This is the last AP for my STEAM core class, Design & Engineering. In this unit, we focused on math concepts like speed conversions, volume, surface area, and energy. We also studied simple machines including wheels, axles, and gears. We had two field experiences in this unit. Amanda from Divvy Bikes and an in-person visit to Earth Rider Cycling in Wicker Park. From the bike shop visit, I got to test-drive a new line of electric bicycles that were being sold for thousands of dollars. The technology and parts inside of the bike got me to think deeper about bike designs and how much bikes matter. In preparation for this project, we had to interview someone who bikes routinely to get their perspective on riding their bikes overall. For this action project, we were assigned a fictional profile on which to base our project off of. Next, I assessed their needs and began to use information from the interviews and given information about the persona's needs to redesign a bike for them. My project is down below, I hope you enjoy it.
The person I was assigned to was a 15-year-old named Atef who lives in Cairo, Egypt. He has a daily commute by his bike through sandy rocky roads and heavy traffic to his school, 3.25 miles away. Upon arrival, he has to carry his bike up two flights of stairs to get to class. He can't afford to get professional maintenance for his bike. "Light-weight bikes are suitable for lightweight riders and people who like speed cycling as well."- Interview with Paul T. After reviewing his profile, I determined that his main needs are a lightweight and low maintenance bike to benefit his daily travel. My solution for Atef's bike is to design a bike that's made up of lightweight material (carbon fiber), portable, an ergonomic seat, with fewer parts to name a few features. (so it is easy to clean), a protective tubing around the gears and chain so they won't get clogged from sand and dirt.
Atef’s Bike Sketch 1. N.L. (2020)
In conclusion, I enjoyed doing this project and redesigning a bike for my persona. Overall this project and class have taught me to be more open-minded about the design process and bikes. It also taught me to see machines and everyday tools with the sight of a designer.
In this last unit Rhetoric "Unite", we talked about how art can be the use of Rhetoric. In this action project, we looked closely at rhetorical art that politicians use to present themselves or get a message across. We learned about many different rhetorical devices, appeals, and that people use to get messages across to an audience. In class, briefly talked about the art inside of rhetoric by looking at past students' action projects so we could prioritize our own artworks followed by an artist statement. My artist statement will go further in-depth about the use of rhetoric inside of my artwork.
The purpose of this action project is to use a medium of art to bring people together while also sending a message through the rhetorical meaning of your artwork. For one of our field experiences, we went to Marquette Park and looked at an art piece and memorial called the "Living Memorial". It's based on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his work he did to immobilize racial discrimination throughout Chicago in the '60s. I chose to do something that is impossibly unavoidable due to my existence, being black in the United States of America in our current year 2020. I used a fading "Black Lives Matter" sign from a protest for Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and the remaining existence of systemic oppression and modern-day lynching in America. Here's the link to a quote from former US President Donald Trump I used in my piece.
Rhetorical Art Piece: Being Black in America. N.L. (2020)
Rhetorical Art Piece: Being Black in America. N.L. (2020)
Rhetorical Art Piece: Being Black in America N.L. (2020)
Artist Statement:
I’m a young black male in a country that was built off the backs of my people. A country that continues to not acknowledge the murders, genocides, and over-exploitation of African Americans. The topic of my artwork is a blink of the world I experience in the United States of America. The message behind this piece is that blackness shouldn’t be feared and tolerated. Black and brown-skinned people in this country should be accepted just as those of “fair skin” is. My skin color and whether or not people of color lives matter shouldn’t be a controversial topic at all! My call for justice shouldn’t become another hashtag or trend on social media as a flex of being an ally to the black community. This topic is detrimental to my existence in this country and should evoke controversial discussions and arguments. I chose to reuse a sign from a protest I attended back in June because there’s sentimental value in the poster being repurposed as artwork. I used mostly black sharpie markers and two paint markers to add some detail. I felt that drawing on the sign I kept from an actual protest got my message across way better than customizing the statement behind the movement, “Black Lives Matter” in my sketchbook. I utilized the rhetorical appeals and devices within my work to boldly present my position on the fact that the lives of black people do matter and that facts need to be interpreted within the laws, acts, and amendments in this country. I openly used the rhetorical appeal of pathos in my art by crossing out the word “all” and replacing it with “black” to restate my position and the fact. Words such as “murders”, “violent”, “aggressive”, “suspects”, and “targets” are often misconceptions and stereotypes of black people and were used to represent the rhetoric devices of hyperbole and metaphor. I used parallelism by writing a positive and negative word correlated by the letter of the two words such as “statistics” and “survivors” inside of the letter S itself. Lastly, there was the device of anaphora within the use of