a tool set. We disassembled our computer piece by piece and had a checklist of what had to be taken out. The tool set helped us in taking out small pieces in the computer that we couldn’t take out by hand. Some of the parts were hard to take out like the motherboard. For the motherboard I unscrewed all the screw and tried to take it out but it would not come out. I then had to ask for help from another group and they told me to just slide the motherboard out of the computer. After disassembling the computer we then had to put the computer back together and make it run. The re-assembling of the computer was easy but the first time me and my partner tried to run the computer it did not turn on. We then opened our computer again and found that one of the cords was not plugged into the right spot. We then got our computer to run once again and overall I found this to be a really fun project. Here is a list of what we had to disassemble.

Disassembly List
Disconnect obvious power and data connectors
Network card
Sound Card
Riser board
Hard drive
CD-ROM
Floppy drive
Speaker
RAM: number of “sticks”
Motherboard
Front panel
CPU cooling fins
CPU
Power Supply

OLPC Update

Here are two articles about OLPC.

This first link is an account of the OLPC laptops being used in Paru http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/25/onelaptop.onevillage.ap/index.html

This link bring you to an article about Microsoft and OLPC working together to get a version of windows on the laptop

http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9847295-37.html?tag=nefd.top

OLPC

OLPC: for one laptop per child. This is a laptop made for children in third world countries and it provides them the ability to learn. OLPC is currently doing an event where when you buy two you keep one and the other is sent to a child in a developing country. Our ict 12 class is raising money to buy two laptops and we are giving one to a child in need.

Here is a review on OLPC http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1014

Here is an article from the Wall Street Journal.http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/Wny$100LaptopProjectIsUnderSiege.aspx

ICT 12 Student Blogs (2007-08)

Amanda Alberti
Cecilia Abreu *
Lester Aquilario
Maria Arcadi
Laura Bordignon
Jason Cadacio
Jon Catapia
Jaime Dy Tioco
Joey Ficetola
Kathryn Jarin
Eliza Labrador
Ysabel Lago
Natalie Luongo *
Micaela Monk
Sarah Navarro
Ryan Parmiter
Julian Sales
Julienne Serrano
Emily Shim
Tomasz Sowa
Robert Straw
Precious Toca
Stephanie Tan
Adrianna Wong
Greg Ziarek

* blogs are incomplete or blank. Check requirements for initial posting. A new confirmation e-mail is required for activation in this list. Two names are still missing.