Reviewing Marcel's WISE Project/More Project Realizations

So I probably mentioned somewhere in the now existing archive of my journal entries that I was going to try to change the format of my journal entries. Well, I'm finally gonna do that! I wrote some entries on the car ride to West Virginia (which I will write about in a bit) and I'm deciding to post pictures of them here. The first one regards Marcel Gremaud's WISE project, which is AWESOME! I love his journal entries-they're so witty and personable. Also his project is about leading a sustainable life-and it's been super cool to read about. The second post is about my most recent mentor meeting with Ms. Zaryski, which I will just leave you to read about :)
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House heated by poop. Cool idea, but is it DOOable?

I found an article about a bus that runs on human waste!!
This would be a totally awesome way to heat my house, because then my poop wouldn't be waste-it would be a resource!

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to do that. I did some further research and I would have to live near a facility that filters the waste, and it takes about three weeks to filter so the feces can be odorless (at least in England) So, for the purpose of this project, I probably won't end up doing this.

Just wanted to share this! Here's the article I found:
http://www.trueactivist.com/this-bus-runs-on-human-and-household-waste-now-theres-an-idea/

Livin' on the hillside, or within it, rather.

I've done some more research and I've decided that I want to live within the hillside, not on.
This is an important distinction.

Living on a piece of land means, at least to me, that I am dominating that land. I am not working with it, it is not helping me live, I am not helping it live. I am controlling it and not letting it function in it's natural way.

I got to this conclusion by going back to my bibliography and checking out a link featuring earth sheltered homes (not earthships. They sound so similar, I know, but this is another important distinction). You can find this link in my bibliography. So I saw a home embedded in a hill, and I thought, "Wooaah that's cool", so I checked it out and I'm loving this concept! I need to see if I can still incorporate elements of the earthship design if I build my house into a hillside. I'm not sure if I will really be able to figure this out. The water filtration device of the earthship should be collected on the roof, so my houldn't necessarily be "hidden". I'll do some more research though. In the meantime, here are some pictures of cool hillside houses!

 

 

This last one could potentially combine well with the earthship model because of the large windows

 

 

Earthship Videos

So I'm learning some more about earthships! Today, I watched a video of a man giving a tour on the earthship he just finished contructing. After watching it, I realized I need to learn more of the basic concepts about an earthship before learning about the nitty gritty stuff. Though it was interesting to see what the daily tasks of living in an earthship involve. The model the man built is the most recent model of the global model, which you can learn about here:
http://earthship.com/Designs/global-model

Also, you know the new thing they do on youtube now where another related video immediately starts loading after the one you just watched? Well a video about a micro earthship began loading and I decided to watch it. And from that, I'm now considering even more so building a tiny house. I think I will also for sure use tires in my design. The interviewee talked briefly about how durable tires are, and some dumpsters (at least in New Zealand) PAY people to take tires from them. Getting paid for building a house-how cool is that??

The links for my videos should be posted on my bibliography page if you want to check out them out.

Excuses And A Finished Practice Floorplan

So here's a heads up for y'all: I'm in Minnesota right now! I'm actually singing in the OAKE National Chamber Choir and won't be back in town until next Tuesday.
That being said...it might be a bit tough to get some good WISE work done this week. 

I realize this is an excuse that can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, which I definitely don't want happening. I actually found a quote regarding the concept that is an excuse that is, if I might add, very fitting for this project.
 "Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure". ~Don Wilder and Bill Rechin

Over the course of high school, I've learned how silly excuses can sometimes sound, even when they're valid. Point is, something didn't get done, and it's more important to do it than to spout out excuses for why it didn't get done in the first place.This being said, I'm going to try to be conscious of when I should mention why something didn't get done and when I shouldn't (if it's an "everyday"type of excuse, for example). 

Any who...my practice floor plan is complete! I decided to get rid of the stairs and make it a one-story house, since my real house plan will be one-story. I also added in built in appliances, outlets, light switches, dimensions for rooms, walls, and windows, and some moveable furniture. Needless to say, if you wanna know how to draw a 3-way dimming light switch, I'm your gal. 
As always, much erasing was involved. I did, however, get very handy with my architect's scale. I was swinging that thing around quite a bit. 
On the more specific side of things, I learned that I should draw my rooms out to the correct dimensions I want with the interior walls on the INSIDE of the room, NOT the outside. The latter is what I did and labeling the dimensions got a little confusing. The widths of the interior walls weren't really incorporated into the dimensions. There are just really tiny spaces in between each dimension. I'll be sure to fix that on my next blueprint.
But anyway, here's the exciting part: a picture of my complete floor plan!

