English/Arts Crit C/D Reflection

Google Forms
Pranay Jain
How well did you communicate your experience as a Hong Konger? *
I communicated my experience as a Hong Konger through the use of a sculpture and a poem. By sculpture our group used my poem to create a visual image of how Hong Kong looks in my perspective. We used LED and the different tourist attractions like the ICC and IFC to get an understanding of what Hong Kong is like. I had a negative tone in my sculpture as I somewhat didn’t try to make it look amazing. After moving from Canada, Hong Kong was much worse in my opinion which explains the negative tone and the tall buildings with LED.
How would you describe your personal success as an interdisciplinary learner? *
I would describe myself successful as an interdisciplinary learner in many different ways. One way is how I always manage time and combine subjects to further advance my knowledge in a certain area. Every subject has a relation to each other, and taking advantage of it benefitted my greatly, explaining my success as an interdisciplinary learner. I generally put effort into every subject, allowing me to see the possibilities for me as an interdisciplinary learner.
How would you describe benefits of the interdisciplinary unit with specific examples. *
There are many benefits of the interdisciplinary unit. One advantage is understanding how to use different subjects to expand the possibilites of what you can do in each subject. For example, if you learn how to make formulas easier to remember in science, you can transfer it to math in order to memorise formulas that will be needed in tests and assignments. Another positive is being able to combine all the skills learned in each subject to produce a high quality work. For instance, learning how to make a song in music, edit a video in design/drama can allow you to create a really good video that has great music.
What were the limitations of the interdisciplinary unit? Give specific examples… *
There are also some limitations when it comes to the interdisciplinary unit. A limitation is the shortage of time. Using a lot of different skills requires more time to be given as it uses the knowledge of more than one subject. For example, creating a sculpture with music on the side takes longer than just making a sculpture. Additionally, with the limited time it is hard to make something excellent. This is because it is hard to know what to focus on, because the projects relies on more than one subject.
Grade yourself using the IDU Specifications. Easy if you have followed the above instructions!
Communication of the interdisciplinary theme.
Personal success as a interdisciplinary learner.
Benefits of the interdisciplinary unit with specific examples.
Limitations of the interdisciplinary unit with specific examples.
Self assess using the Crit. C rubric (question 1) *

Self assess using the Crit. D rubric (Question 2-4) *

Final Product – Arts Sculpture

In this assignment I learned many things about combining different subjects to produce a quality piece of work. For example, in this scenario I used a poem for my english assignment, which is my perspective of Hong Kong. I illustrated this perspective by creating a sculpture that visually describes it. My perspective was of Hong Kong’s LED on buildings. I had a negative tone, so I didn’t try to make the artwork look too positive. The title of my artwork is called Hong Kong’s Brightness That Fades Away. Generally, I still added many buildings including the ICC and IFC to show the true feel of Hong Kong for me. Additionally, we added a river in the middle of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. There were many buildings on the side with a lot of LED representing the sheer amount of LED on buildings in Hong Kong.  We had some basic houses which had a design that was similar to a chimney. It says Hong Kong in English and in Chinese. Due to the lack of time, we tried to make it look nice, but at the same time simple. Another main flaw was because of limited time some buildings aren’t going up perfectly straight. The process was a good experience , but somewhat confusing. We started off finding a good image of Hong Kong for reference. Then we all made our drawings of it. We chose the best one, but we used everyone’s ideas to produce the final artwork.  We got cardboard as our base, then newspaper and normal paper for our buildings. The newspaper was for the base of buildings and normal paper was for the cover. The newspaper wasn’t that stable, so I felt that we could have used a better base material. Nevertheless my group and I learned a lot from this project. Overall, this was a fun assignment that incorporated many of my skills.

HKI Proposal


I am a Hongkonger Proposal
Group Members and HRs
(Pranay Jain, Eyal Lenga, Aarush Sahoo)(8F)
What are your Personal Goals and Intention of this project?
My personal goals of this project is to create a sculpture that embodies my poem. It should be complex so there can be more meaning within. I also want to create a project that truly shows my identity and my perspective towards Hong Kong.
Hows does this project connect to your English Poem of choice?
This project relates to my English Poem of choice because it refers to buildings and the different designs on them. It also connects because it shows how active of a city Hong Kong is.
Direct link to your poem, or poem text
What are you success criteria?

Must be tangible and measurable… Label this point by point please!

-Sculpture has to have at least 6 buildings

-There must be some form of lighting

-It should take 3 classes worth of time

-Sculpture has to be at least as big as a quarter of a normal size table

What materials do you need to complete your project?
To complete this project, I will need many materials. First, I will need wires and clay or cartons of some sort. This includes VLT boxes and Milk Cartons. I will need bright coloured markers, dark coloured markers and maybe cardboard for the base.
What equipment will you need to present your project?

