Week 6, Blog 1

On Monday, I did everything I usually do. I pick the boys up at school at 2:15 but I always tend to get there forty five minutes early, not sure why...then we go home. Once we are home, they empty their backpacks and lunch boxes and figure out what they have for homework. Gus has a checklist he has to fill out everyday so he remembers do to all his homework and its almost easier to have everything written down in front of him. Sam, on the other hand, heads straight upstairs and is done with his homework in an hour. After Sam is done with his homework, he usually goes outside for an hour or reads or plays on the iPad. Gus often needs help with homework so he usually is in an hour and a half to two hours. It was Monday, so Sam had soccer at six, which meant dinner at 5:15 and out the door at 5:45. I know how to get to soccer usually, but I drove like we were going to Tae Kwon Do so we had to go the long way. These boys are so good with instructions that if someone stopped me and asked me for directions I think I could actually give street names! Sam and Gus have taught me so much.

18

This is the last blog I’m going to do for score. The thing that I think has been a common theme in my blog is the fact that there has been a lot of confusion in what my score really is about. To be honest, I think my SCORE has been better than I thought it would be in the start. I thought that I would be forced just to clean and mount thing for the art show, but I have done so much more when it comes to understanding and knowing art in every form.

Anyways, the things that I did this Wednesday were to start of the day cleaning up our table. Because Mel had a meeting in the morning and couldn’t come back later in the afternoon, I had to do most of the work during the day by myself. Because there is so much art out there in the hallway, there are a lot of things to staple and fix if it is crooked. This took me a while but I finished it in the end. After I was done with this task, I took all the nameless and classless pieces of art from the middle school and tried to find them on their separate class lists. This obviously took me about an hour because there is so many people that just neither put their names or their class on their work, thus making the whole “returning” of their stuff so much harder.

Because I have a back problem I have a hard time lifting stuff around in the art room. The only thing I wished I thought about before I started my SCORE was the amount of work that this in reality took. To be honest, after about six weeks my back is starting to take its toll and it’s kind of hard to actually work as efficiently as I know I can do in other situations. It’s a shame that Mel couldn’t come back and help me during the last part of the day, but if you have a physical for collage I think she priories great!

The thing that I think is the most important that I’m going to take away from my experience of score is the fact that I have learned how to take responsibility of my actions and decisions. By doing this and understanding that I can’t be right every time has made me realize how incredible and how diverse art is. 

week 6 blog 3

So Wednesday through Thursday, today I worked on small metal and plastic pieces as usual, And even though this was my week of score I didn't get a break from working on small parts, which I was hoping for a chance to work on bigger parts so then I don't cramp up and hurt my fingers, which that obviously didn't happen, I had these tiny black plastic parts that you couldn't even hold because they were so small, I had to use tweezers to make sure the burrs come off of them, even though I only had to use scotch bright paper, I still couldn't hold them with my hands to feel them to make sure there isn't any burrs left on the pieces. I ended up finishing them with in 3 hours of my time there at the factory. But I didn't finish them on time before having to shipped off to the company that needed them. Then I moved on to the small metal parts and had to use the red-wheel again, then today on Thursday I had to finish another 3 bags of the 5 bags that were left on the pile of the de-burred pieces. After I finished half of them or the 3 bags of them completely I got to walk around the factory and take Photos of the CNC machines inside and out of them. Then took some more pictures of the different drill bits that are used to create certain pieces in the CNC machines, and got to take a few more pictures of the certain pieces of prototypes that Atlantic Industrial Models has created with in the years of being there. Examples are, the deli markets ticket holders at Stop and Shop or Market basket, the plastic doors that are used on those kid grocery carts cars, the medical field and military goggles that transmit laser beams to launch missiles at there targets or to transmit certain chemicals of air, O2, CO2, etc. IV liquid mixers to heat up the liquid.  