Peer Blog Review

Just now, I looked at Tanya V-R's blog and Ellie G's blog (they're from the first period WISE class). Both have given me some inspiration! Firstly, their posts vary in style and in length (a phrase I've written about three times now...) and are really reflective of their personalities. Tanya is frankly honest about her feelings towards her project and that is pretty cool, really. She allows her thoughts to flow without inhibition. Also, Ellie shared a future test she'll be taking on her blog that at first didn't seem to relate to her project, but later she explained how the two were connected and that is also pretty rad. Now I'm starting to think about how I can connect other aspects of my life to my project and how I can interestingly blog about them. Some new ideas are a churnin'!

Also I know I've done quite a few reflection blogs lately...don't fret, those other labels will get back in the ball game soon :)

Mentor Meeting Friday the 13th

Ms. Zaryski and I had our second mentor meeting yesterday and it went well, as expected (despite my post title, which may suggest otherwise).
We mainly talked about all the elements that go into short term and long term planning. As an example, she let me view her notebook that she uses to plan choir rehearsals. I must say, her plans are very thorough and neatly written! It's nice to see another person's thought process.

I also told her how my "less planned" week turned out, and it went really well. I have never tried to plan days in advance, so why should I do that here? It's always worked for me if I plan my days out as they come. I know it's essential that I have an end goal each week (or 2 weeks), so I will always try to have that figured out each time.

She also gave me an interesting idea. I could potentially build mini parts of my house and try our different materials. Or come up with a couple different experiments to test the layout or materials used so I can settle on a design I like. Of course I would have to determine more specifics and make enough time to do this, but it's a fun idea that I didn't even think about!

We talked about my goal for next week, which is a little cloudy. Since I will be done with the practice drawing, I won't have any concrete (get it? sorta?)  hands-on work I can accomplish; I will be primarily researching. I'm going to want to come up with a basic model I want for my house and determine what energy systems and such I'd like to use. I have a feeling I'll need to make some lists in the near future.

Redesigned First Floor





So I was getting all ready to draw some doors and windows on Tuesday when I was working in the library after school, then my friend Lindsey made a suggestion to me.

 Firstly, she commented on my stairs and asked how they were going to work (I made stairs that didn't correctly lead to a landing), and I said "Eh, whatever, they can just stay like that". Then she took a look at the rest of the floor and saw how oddly designed my living room was, and remarked that I could move around some of the rooms to make it bigger. So that's exactly what I did.

I should've realized how inconvenient my design layout was before, but I am so glad that Lindsey questioned my design so I could think more critically about how it would really feel to live in a space like this. This skill will be necessary for designing my "real" home. Here is my new design for the first floor, with added doors and windows!

It was easier to draw the interior walls this time and the doors because I already had practice doing that with my original plan, so that's another reason why I'm thankful for Lindsey offering her suggestions. I got to practice drawing and become more affluent with drawing walls.

 Appliances to come later!

Picture of First Floor/Trying out a Less Structured Weekly Plan

I've been wanting to post a picture for a while now of what I've completed so far, but haven't because I feel bad that I haven't gotten as much done as I wanted to. It's probably for the better, for myself and whoever's reading this, that I post some portion of my floor plan...so here it is so far!

Just laying out rooms' exact dimensions and making sure I draw the interior walls correctly was time consuming. I spent 45 minutes yesterday learning how to draw interior walls correctly (if I should draw them outside the exact dimensions I want or draw the dimensions I want, then put them on the inside). Next I will put in doors and windows, then appliances, then move onto the second floor.

This week, I'm going to try out a less structured plan. Here's a list of what it will look like:
-write 4 journal entries
-draw in doors, windows, and appliances for the first floor of the house
-go through the same process for drawing the second floor of my house.

We'll see how I do with a less structured week set up. I am planning to stay after school as much as I can so I'm in an environment where I feel motivated to work on my project.

More to come soon!

Mentor Meeting and Journal Entry Changes

So I had my first mentor meeting on Friday morning before school, and it went really well! I'm not too surprised though because it was with Ms. Zaryski and we are very comfortable around each other. We actually have a little bit of a history because I was in her training choir at CSMA when I was 7 years old! And now I'm in the IHS choir that she fabulously leads!

I mainly just talked about my project ideas and explained to her where I got my inspiration from. We haven't had a chance to go over my proposal together yet (as I shared it with her school account, not her gmail account), and hopefully we can go more in depth about my goals the next meeting.