(Very important if you are doing a live presentation – we need to organise this in advance!)

To present my project all I need is a table to place the sculpture and chairs beside to sit on.
Artwork will be presented outside the LLAC

All live presentations and videos will be on the LLAC stage.

Chemistry Reflection

During this project we learned how to use certain techniques and skills to separate the components of the mixture. We first created a flow chart to give an idea of which components the separation techniques will separate.  We used  hand separation, skimming, filtration, magnetic separation and evaporation. Our mixture was made up of, iron filings, salt, water, plastic, oil and sand. Some components were easy to separate like plastic. But, some components were significantly harder to separate like sand and oil. We made use of prior knowledge and skills. One skill that we made use of was physical and chemical properties. This allowed us to know which and how to separate the components. The density of certain objects also allowed us to know what to do first and what to do last. There was some techniques in the project that was more sophisticated and more efficient. While, some techniques were simple and took a lot of time. This allowed us to get a better understanding of how to separate oil spills in the future. Oil spills are important to know how to separate as they are very damaging to people and the environment.

Image result for filtration diagram

Project Genesis Audio and Reflection

This is my mashup using 4 different songs, all around 100 tempo.\

Explain the step by step process of this assignment… *

The first step for this assignment was to choose which direction you wanted your song to be. It could have been either a mashup or playing an instrument. Next, in my case I had to choose 4 or more different songs for the assignment. Then, we had to convert all these songs and put them in garageband. After that, matching the tempo independently and with all the songs combined is required. Using one of the songs as a beat was my step after as it helps my song to get a rhythm. I used one of the other songs as my main song and cut other songs and placed them throughout the song. I didn’t use plugins for this assignment because when I tried it didn’t sound right.


Assess your success against your must haves and desirable qualities from your proposal… *
My success was okay as I followed most of my must haves and some of my desirable qualities. I didn’t use plugins in which if I knew how to use could have made my song more effective. In my last project I used plugins which made my song sound more professional. I did has a slight fast transition which helped more to connect the piece and not sound out of beat. Overall, I had some success, but if I put more effort I could have gotten a better result. I had many challenges that should have been fixed earlier but I did it while doing the actual mashup.


Evaluate your learning and new skills acquired. *
The amount I learned this rotation was significantly better than what I first anticipated. I learned new skills such as plugins which is a major part of modern day music. It helps to distort music to create better sounds. Another important skill I learned is using loops. Loops are small bits of sound that can create mixed emotions for the listener. They are extremely helpful when transitioning from song to song in this assignment. The final major skill I learned is using tempo to change how fast a song can be. In this case I used it to make all songs have the same pace.


What challenges did you face and overcome. *
I faced many challenges during this assignment. One of the major challenges I faced during this assignment is choosing the right songs. It was hard because I didn’t want the songs to be too old or new. I also didn’t want the songs to be too far of a tempo so that when the tempo is changed overall it dosen’t sound weird. Another challenge I faced during this assignment is using small bits of the songs. It was difficult as the songs, in my opinion did not sound good if the part was too small. I overcame choosing the songs by thinking about songs that I know that have slow tempo and somewhat popular. I honestly didn’t make it past the small bits part, but instead just ignoring it.




Digital Lantern Project

Respecting the Chinese culture and creating a lantern is important for the Chinese new year. It communicates tradition and values because it uses the Chinese language and animals that symbolise positive traits for certain people. Handmade products generally take more effort to create but can lower the environmental problems. When mastering creating handmade products it can look similar to products with machines. Using Chinese translations and animals help create a design that is specific to a person.

Chinese new year is a celebration that is special to many people and can represent a lot. My product included Chinese translations that meant calm and peaceful inside a and yang. This also relates to my dad because he likes to meditate and always tries to be calm. It is very personal to my dad and his relationship to the Chinese new year.

We used many different techniques to help create our product. One of them was soldering which includes using wires and flux to work the LED. Then, is painting which helps make the base look better and can mean something to someone. The final main way is creating a design through illustrator using an outline, images, and translations to create a nice looking product for the lantern.


Project Genesis 01 Research


What information are you using from this link? *
I will basically use all the information that is in the video because it is a process. This means I will need every step to fix the timing of my mashup.


Link of your research *


What information are you using from this link? *
I am more leaning towards using the video to get me an idea of how my intro should sound. I am focusing on the happier song because that is what I most likely will be using.



What information are you using from this link? *
I am mainly going to use the first method of the link because the method is the most efficient. Finding the same genre for music will usually have the same tempo, beat, pitch, etc…


Link of your research *


What information are you using from this link? *
Most of the information I am going to be using from this link is the characteristics. This is because it gives a sense of how my mashup should be.