quoting Donald Trump’s proposal on why black Americans should’ve voted for him during his campaign. If this sign were ever to be in a history museum, my sign art should be housed in the same section of the countless painted wooden boards that were used for the protection of storefronts across Chicago. “The American Negro finds himself living in a triple ghetto: a ghetto of race, a ghetto of poverty, and a ghetto to deal with this problem, the problem of dealing with these two Americas. We are seeking to make America one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Civil Rights Movement was not that long ago, and here we are in the year 2020 “fighting” the same issues of this country and its people. Living with that fact in my mind as a teenager disgusts me on a level unimaginable. African Americans, blacks and “negroes”, whatever you call us, we still haven’t been given general decency or respect on a humane level. From gestures such as a greeting while walking by. I can’t walk down a busy street in Chicago’s Loop (downtown) without feeling the racial tension between the people I walk past that happen to be predominantly white. Black people in America are feared, often called intimidating, and treated inhumanely, disrespectfully, and even killed to subdue the emotions non-blacks feel. Black Lives Matter is an organization and a statement. Many Americans argue that they support the statement but not the organization because the organization is involved with controversies and politics overall. I interpret that support similar to someone stating, “I support that veterans need to be treated better after serving their country. But I can’t support an organization involved with seeking resources for veterans because of the controversies within politics.” It just doesn’t add up to not support something that stands for the overall well being of a people group just because of different views the organization has on real-world issues. I guarantee if the organization did not represent people of color in this country, the arguments around making the USA safer for black and brown people being controversial would cease to exist due to white silence and privilege. To be clear, you are not an ally if you only say BLM for short instead of what it stands for, if you use the statement and name of the group to prove your not racist or have prejudice, and if you only support the phrase and not the organization.
Hello, and welcome to my blog. This is my second action project for my Humanities course called Rhetoric. In this class, we studied the elements of the rhetorical situation and using rhetoric devices and appeals in writing and speaking. In this second unit of "Challenge", our guiding question was, "How can we use rhetoric to challenge the status quo?" Due to Covid-19, we weren't able to physically attend many field experiences. The only in-person field experience was at Marquette Park on Chicago's South-west side. There in the park, we gathered at the "Living Memorial" which is a reflection of the historical march and uprising against housing discrimination and racism towards black people in Chicago in the late 60s.
As preparation for this action project, we spoke with Ugo Okere, a twenty-three-year-old candidate who ran for Alderman of the 40th Ward in Chicago. We learned more about him and how he used rhetoric throughout his campaign by reviewing an article based on a debate between him and his opposing candidate, Pat O’Connor. We also watched the presidential and vice-presidential debates and studied rhetoric between recently elected Vice President Kamal Harris and former Vice President Mike Pence. We reviewed Troy Lariviere, who play an important figure not only in rhetoric but in Chicago's education system. He is known across Chicago for writing an Op-ed that spoke out for the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association. For this Action Project, we were instructed to use rhetoric in an op-ed about a topic that was relevant in today's world. I chose to write about gender and racial norms in American society.
Hello and welcome to my first action project for my STEAM core class, Design & Engineering. In this class via virtual learning, we learned about what it means to have empathy in the topic of design. Empathy is to understand and share feelings with others. We got the opportunity to speak with Field Experience guests from Greater Good Studio about empathy and how they incorporate it into their designs and projects. We also spoke with some designers from Dyson and participated in a design activity based on reinventing a household product. In our class meetings via google meet, we dove deeper into the math and engineering that goes into the design process. We covered topics such as simple machines, classification of levers, trigonometry, and algebra. For this action project, we were instructed to create a new product based off of tools we looked at in Home Depot during another Field Experience. We started the process by interviewing people who participate in gardening about the tools they use and discussing how they felt about gardening and their tools. Next, we researched the tools we chose from Home Depot and discussed it with their employees. We did this in order to try to create a product that properly met the needs of an elderly person. My partner and I worked on creating a new product based on the concept and tool, garden shears. Our garden shear is a battery-powered tool. It comes with a charging stand and adapter for the charging stand. The hardest part of this project for me was deciding what tool I should redesign. I worked with my teacher and my partner on the project to create a schedule that worked for me. Check out my partner's project here. During this time of this global pandemic of Covid-19, I'd like to say thank you for taking the time out of your day to view my projects. I hope you enjoy this action project!