She also shared with me some of the experiences she had when she was Michael Stern's WISE mentor last year. One thing she said to me was that if planning specific days for journal entries helps, then do that. But if it doesn't, just write whenever I feel the need to write something, which is what I decided to do on Friday.

However, more thoughts about that have popped into my brain. This week, I've experienced that it's very hard for me to get WISE work done when I'm not at school, and I've gotten less done than I've planned to and have also been doing research and drawing in a "last minute" sort of pace. I would like to veer away from that...so I'm thinking about writing a journal entry every day now, just to make sure that I do at least some work every day on my project, whether it's reflection, hands on, planning, or research. Of course, some will be much shorter than others will, but they'll be something.

More ideas and plans for next week to come soon.

Drawing the First Floor

So...remember how I said in my last post that I would routinely publish posts on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays? Just go ahead and disregard that. I'm quickly realizing that my posts will have to coincide with what I get done during which days of the week. You CAN expect, however, to read at least three posts a week.

I started drawing the first floor a bit later than I expected to, and I haven't gotten as much done as I wanted to... but I started drawing the first floor of my practice house!! This is exciting :D I wonder what I'll feel when I start drawing my real house...

I had to do some more research before I could start drawing. I found this amazing site that gives a step by step process of how to draw the first floor of the house, and it also lists all the tools you'll need to begin designing blueprints/floor plans. These include an architect's scale, a T-Square, mechanical pencils, erasers, a drawing board, compass, symbol template, masking tape, tracing paper, a utility knife, adjustable triangle, and felt tip pens. A LOT more was required to start blueprinting than I thought! Luckily, my dad had the majority of these tools (including a nifty drawing board he used for his dissertation) that I'm able to use, so I don't have to go out and buy them. The only things I should probably are a T-Square, good erasers, and 24"x36" drawing paper. I was so eager to start drawing, I crafted a new size of paper with graph paper from the IHS library. It's working for now, but I'll use not- taped, plain, not sticky paper in the future.

Now for the hands on portion! So while I did research prior to starting, I messed up a little bit...instead of drawing all of the exterior walls and making an actual shape for the bottom of the house, I just went ahead and started drawing rooms. I had to erase all the work I had done and make logical, exterior walls for the house. I could blame this on the fact that I don't have a smart phone and I just wanted to get started, or the fact that I thought I remembered what I read correctly, but the truth is that I was getting a late start on my plan for this week and I went ahead and started drawing without knowing EXACTLY what to do. Even though I proceeded incorrectly, I'm still glad I started doing some hands on work. I'm realizing I will constantly have to be fixing, erasing, and rearranging the spaces in my house, so this was good practice for what is to come.

I'm also realizing that I don't have very good spatial abilities...meaning that it's hard to picture how big a 10'x10' room is. This being said, I'm going to be looking around different rooms and estimating the square footage. If I have a tape measure on me, then I will go ahead and measure it so I can check my guess.

Today will be my first mentor meeting, and I'm going to tell her all of the concerns I've posted on here just now. The ball is really rolling now!

Starting the Research and Learning about the Mentor Meeting

Hello all! I meant to make a post yesterday...so I'm sorry this is a day late. From now on my posts will routinely be on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays (though if these do change, for some reason, I will explain why).
On Sunday, I did some research for how to draw basic floor plans. As a starting tool, I used an article from dummies.com. Though it doesn't sound professional, the tips were very helpful. Here is some of what I've learned:

-Measure out a distance before putting it in your floor plan, just so you really know how big it is.

-Note which direction the door opens with an arc. Also measure distances of all door openings

-Windows: measure windows and molding separately. include measurements from window to corner, ceiling, floor, etc.

-Note where pipes, heaters, electrical outlets etc. are

-Start with major areas in room

-Note the room’s directional orientation (north, south, east, west)

-Then draw the specifics

-Draw each wall’s elevations (this means switch views)

I plan to do a bit more research today and get started with drawing the practice house!

Also, yesterday we had class and Ms. Lord talked to use about how we should proceed with our mentor meetings. I found this extremely helpful. Before Monday, I hadn't even though about how the mentor meeting should be directed, what needs to be established. I think I will establish that first, I can procrastinate a little bit with my work and push it off to the side until I HAVE to do it. I want Ms. Zaryski (the IHS choir teacher) to remind me that this work is mandatory all the time, or else I will get behind and drown by the wayside. Beyond that, I need to come up with other things I need from her as a mentor.