Project Genesis – Criteria Ci

What is the goal for your assignment? *
My goal for this assignment is to create a mashup of songs that are a couple of years old, but very popular.


Outline/Process (Steps) to Achieve Goal. *
The first step would be to look at top 2016/2017 songs and see which ones are easier to use when transitioning. Next, I would use a song but lower the volume and find good timing for it. This will act as my beat. I will then use a couple for more songs but shorten it to help create the mashup.


Why this project? *
I chose this project because it gives time and an opportunity to put music with one of my interests. It allows me to put more effort into a music project. It also creates an opportunity for me to be more knowledgable about music and applying it into different contexts.


What do you hope to learn? *
I hope to learn how to create a mashup of two completely different songs. I also hope to learn how to use many songs to create a piece that sounds nice. Learning how to use Garageband to the fullest extent to produce a more professional piece of music is what I want to learn.


What are you must haves for this assignment? *
The requirements for my assignment is at least using three songs for my mashup and making sure all my songs come from a similar genre of music. I will also be needing to use Garageband to create my product, as it is the application that I am trying to get better at.


What are your desirable qualities you hope to add in for your assignment? *
I hope to add plugins when the music either starts off or heading towards the end. A desirable quality that I hope to add in my assignment is a very fast paced transition to help vary the beat of my music piece. This will help give more qualities of a mashup.

05 Sounds of CDNIS Final Submission

This is my final submission of my sounds of CDNIS, it is 2:38 long.

Describe the process of this assignment. *
The process of this assignment is first thinking about the most effective sounds for the song. You have to go outside and around the school and testing the sounds you thought was a good idea, like getting a tissue from a tissue box. Then, you have to look for a teacher that will fit the sound you want to make. A screencast will after have to be made to describe the sounds you found (original) and the sounds with plugins using Garageband. For the screencast Loops, drummers, and software instruments will also be needed. Combining the sounds from all these different categories will be used to create the song for the summative which has to be 2:30+ long. Finally, when you are done doing the song for the summative, you will have to do a reflection of the product.


Discuss your CDNIS sounds and how useful they were for your end product. *
The first sound I came up with was me or one of my friends dribbling a basketball. This was generally one of my more effective sounds. It posed as a very unique beat that makes the song sound interesting throughout the whole piece. The next sound I managed to come up with was the macbook error sound. In my opinion, this was my most useless sound as it is very quiet even though I increased the volume a lot. It is not unique at all, so it in ways makes the piece sound more plain. Then, I found a sound where I was getting tissues from a tissue box. It is very fast paced so it can make the song more entertaining. The main problem is that is way too short, making it slightly worse than the basketball sound. After that, I found a sound of me flicking a harder version of paper closer towards plastic. It had a very pleasant sounding ring which why I used it in my beat making it quite useful. It helped give some variation to my main beat which was the basketball. Finally, in this assignment I had to get a teacher sound. I wanted a good introduction to my song and my friend wanted the same thing. We went and asked a teacher to say “welcome back to school”. It sounds somewhat boring when no plugins are added. When there was some plugins it sounded like it will help progress the song when the song is starting. In this case, it was extremely useful and made my song more interesting.


Evaluate your learning and new skills acquired. *
While doing the assignment the main skill that would be the most useful when producing music is plugins. It in ways distorts the sounds so they sound more smooth and more interesting. For example, the bit crusher makes the sounds have a lower pitch. Plugins work in the users favour as it helps turn the song in their liking. Another skill I learned was creating screencast using different application. In this case, I used Garageband to talk about the sounds being used. It is very effective to discuss something visual on a computer. An okay skill that I learned is using every day sounds. For my piece, the sounds of CDNIS was a big part of the piece and when plugins is used, the everyday sounds is more professional. I also learned the skill to use software instruments without any given notes. In my piece, I used it as a transition for one of the pianos I was using. For the other piano, I gave it a more interesting ending and this is what allowed me to learn the skill.


What challenges did you face and overcome? *
The main challenge I faced in this assignment was finding four different sounds that would each have a different effect. I felt like at that time, it was quite confusing to me where I should go in the school to get my sounds. Also, I didn’t know which sounds should act more of a beat and more of a sound more towards the middle of the song. To fix this issue I chose two sounds that sound more of a beat and the rest somewhere in the piece. The other main challenge I faced was getting my song to 2:30+. In my opinion, I felt like I was adding too many of the same sounds to help make my song 2:30+. This made my song significantly more repetitive and made my sounds of CDNIS less effective. To fix this problem, I only had one option which was to add more loops. So, I added two extra loops which would last long enough past 2:30.