Sine city project
This was the biggest math project conducted during my 11th grade year, and the last one. For this project we as a 11th grade was taking a look into the San Marcos creek specific plan a project that the city wants to complete that would completely incorporate a "downtown" into San Marcos. We as students were tasked with measuring a certain plot of land that was given to us, once this was completed we were tasked with completely designing a space based off of the specific requirements for that area. The requirements included floor ratio, floors, zoning laws ETC.
My site is located on Bent and San Marcos Blvd. In the upper right hand corner.
What I Did
My group was assigned one of the largest spaces, in both general size and requirements for the space. Our space was to have buildings and those building had to be a certain layout, that being first floor as commercial and second and 3rd as residential (the 3 floors was our choosing it had to be from 3 to 5 floors) the area also had to include all accommodated parking and things of this nature. As the lead architect of my group I was tasked with drawing up detailed sketches of my area, including all the required specifics and making sure that for the building all the windows are placed in the right spot, pertaining to however I layed out the interior. This was extremely challenging as I was not very good at adobe illustrator at the launch of this project I defiantly was at the end, over the course of about a week and a half I spent maybe 3-4 hours a night perfecting my illustrator drawing due to scaling changes and other obstacles along the way. I successfully completed all hand drawn sketches, all of the illustrator drawing for my group (which were done accurately and very well detailed) as well as doing the site plan, plan view for the area and interactive piece. I enjoyed doing all of this work and the end product was very reflective of my work in illustrator. Below is an image of my groups completed area, the buildings were painted by my group mates, and the fountains in the center were also created by them. This is an image of the final completed area sitting on top of our site plan.
Math learning
Throughout this project there were many math concepts that we learned and covered for all of the necessary requirements these included: Trigonometry, Sun Path diagrams (and how to calculate the sun path), and The Golden Ratio. On top of these things there were some topics that we reviewed during our time working on illustrator or when we were doing our hand drawn sketches. The topics we reviewed included: scaling, and congruence / mirroring (transformations). We used trig to calculate the height of pre existing buildings and too also calculate the exact height of the sun at a certain point. Sun path diagrams were used to calculate the exact position of the sun on any given date using the tilt axis of the earth. Finally another major concept The Golden Ratio is where you have line(s) --------- ------ and the ratio between the big one and the small one is equal to that of the whole line to the largest.
The review topics were very simple where one centimeter on a paper would be 2 meters and so on, while things like mirroring was important to make sure all your buildings were facing the right direction and were all "symmetrical."
The review topics were very simple where one centimeter on a paper would be 2 meters and so on, while things like mirroring was important to make sure all your buildings were facing the right direction and were all "symmetrical."
Biggest takeaway(s)
One of my biggest takeaways from this project was the fact that I was able to cover a very large workload with little to no problem, this came as not really a surprise but more of a enviable occurrence that I knew was going to happen eventually in a project and that I would have to deal with it. That being said I am happy with how me and my friend handled the situation and made sure that everything was being done accordingly and on time. This was my biggest take away, really proving to me that I can and that people can work with friends but that it all depends on that friends work ethic and capabilities when it comes to getting things done. During the exhibition I found that people were actually engaged with students and interested in what we were doing, as I believe this project was very different from what we normal do at HTH and in a HTH math class.
Challenges I Faced
During this process I faced little to no challenge whiten my group, we all worked quite well together and decided on everything relatively quickly this allowed us to really create a good end product.
Though that is not to say there was no challenge, there is always a challenge. About halfway through the process one of my closest friends was struggling to complete her project as her group members had done very little to contribute to the group. This was clearly stressing her out and causing problems for her so I stepping in to help her, thus officially making me a part of two groups and giving me twice the work, of course this did not bother me. Her and I were able to complete her project working together for about a total of about19 hours plus a 7 hour work session one weekend for now our interactive piece. Once everything was done we ended up with one of the best designs in the room which too me makes me very proud of not only my work but hers as well, we were a group of two yet created something better than most of the groups of four. This was a fantastic achievement and I am very happy the way it turned out. Through this challenge I learned that it is not how many people you work with that matters, it is about who you work with and their work ethic. My friend and I proved that two who have a fantastic work ethic can accomplish a lot more than many who do not. The first image below is me and her evidently quite happy with out outcome followed by pictures of the design and a little of our process.
Though that is not to say there was no challenge, there is always a challenge. About halfway through the process one of my closest friends was struggling to complete her project as her group members had done very little to contribute to the group. This was clearly stressing her out and causing problems for her so I stepping in to help her, thus officially making me a part of two groups and giving me twice the work, of course this did not bother me. Her and I were able to complete her project working together for about a total of about19 hours plus a 7 hour work session one weekend for now our interactive piece. Once everything was done we ended up with one of the best designs in the room which too me makes me very proud of not only my work but hers as well, we were a group of two yet created something better than most of the groups of four. This was a fantastic achievement and I am very happy the way it turned out. Through this challenge I learned that it is not how many people you work with that matters, it is about who you work with and their work ethic. My friend and I proved that two who have a fantastic work ethic can accomplish a lot more than many who do not. The first image below is me and her evidently quite happy with out outcome followed by pictures of the design and a little of our process.
Overall the project was one of my favorite in HTH history and I really found using illustrator and designing buildings very fun and entertaining. Maybe its foreshadowing.... a future in architecture?