week 6 blog 1 and 2

So Monday was the last Monday of SCORE, I didn't do much other than de-burr little metal and plastic parts then wash them in chemicals. So basically I finished those parts then got to work on a new machine to me at least to use, the Red Wheel which is a machine that has Scotch Bright paper on the end that spins at about 3,600RPMs a min, which isn't fast at all compared to other machines that I've used. So I had to use these little metal parts that almost look like a face on both sides, they are used for vibrators for either game system controller's or special machines for the medical fields. So I started on those, and again they are very small pieces of metal worth at least $40 a piece if you lose them then the company loses money. I nearly burned myself multiple times with the Scotch bright paper because if you leave you hand and fingers on it for a certain amount of time it started to feel like you burning yourself with boiling water. So I basically de-burred 6-7 bags of the pieces up to 40-70 pieces in each bag on Monday. I ended up have burned fingers including my thumb that was burned the most while holding the pieces. I finished most of the bags Monday which is a good thing but there was just so much more of those little metal pieces to be finished in the long run. I ended up taking a break from the small metal parts and went to these new metal parts that looked like a double sided L but thicker that usual, these parts were much easier to finish because there was only at about 50 pieces total to finish and they were big enough to then my fingers and hands wouldn't be burned all that much from just de-burring the pieces. After I finished those pieces I moved on to wash them in the Sterilizer that shakes the chemicals to wash off any extra metal shavings that I've missed from the Red-Wheel. Then I air-dried the pieces and got to send them to my supervisor to inspect them which was much easier than getting the plastic pieces inspected.

Week 6, blog 1

Today we finished smoothing up the flagstones, with a hammer and chisel. We placed piles of finely crushed stone on the flagging, and then used a push broom to spread the crushed stone between the rocks. Filling in the cracks is very important. It completes the placement of the stones do not shift, and makes the transitions from one stone to another smooth under foot. The section we had done looked really professional once we swept the crushed stone into the cracks.

We then went to Mr. Lucido's room to discuss how we are going to mount the whiteboard we had gotten on the outside wall of the school. He referred us to Mr. Hunt, for his construction expertise. We met with Mr. Hunt in the workshop by the golf course. The whiteboard was pretty bent from years of storage, so we put some heavy bags of quickset concrete on the board to flatten it out.

We came back the next to check how the reforming of the whiteboard was going. Because of the material at the board's core, a cheap cardboard. The whiteboard would not take on a new shape. We discussed with Mr. Hunt again, and explored the possibility of creating some sort frame to flatten the whiteboard. But, because the board was so old, we decided it would be more economical in the long run to find a new board. Mr. Hunt offered to check the store rooms of memorial and essex elementary for suitable whiteboards.

Caroline Stankus Blog 15- 5/21/13

This is my last blog entry and I am so relieved. SCORE is ending this week too but we all have a lot to do in terms of presentations and the paper. Yesterday was a busy day for me. I immediately met with the sales team and we discussed the next steps for the edu spreadsheet. Since we have labeled who is using and not using our software, we now need to contact the schools that are not. My job was to organize the 30 schools into 6 categories. After I wrote each school down on a peice of paper so I could have that handy. It took me all day to go to the websites and search through it to find the admissions contact numbers. I located all of them thankfully so now my job today was to put them in an online address book for the company called salesforce. I had to put in the school name, the admissions conselour, the number and email etc for the 30 schools. Once I am finished with that, people further up then me are going to call the contacts to try and sell our product to them or at least figure out why they are not using it right now. I also did a starbucks run today for some of the workers here and it was so hot out I did not enjoy that at all. But I guess since I am just an intern here I have to do what they say and want me to do.

Beatrice: #17

I started my day on Tuesday with making nametags for the joint work that we have done in portfolio. Then I helped Mel complete her board because she was too sick to come in yesterday and do it herself. The thing we did after we had finished completing Mel’s board was to try to start returning all the artwork to the 8^th graders.  This took longer than we expected and it kind of dragged on for the rest of the day, but we did other things when we took a break from returning things.

The thing we did during the break was to see if anything needed some names or if some tacks needed to be replaced by staples. This took a long time because there are so many pieces of art out there. The thing that kind of slowed us down was the fact that some of the printmaking pieces didn’t really look that great on the boards. This resulted in that we had to switch around a lot of work to make the composition work with the other work around it, thus creating a theme. The creation of a theme can take a lot of time and is very time consuming when it comes to a person’s creative mind, but the composition and placement of work is actually as important as the actual piece of art. Many people forget to take this in mind when they complete their art and this makes their work not look as good as it could look.

