Peter Banta Blog Post for March

This week has been the beginning of phase 2 of my final project. This means that the entire front of my spaceship has been fully modeled down to every last detail. The overall cockpit came out very nice, and the texturing i made for the glass encompassing the cockpit looks very good. The beginnings of phase 2 have been very promising, and the body shape for the middle section of the ship is looking very nice. I have enjoyed the process as I have had a lot of success with the whole modeling process. The whole class experience has been very enjoyable also.

The project is going well, and I like the way the small details of the cannons are coming out. Phase 3 is going to be very detailed, while phase 2 is more about getting a rough shape down while doing some of the details in the back. I really like how it is going so far and I think I am slightly ahead of schedule as I finished the main body shape in half a class instead of the whole class like I thought it would. Overall the help desk is clearly making me a better modeler in general.

Taha Vasowalla Blog Post for March

So far in Tech Team, I have been working on my project, Aquanotes. Mostly I am programming in the core functionality of the program and working to make it fully functional and ready for the web. There are many bugs that I have encountered and I haven’t fixed all of them yet. I am hoping to get a prototype done by the end of March.

My three formative projects are done and our website is also nearing completion. All I have left is writing the actual program so it looks like I should be able to meet my deadline.

Lee Lebensbaum Blog Post for March

So far on this quest, I have finished my first project. My PowerPoint has been completed, and there are two more dragons to slay: the word document and the video. Taha and I, while often working extremely hard, delve into the mystic worlds of Steam, to motivate ourselves and build our minds with valuable knowledge and experience.
The idea of using Google in education is coming together, more so than before. A few weeks ago, I was hesitant on using other features other than Google+, but then I found so many useful tools that can be (and should be) used. Google Calendars, Google Groups, Google Communities, Google Drive... the list goes on! In the word document, I shall explain all of the uses of these apps. In the video, the plan is to give a tutorial on setting up and using Google+ for teachers and students. Overall, this project is coming together well and the hope is to finish the entire project by the end of April. The sword in this epic is my brain, and wielding, it, I shall conquer this project!

Parth Blog Entry for March

Parth Valecha

Hi I am Parth Valecha. In the past couple months, I have been working on a headphones idea of mine. I have been researching different headphones and looked at what I can take from each headphone and each company to produce my product. I have been researching which tips provide the best noise isolation, which drives produce  crisp and balanced sound quality, and stuff like that. I also wrote about a page and a half on the benefits and functions that make my product so different and beneficial. I have recently started working on the product development side of my product and how it implements so many things into such a simple format and device. I hope to soon get a document out on how I would market and sell my headphones. I think Innovation Help Desk is pretty sweet. I like the independence as you can do really whatever you want. Sometimes that independence leaves me a little lost but that feeling is necessary in the business world. I feel like I can really get my thoughts out and develop and improve on them.

For phase two, I got an idea on how I’m going to present my idea. It’s going to be on a word document. It will have two parts, product development and benefits to customer. The first part will be pictures of a few headphones from other companies. Each headphone has a few bullet point on how I would like to implement it into my product. I might take the design of one headphone and the quality production of another. In the end, my product will be a mix of all the headphones. I do this to show what I have in mind and show that my product is viable. The second part will be an elevator pitch. This will focus more on the benefits and uses of my product rather than how it works.

Ian Blog Entry for The Month of March

            For the past few weeks at the help desk I've been improving my skills with the 3D modeling and animation program Maya. I started using Maya two years ago but ended up taking a long break, so I had to spend the first few classes relearning some of the tools. The project I’m currently working on is a model of a robot, which I’m going to use to try and learn rigging. I just completed the first phase of my project, which was to make the actual model of the robot. The whole thing went well and I finished in good time.

            Soon I’ll be starting the second phase of my project, which will be to learn how to rig and begin rigging the model. I actually have never tried rigging before, but I've heard it’s an incredibly time-consuming process, so much apparently that I've been told I may not finish by the end of the term. I’ll do my best though and if I somehow manage to finish the rigging with time left I’ll make a simple animation with the robot.