Final Journal Reflection:

What did you learn about your subject? Your skill set? Yourself?
The thing I learned the most about was how hard the process of making an animation film is. I had no
prior experience on how animation is created or how programs work, because of this I had to start from
scratch and research for free animation programs and learn the controls from tutorials on YouTube. I
had no teacher to help walk me through it and had to rely on my own to teach myself. This project
thought me that I am capable of learning something I have never done before without the help of
another person. I can learn a new topic from just watching tutorials online and learning from trial and
error.

How is your project relevant to you?

My field of interest after high school is teaching, but more specifically I want to be computer studies
teacher for high school students. This ties in with the reason why I decided to make an animation video
about how computers parts work as computers it involves teaching people about the topic I want to
teach in the future.

How did you demonstrate the six core competencies throughout this project?
Personal Awareness and Responsibility

One of weaknesses during the core competencies reflection was understanding that learning takes
patience and time. When I decided to do an animation video, I pushed myself to try something new and
came up with a product that I am extremely satisfied with. This is all because of the amount of time I
took to practice. Even though the first day of drawing was very slow, I eventually became comfortable
using the program and by the end I would say that I became twice or three times as fast at drawing and
using the program compared to when I first started.

Social Responsibilities

While drawing pictures for my video, I asked for ideas and feedback from my peers. Most of the time I
did work independently but, I was not scared to ask others for opinions on what they think as any
feedback is always helpful. While receiving feedback I would also ask my peers back how their capstone
was and would offer to give feedback to them if they wanted it.

Critical Thinking

I can assess my progress. Before starting the drawings for my capstone project, I made a schedule of
when I want drawings of certain parts of the script done. Throughout winter break I would write down
what I did that day for my capstone and would try my best to stick to or ahead with the schedule. This
helped me stay on task and it was extremely rewarding ticking of boxes of when I finished a certain part
of the script.
Creative Thinking

In my animation video I used many different images. Some of these images included inside jokes with
my friends and common interest we have such as anime and games. Using the environment and people
around me I was able to generate new ideas easily and had a fun time drawing memories.

Communication

After finishing the drawing of the introduction for my video I stopped and took a break. I reflected on
what I did and wrote down what worked for me in the program and what didn’t work for me.

Personal and Cultural Identity

The reason I decided to make my capstone about computers is because computers played a big role in
my life. I have been interested in computers since I was in kindergarten and was introduced to
Minecraft. Computers are my strength, and I was able to make an education video about it because it
was part of my personal identity.

What Impact if any did your Capstone Project have on you?

I found new hobby with drawing. Before doing the capstone project I thought I was extremely bad at
drawing and was going to find doing the capstone stressful however the opposite came true. I found
drawing extremely fun and had an amazing time doing my capstone. I was also surprised with my
product as it was much better compared to what I thought it would be.

Think about the whole process and your finished product, what are you most proud of?
The thing I am most proud of is my growth with the detail of my drawings. In the beginning of the video,
it took about 4 hours to draw the CPU part of the script and the drawings weren’t exactly super detailed.
However, later when explaining what a GPU does, my drawings became much more detailed and the
time I took to do it became only 2 hours. I became much more comfortable with the program which
resulted in me being able to be more creative.

What was a difficulty you encountered and how did you solve the problem?
A difficulty I encountered was at during day 2 of drawing my animation video. I was drawing for a long
time and my program suddenly crashed. I thought it would be okay as there is an autosave feature but
when I loaded back into the project, I lost about 30 minutes of work. After this I stopped relying on the
autosave feature and started manually saving every 15 minutes.

What is one thing about your finished project you wish you could change? Why?
I made a mistake at one part of the video when explaining why an SSD is better than a Hard Drive.
Instead of writing “SSD” I wrote “SDD” in the drawing. I only noticed after uploading the video and when
I went back to the program to try and change it, I couldn’t as it would mess up future frames of the
animation.

What advice would you give to a student who will be completing their Capstone Project
Advice I would give to future students completing their capstone is to write down a schedule of when
you want certain things done. I wrote a schedule and placed it at my desk which kept me organized with
specific deadlines. I wrote down days that I want to finish certain parts of the script which helped me
plan out how long each part of the script should take. I ended up finishing one week earlier compared
to the schedule however, as I worked overtime on some nights because I was having fun drawing and
could not stop.

What source from your research helped you the most?

The source that helped me most for my research was the YouTube video, Gaming PC Parts Explained! A
Beginner's Guide to Gaming Computer Components! This was the video that I used to double check
certain information that I was not 100% sure on. It was helpful as I could continue writing the script
while he was talking rather than having to focus 100% of my attention on reading something such as
blog or forum.

What is one thing about your approach to your project that you wish you could change?
Why?
In the beginning, I was trying to make a video with the drawings moving on their own such as what you
see in anime. As I continued, I noticed it was way out of my skill level as I didn’t have prior knowledge on
using the program. After not being able to make the drawings move, I decided to change the approach
to showing the process of creating an image for the certain parts of the script. This was much more
manageable and in my skill level.