We, as usual decided that it would be a great idea to stay longer after school. We decided that we should stay to four to complete the return of the Blue 8^th grade class so we could focus on something else on Wednesday. We finished this before we went home and we also completed the finishing touches on the art show and that means that we finally can focus on actually organizing Mrs. Powers’ room.  

Week 5, blog 3

Once it came time to lay the stones into the ground, we spoke with John Byrne and set up a time when he could come and meet us to discuss the proper method of laying it. He met us the next morning at the school and we started going over a plan. The first thing we needed to do was put down a layer of finely crushed stone. This forms the layer the flagstones actually sit in. The next thing we need to do is layout all of the pieces of stone, and begin piecing together a very heavy puzzle. After finishing the puzzle we begin leveling the pieces of stone and permanently placing them.

The puzzle was fun and easy, except for the heavy lifting. We spent a few hours deciding which pieces go where to keep the size of the spaces between stones as small as possible. This is really the most important step. After placing all of the stones permanently in their places. This entails lifting up the stones and looking at the shapes on the bottom side of the flagstones. We then try to model the crushed stone to form a perfect base, so that the flagstone are sturdy and motionless. We continued this until we ran out of flagstones. We used the whole pallet, but it wasn't enough. We are going to need to get another pallet of flagstone to finish the classroom.

#16

This Monday I spent a lot of time finishing the art show. Because neither Mel nor I was there on Friday, we didn’t have the opportunity to finish the art show until Monday and because I was sick all weekend I didn’t have time to do the assignment that Mrs. Powers had given me on Thursday.

 Because every kid that is involved in the art at our school have the right to show their pieces in the art show, we need to make sure that everyone has at least one piece to contribute with to the art show. What this leads to is that we have a lot of return to the middle scholars now when the art show is done for them and the high school one has just begun. Because there are so many different pieces it is kind of difficult to be able to return everything to every student. Also, the Blue and Red eighth grade classes don’t have art right now means that we cant return in to them if they themselves wants to come and get it. So what we have to do is to find the Blue and Red class folders that has been placed somewhere. For me to find them took about an hour in the morning and then after I had done this I had to categorize the different pieces to what assignment they belonged to, plus what class they where in.

Later during the day I finished to place all the pieces in the Blue and Red folders, but I decided to keep the Green and Orange to the next day because I knew it would be simple to return the pieces because the students still has that class.

Later we remembered that we forgot to place nametags on the portfolio kids pieces, so that meant that I had to write and print out their names, cut them out and place them on their work.

Tomorrow I have a plan to finish the all around placement of the pieces and then maybe focus more on the organization of the room. By doing this I think both Mel and I can create a more creative and giving environment to work in. 

Week 5, Blog 3

On Friday Sam went downtown with his friend Ben to get pizza and orange leaf. Earlier that day, I received a text from Sam and Gus' mom saying that she had talked to the boys about stranger danger because there is a level three sex offender back in town. This scared me because, although the boys know not to talk to strangers, they often forget things and with Sam and Ben downtown alone, I got very nervous. I was especially nervous when they were twenty minutes late coming home.

While Sam was downtown, Gus' tutor Krista came. They did stuff together for about an hour alone and then once Sam came home, they asked him to come and play a game with them. This game, which I don't remember the name of, is a really fun game for kids their age and even kids my age. There are different categories you can get by rolling the dice. One is sculpting something out of clay and having people guess, another is acting something out, then drawing something, and then their are riddles, pictures and things that you have to go and get. This game is really great for them because it helps exercise their imaginations and it's really fun.

After they finished the game, Krista left and the boys went outside for about half an hour. Once they came in, they washed their hands, got dressed for Tae Kwon Do and we left. At Tae Kwon Do, they do lots of stretches and great exercises that really work with every part of the body. I never realized how much strength Tae Kwon Do takes. About half way through, the boys mom came and I took off.

monday blog

I’m back to talking about the installation project that Nich landscaping was doing in Essex. After hiring Northern Essex excavation to come in and use a mini excavator to dig out the premises of the walk way. Going to work Monday we had to get some 3/4" crushed stone for the base. We had to spread about two yards for the base. After spreading the base we used a plate compactor. The plate compactor is a machine that uses the power of the motor to shake vigorously that makes the bottom material to settle and become compact hence plate compactor. After using the plate compactor for the first base, we had to get blue stone which would be used to fill the cracks left from the 3/4" crushed stone. After laying a healthy layer of the blue stone, yet again used the plate compactor to finalize the base of where the flag stone pavers are going to go. You want just enough material that will make it so when you lay the stone of your choice the stone is level with the original sod on the property. I learned that some stones that you choice might move around too much, so an old trick is to take the material you are going to fill cracks with and mix it with some loam, that way it creates moss making it to most likely not move.

