Apocalypto |
For this project my team of 50 students created gear mechanisms that represent group theories on the rise and fall of ancient civilizations. These mechanisms were then attached around one giant gear that powered them all together. This wheel is mounted in the school conference room and is a highlight of school tours. It has also been shown in documentaries and articles. Below is my groups work
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This is my groups final, and working, mechanism. Below is a picture of it on the class gear which powered all of the mechanisms at the same time. This is now hanging in our schools conference room for all of our visitors to see. Our mechanism works by when the class gear spins it will turn the gear on the right which is attached to a crank with a hook on it. When the right gear moved the crank the hook would turn and end up pushing a small gear on a disk. That disk had a square hole in it and as the disk moved a new picture was shown showing a state in our theory. Beneath the disk was actually 5 smaller gears connecting to another larger one (top gear) that had people engraved on it and another disk but with 1/4 cut out to limit how much of the gear you could see. As the disk turned showing a new picture the top gear would be turned too to show what the population would be during that state of the theory. My Job: During this project we did have some group work, but we were each assigned individual jobs. I had a group of five so our different jobs were the mechanist, the humanist, the physicist, the graphic designer, and the recorder. My job was the humanities so I was in charge of creating a wedge that represented a civilization that we learned about, helping and editing everyones research papers, helping the graphic designer with the pictures on the mechanism, creating an organized binder filled with our class work, drafts, and any papers related to this project. I also took on the responsibility of a leader in my group so I was very involved with what my group members where doing and helping them, and keeping them in task. |
This is my individual research paper from my groups theory. Our theory was that every civilization started at a state of harmony. Maybe not everything was perfect, but it was pretty close. Then from there there was a conflict with the government. This could be with another government, but mainly between the government and the people. The conflict soon turned into the next state of War and disagreement between the two which eventually ended with a victor and a new state of rebuilding. The theory would then start over again and repeat itself.
The state that my group choose me to go in detail on was the state of conflict. This was a hard state to research on because most information I'd find was on the topics around me, harmony and war. You didn't just see that this was the conflict, this is where everything went wrong written anywhere. You had to really research and figure out specially where did everything go wrong. Please enjoy my paper above on where everything went wrong in Maya, Greece, and Rome. My other group members: Becca Jones: Graphic Designer Erick Aguilar: Mechanist Shelby Lloyd: Physicist Nick Maciel: Recorder |
Reflection:
This was by far the hardest project that I have ever done. Not only was the education behind this hard, but the actually physical work of creating our mechanism was extremely hard. And that wasn't even all that we had to do. The mechanism wasn't my specific job, but I did help out with it a lot and stayed after whenever Erick, my group member who was the mechanist, stayed after, which was a lot. Our mechanism was defiantly the hardest part of the project especially the way ours worked and trying to get the mechanism to turn a specific amount of time. It was also hard using the laser cutter for the first time since I had never really used illustrator before or gear generator.
Overall our project worked really well and we were able to get it done on time. I am really proud of the project and the work that we accomplished. This will always be a stressful, yet favorite, memory of mine in high school.
This was by far the hardest project that I have ever done. Not only was the education behind this hard, but the actually physical work of creating our mechanism was extremely hard. And that wasn't even all that we had to do. The mechanism wasn't my specific job, but I did help out with it a lot and stayed after whenever Erick, my group member who was the mechanist, stayed after, which was a lot. Our mechanism was defiantly the hardest part of the project especially the way ours worked and trying to get the mechanism to turn a specific amount of time. It was also hard using the laser cutter for the first time since I had never really used illustrator before or gear generator.
Overall our project worked really well and we were able to get it done on time. I am really proud of the project and the work that we accomplished. This will always be a stressful, yet favorite, memory of mine in high school.