November 2019 – Niko's Portfolio

Political Cartoons: Rape Allegations

pagli11349@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg IB ELP November 12, 2019 0 Comment

In this political cartoon it is talking about the issue of sexual harassment and rape which are very big issues. This cartoon shows 2 young girls which we can assume by the innocent setting of playing with toys and the play room. At this day and age, women have to face the problem of not being believed when it comes to allegations of sexual harassment due to being looked down upon by society. There are many labels which society calls women due to their sexual activity whether there was consent or not with examples such as whore, slut, hoe, b*tch and so on. All those words are degrading and women are labeled those if they decide to speak up about those things. Unlike men, when men are sexually harassed or raped by a woman, they are normally congratulated or praised due to society creating stereotypes that men just want sex. This is the complete opposite when it comes to women because when women are sexually harassed or raped, they do not want to speak up because they do not want to be shamed by society and it’s labels. The humorous aspect of this cartoon is mainly just the way the cartoon is the drawing/painting style where small things suck as facial features and are exaggerated but in this case does not have any context.

Without any context, this political cartoon would not exactly make sense to someone who does not know about the apparent issues. Someone could just think “why wouldn’t her rape allegations be believed?” which makes us think about the real problem at hand, if people know about this issue.

Sumo Robotics: How I got into Robotics/Making Things

pagli11349@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg Creativity November 5, 2019March 13, 2020Learning Outcome 1: Personal Growth, Learning Outcome 4: Commitment and Perseverance 0 Comment

I have always been into building things. Anything from lego, little figures, car models and so on.

In my IGCSE course, I took Systems and Control which is a Design Technology course based around electronics and mechanics. I was never great at it because it has always been hard for me to grasp concepts. Although a hobby of mine has always been something to do with robotics and mechanics. I personally have no experience when it comes to writing code or making a robot from scratch because the closest thing I got to that was using a Lego Mindstorm in middle school. I remember telling myself at the age of 8 that I wanted to be a robotics engineer when I grow up and saving up for 2 years to get a Lego Mindstorm which I never got because I just used the ones we had here at school. That driving force of wanting to become a Robotics Engineer does not exist anymore since I don’t exactly know what my passions are anymore so I am just experimenting with things at the moment.

At the age of 11 I remember I bought my first and only radio controlled car which took me a year of saving up and doing some chores. I loved that thing and played with it every single day after school until one day I decided to take it out on a track which had a lot of ramps and after a few jumps, the front shock towers (suspension) of the car broke due to the material being brittle and slightly old. The car was released in 2004 which means that the RC car had been sitting at the shop for quite a while. I was never able to repair it because I never knew what the part was called or in general, what the chasis model was.

Now, almost 6 years later, I have lost that passion of making things which is why I decided to join the Sumo Robotics club here at school. The club makes little robots which try to push each other out of a ring hence the name Sumo Robotics. I want to see if I can learn some new things and implement it into some future projects I might do. I don’t know how to code and only know the basics of electronics so I want to build my skills on those.

Memoirs of the Pioneer Generation

pagli11349@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg Service November 5, 2019March 13, 2020Learning Outcome 1: Personal Growth, Learning Outcome 3: Demonstrate/Initiate, Learning Outcome 5: Working Collaboratively, Learning Outcome 6: Engagement with Issues 0 Comment

My current service is called Memoirs of the Pioneer Generation where we go to a Nursing home and we interview the older generation about Singapore and then we write short stories about their experiences. At the moment I have only gone to the centre once just to see what it is like and to introduce ourselves to the staff and the some of the elderly who stay there.

The main reason why I chose this service is because of the story telling aspect of this service. Being able to take other people’s stories and writing it in a way which conveys the “come up” of Singapore.

I used to mainly work with little kids for service because I absolutely love little kids and being able to make their day. I have many cousins under the age of 5 which is why I really click with younger kids. I guess I chose to change it a little bit is to expose myself to new experiences and to work on my story telling which will help me in film.