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Home Design and Technology: Record Player

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Although my most recent project is really quite different from anything I’ve done before it has been one of my favourites so far. Although it did not consist of much construction nor ‘designing’ it was actually very difficult for me as I had never done anything remotely similar in the past.

I am a huge fan of music, particularly 60-80’s rock and prog rock. Although I know very little about what goes into making a song, I love music and have always listened to any new song or album recommended to me. As such, I decided to build a record player.

Building a record player from scratch, at least for someone of my talents, is almost impossible, as such I assembled what can be best described as a motley crew of high-end audio equipment to create my own, unique, record player. Unlike a majority of my projects in which the most time-consuming part is actually building the thing, this was more of a research game. Learning intricacies of music reproduction, what parts to use to achieve the best sound, the most durable parts that will allow me to take the player with em when I move overseas and how to maintain the player once I had built it.

Home Gym Third reflection

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In the past 2 or so months I have begun to slow down in terms of growth. Being someone of a very tall, but also quite lean build it was often difficult to build muscle, even despite regular training and good diet. However, as mentioned, in the past few months my growth spurts have begun to recede meaning that my efforts in the gym no longer serve to just tone muscle, now being easier to build it. Although the changes are quite slight, they are noticeable.

The biggest factor that has changed, which is one that I have been trying to improve for a while, is my BMI. Due to my height and relatively lanky frame, I have had a very low BMI, far below average for my height. Although I have always been well within a healthy range I am always a little bothered by this notion of ‘underweight’ or being called a stick.

Roughly 6 months ago, I had a BMI of 18.8, at 188cm and 68kg, although this is still considered ‘healthy’ it was far below where I wanted to be. After beginning training around 8 months ago, as well as filling out naturally, my BMI is now a far more realistic 20.2 (77kg at 192cm) placing me in the 30th percentile for weight, as opposed to the 9th percentile.

 

RC2: First Draft EE Reflection

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My question was revised to The True Socio-economic Impacts of EDC Exposure Within the European Union. This question, despite its simplicity, was actually quite hard to come up with. This is as I wanted a question that was driven by topics I was genuinely interested in, something I could continue to read about and not get inured to its initial charm. As such, I decided that instead of trying to find data that fits a certain research question, I would instead come up with a question that best fits the data that I found most interesting. I was initially put off writing the actual piece in favour of just reading papers regarding EDCs and their effect after going off on a tangent from my initial question. As I had spent so much time reading up on the subject, I found writing the first draft very enjoyable and was impressed with my work ethic. I am quite proud of the quality of writing that the paper boasts, despite this, my paper was a good essay, not a great EE and I need to focus on cutting further below the surface to much improve.

Project week

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Project week has been very straight forward and easy to plan. Despite some issues in the begging regarding our location and members, everything has run smoothly thus far. I, as the first aider, had to partake in the 9-hour training course where we learnt the basics of first aid and how to handle certain situations. As we are undertaking some dangerous activities such as hiking, rafting abseiling and caving, I had to learn how to be prepared for a wide range of possible problems.

As mentioned, we as a group have decided to do a much more activity-based project week, spending time having fun rather than doing service. Although we are building houses to fill out the service requirements, it is not the main focus of our trip. I personally am looking forward to the hiking and caving portions of our trip and somewhat dreading the rafting. I hate water and water-based sports but did not want to cause any controversy in the group so I just went along.

The members of my group have all worked collaboratively on the booking and planning of the trip. This contributes itself to the smooth and easy nature of the planning stage and hopefully lends itself to a successful project week.

 

Planning Document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NZNLLV67vvccJtkQeEtFJCEpuYiPXV6rgwY4Fl_6sng/edit

MATHEMATICS

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  1. The mathematical method is one that involves a starting point to act as a base topp your hypothesis. The method revolves around fixed and verifiable rules which allows us to carry out experiments without ever lifting pen from paper. What this means is that the mathematical method exists completely as a theoretical practice, there is no practical side to it.

    The mathematical method is similar to the scientific method as they both revolve around an idea or hypothesis. You generate an idea that you wish to prove, then set about doing it. The differences in the two come from this point on. As mentioned previously, the mathematical method is completely theoretical and no experimentation is done. This is one of the major differences between the mathematical and scientific theory as with the scientific theory, experimentation is not only necessary but vital in either finding the truth or being proven wrong. The mathematical method being all theoretical also means that the answers that come from it are more absolute and many have been yet to be proven wrong.

    As the scientific theory essentially aims to explain the worlds intricate operations through experimentation and documentation, all of which is conducted by people who have certain knowledge and ideas, we tend to either get results that are inaccurate or are completely disproven later down the line. However, the mathematical theory operates on the bases that everything on this planet follows the set of laws we have set out for it, this means that there are far fewer inaccuracies and fallacies when dealing with the mathematical method rather than the scientific. For example, initial thoughts on the behaviour of atoms were far from the understanding that we have now. This is as we now have far better technology than 100 years ago. However, with a few exceptions, mathematics has remained relatively stagnant, at least in terms of the fundamentals. This means that discoveries made centuries ago are still considered correct. This difference is absolution is what differentiates the two methods beyond the  obvious differences in their established processes.