Week 5, Blog 2

When we arrived thursday morning we discovered two things, that Mr. Lucido brought the laser in for us to use, and that John Byrne had sent over one of his workers to help us rake the gravel base into the right grade. We needed Mr. Magers to show us how to properly set up and use the laser level. So, until Mr. Magers was out of his class, we worked with John's landscaper to put the finishing touches on the raking and flattening. He was very friendly and very helpful, but did not speak much english. This proved to be less of a limitation once Mr. Magers arrived, as he speaks fluent spanish.

About 45 minutes later Mr. Magers showed up and we began setting up the laser level. We attempted setting it up with the old, stained owner's manual, but to no avail. Mr. Magers guided us through setting up the tripod, which is made as flat as possible with a line level. Once we got the tripod properly placed, we attached the laser to the top of the tripod. The laser transmits to a receiver which is fastened to a slider on a meter stick. We move the receiver to all areas of the the rectangular base, how much you have to slide the receiver up or down the meter stick tells us the difference in depths of the area. We found, as we hoped, that the grade of the gravel slopes away from the building, this should allow for proper drainage.

#15

This Thursday we basically finished preparing the pieces for the high school art show. The only important thing we have left to finish is the individual board for all the seniors in the portfolio class. This might sound easy but there is a lot of thing to consider when it comes to how you place the pieces on the board. It has to have some kind of common theme to make the board interesting to look at and without this the viewer might not understand the message or the meaning behind the pieces.

We started the day with placing the nametags on the 3-D things and then placing them in a case that most of us have seen filled with trophies. After we emptied the case we placed black paper on the wall and on the shelves to make the pieces pop more than it would have done on a flat gray surface. After we finished this we continued to mount the last pieces on black paper and placing them on their individual board. We decided in the middle of the day that it would be a great idea to stay after school to finish our individual walls, but this was kind of in vain from my part because I had forgotten a substantial part of the pieces I wanted to show in the art show at home, thus I have to bring it in on Monday to finish my wall. Mel stayed until 4 and I stayed for about 45 minutes more to finish some stuff up.

We did a lot of cleaning after school so we could do the things we really need to do on Monday without distractions. This took us about an hour and then we started to clean our table. The thing with our table is that we have everything that has to do with the art show on the table, and as you can guess it kind of gets cluttered after a while. It actually took us more than an hour to clean our table and place the middle school art pieces that we didn’t use in the artist’s individual folder.

After Mel left I just worked on my wall and then I left. What we have planned for next week is to make sure that everything is perfect for the art show and that we get all the organizing done before the last week of SCORE is done. Also, there is a lot of work to do on our essays and I am going to interview most of the art teachers to get their view  on why they think we should have a substantial art education. 

week 5 blog 15

We come back to a deck that has some of the decking down. The deck needs to be finished so we started hammering and making measurement for the next pieces of decking to come from the saw. We make many notches to get around post that hold the railings. After we got the main section of the deck done we moved to the small front entrance deck with three steps. This deck still needed to be pulled apart so we once again ripped off all the decking and loaded it up and brought it to the dump. When we got back from the dump we then went back pulled up all the nails and started decking again. The hardest part was to deal with the steps leading up to the deck we had to make angle cuts to go around the corner so that it would look good. After we finished nailing down the stairs it was time to start the decking on the main entrance deck. We chose a spot to start the decking and work are way down as efficient as possible so that we could finish up by the end of the day but after we nailed off the finial decking there was still one last thing which was the two benches that were attached to the deck, they need to be rebuilt. So we took the benches back to are shop took off all the old rotten parts of it which was everything but the frame. We then finished rebuilding them and brought them back to the deck.