Hello, and welcome to my blog. This is my first action project for my Humanities course called Rhetoric. So far in this class, we studied how to understand the elements of the rhetorical situation and using rhetoric devices and appeals in writing and speaking. We created storybooks for children in the grade range of kindergarten to first grade, about Christopher Columbus's colonizing the Americas. Our challenge was to use the art of rhetoric in explaining the "hard truth" of the history of who Columbus was and what he and his people did. Due to Covid-19, we weren't able to physically attend any field experiences. We had many assignments where we had to practice breaking down and understanding the rhetoric in conversations, broadcasts, excerpts, and other texts of writing. For this Action Project, we were instructed to use rhetoric in a scripted brief interview with a current candidate of our choice. I chose to write up an interview with a young black student activist with Good Kids Mad City (GKMC) from Chicago by the name of Myracle Boyd and candidate for Illinois State's Attorney, Kim Foxx. I chose to interview Kim Foxx instead of the top mainstream candidates such as Donald Trump or Joe Biden while acting as Myrcale Boyd because it was easier for me to decipher Kim Foxx’s response since she is also from the same city as the young activist and myself as well.
SCRIPT
CBS 2 Chicago Reporter: Now we have a young student activist from GoodKidsMadCity (Chicago), Myrcale Boyd!
Myracle Boyd (MB) from GoodKidsMadCity: Good Afternoon, Thank you for being here Candidate Foxx. I’d like to start with an excerpt that I recently came across from James K Galbraith.
(MB): “Economic inequality is like blood pressure: Too high could mean disaster; too low and the economy, or the patient, is sluggish. Economic inequality and social inequality is not only a fact of life, but an unavoidable and even necessary fact of life; The question is not whether there should be inequality, but how much of it.”
(MB): In actuality, equality isn’t the answer for building up communities and people groups that inhabit under-resourced areas and don’t have access to affordable and needed healthcare or health essentials. Equity would solve more problems for people of color not only state and countywide but nationwide.
(MB): As a candidate for Illinois State’s Attorney, how do you plan to increase equity of healthcare and human and essential resources for underserved and underinvested communities throughout Cook County?
Kim Foxx, candidate for Illinois State's Attorney (KM): The casual acceptance of racial disparities in healthcare and the investment of resources to the BIPOC population of this nation has been a long and tiresome history from the beginnings of moral and civil uprising in this country. As a representative of the BIPOC community in this country, I’ve had enough. We’ve had enough. Enough of the systemic racism that is forged within our nation’s constitution and judicial system. Enough of being considered and categorized as “last” or “other” when it comes to access to and receiving human resources whether they are micro or macro.
(KM): As Illinois State’s Attorney, I will prosecute criminal and civil cases for the people. We need resources to identify and support the needs of people living in underserved and underinvested areas, which includes housing, food, transportation; and mental health treatment; trauma-informed and survivor-centered services; and financial assistance; especially during this time of Covid-19. I am the voice of the people in America's courtrooms. While enforcing the law to seek justice, I tend to do so with moral good in mind.
(KM): “As a Black woman in America, I am challenged every day to operate in a system that was not built for me to be successful. As a Black woman in politics, I recognize that I have a certain responsibility that many candidates do not share. A responsibility to run a campaign that is both representative and equitable. A responsibility to lift up the concerns and listen to the hopes of my community. And a responsibility to forge a path forward for the next generation of Black women in office.
(KM): I do not take this lightly. And I want to build a campaign that reflects that fact. That is why my campaign is making a pledge to fight for racial justice. I hope you will sign your name and join me in making this pledge. Thank you.”
Citations
“Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx Calls for Resources for Crime Survivors at Springfield Rally.” Cook County State’s Attorney, 11 Apr. 2019, www.cookcountystatesattorney.org/news/cook-county-state-s-attorney-kim-foxx-calls-resources-crime-survivors-springfield-rally. Accessed 2 Oct. 2020.
“Equality vs Equity - Difference and Comparison | Diffen.” Diffen.Com, Diffen, 2020, www.diffen.com/difference/Equality-vs-Equity#:~:text=Equality%20generally%20refers%20to%20equal,achieve%20greater%20fairness%20of%20outcomes. Accessed 30 Sept. 2020.
FOXX, KIM. “KIM FOXX FOR COOK COUNTY STATE’S ATTORNEY.” KIM FOXX FOR COOK COUNTY STATE’S ATTORNEY, 2014, www.kimfoxx.com/pledge. Accessed 30 Sept. 2020.
