ALBUM OF ANCIENTS

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the first blogger-posted Spanish project I've ever done. This one isn't too difficult to explain as it's pretty straight forward on the objective and presentation. This a photo album designed to be about our family, but I didn't feel like going around and taking pictures of my own so I've decided to take the approach of making them Greek gods for the sake of fun. Below you'll find the slideshow where I composed this masterpiece, I hope you enjoy.

PHOTO ALBUM

 THE WORLD SPINS UNTIL MEDIUM RARE

Introduction

In our Rhetoric class, we briefly went over the idea of "rhetorart" (or some similar collaboration of rhetoric and art, I can't remember), which simply put is just a piece of art with a message conveyed within the piece itself. With this idea though, it doesn't really work with such a bare definition as all art conveys a message, but maybe not the topic "rhetorart" is looking for. We're looking for something we're passionate about enough to dedicate an art piece to. We went on a field experience in Marquette park where we looked at the Martin Luther memorial piece and talked with one of the project members on how and why they incorporated their ideas into their art. We are to do the same, by creating a piece that is purposeful not only in its stylistic appearance but its location as well. Without further ado, I would like to introduce my piece and artist statement explaining my approach and idea. Enjoy.

THE ART PIECE

I am a student in my junior year contributing a piece to the topic of global warming. I chose this topic simply because it's something that is heard all around and warned about to all on its detrimental effects of our future, yet the amount of change we've actually seen doesn't go any farther than the public being told by the companies contributing the most pollution to our planet to change our lifestyle and carbon footprint. 

According to NASA, we're looking at a possible 2-10 degrees increase in temperature permanently in the next century, along with our ice caps melting only increases world-wide floods and engulfment of whole cities in the near future. This is the future we're heading towards with little to absolutely no effort by the main contributors of the problem ceasing to stop. With 71% of carbon emissions being from fossil-fuel companies, the people are no longer the problem, but companies too focused on money-making are too far in to question whether or not they'll be spending their "hard earned" money in the future. 

I've chosen to make the medium of my actual art piece a wax statue molded to represent the CEOs of fossil-fuel companies around the world. This statue would have a rotating arm held around the spinning handle of something mocking a gyro grill. Instead of a fine delicacy being cooked in the center of this grill, it's instead the Earth composed of wax in the center. The grill would be active and hot, most likely with a fire melting both the planet and the statue to create a sense of terror in the actions of selfish company heads. This would be placed in front of or at relative distance from the HQs of the listed contributors of carbon emissions in order for not only press coverage, but also worker exposure to engrave the horrific image and ponder the question if there is good reason past money to continue working. 

The point I want to drive home is primarily symbolism in my art piece. The world is burning and shortly will the people contributing to the cause. The idea of having these individual statues being modeled after CEOs, which will then literally have their faces and body inevitably melted, was designed to create pathos in a less sympathetic way. I want to create fear with my imagery, as in these scenarios it drives the point even further to those that need to hear it. 

The pathos also comes from the workers around the area as well, as they will either resonate or resent the controversy of its piece and create conflict with good intentions for change to spark in these work places. 

This piece obviously has a bit of hyperbole to it due to the fact that we're not exactly near the point of face-melting, but with every cranked spin by the hand of the contributor, the world burns all around slowly but surely. It's an analogy that comes from the fire that burns the artwork, one that I enjoy greatly as I feel the lack of permanence that this artwork has says something about our future as well. 

Conclusion

Too quickly done of a sketch for me to be proud of, to be honest. I would've loved to have created something a little more dedicated to the idea I wanted to portray. but with the time period we had gotten for this project it really only allowed for a fast prototype. Though that is a shame, it still doesn't take away from the ability of pursuing this idea a little further in the future. Given I probably won't unless I need an idea to revisit, it was still fun to imagine what it could be. That's all there is to this one, cheers. 

Sources cited:

https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/  - Statistical analysis information 

https://www.timeout.com/things-to-do/cities-that-could-be-underwater-by-2030 - Hypothetical predictions from global warming made by scientists

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change  - Primary contributors of carbon emissions world-wide. 

 SCRAP METAL FOR A BRIGHTER CITY

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to another rhetorical action project, where I attempt to tingle your heart and brain's fancy with provocative words. In this unit, we decided to look into what an op-ed is and what the process of writing one takes to get it into papers (courtesy of one of our classmate's fathers who had written one and explained to us the steps). The point of an op-ed is stylistic and designed to be "punchy." Punchy is a wonderful word that I used multiple times when offering critique to my peers because it's fun, it allows for character in writing and that's just my kind of thing. Op-eds are opinionated writings made by literally anyone, you don't have to be a professional writer to get your op-ed published in the newspaper. But there's obviously criteria meant to be achieved to heighten that chance of getting it published. Below I'm gonna be explaining the rhetorical devices of my op-ed and obviously the op-ed itself. 

OP-ED

(TITLED: SCRAP METAL FOR A BRIGHTER CITY)

It’s been awhile since I’ve felt hopeful for the future of our city -- except it’s more of a “fingers crossed” kind of hopeful feeling that’s like banking on the birthday present your mother got you as the dream gift.

The Chicago Machine is dead, or well, nearing it. Our lovely Chicago-made politicians tied to the infamous system are meeting its end, thanks to outsiders getting invested in our city. I like to think of it as a really, really, stubborn weed that we’ve finally managed to pull out of the ground from our rotten garden -- then proceeded to plant a new, smaller one, in its place. 

See, the Chicago Machine has died in its most bare sense. The Chicago Machine politicians are being rooted out of the system, such as the likes of  legendary “Burger King Burke” (digging the nickname?) -- having been crushed by born and raised from Ohio, Mayor Lightfoot -- the shiny new part for the Chicago Machine. 

The practice of the Machine lives on through our wondrous city -- with fun Chicago facts like our police budget dominating the city’s spending priority despite our murder rate being higher than it has ever been since 1996 as of 2021. The shiny new Machine needs some time to let the replacement parts settle in, which is exactly what the youth of Chicago are making sure doesn’t happen. 

With young figures like Ugo Okere and a whole young caucus of Chicago socialists, our political influence is growing quicker than the machine is really picking up on -- which I’m just savoring. I’m hopeful about the particular interest that these types of politicians have shown in our public education system here in Chicago. Having my mother working in the school industry has rooted a deeper passion for the quality of education students of Chicago receive from the city. I believe that a lot of kiddos my age aren’t exactly too keen on how so many things we could have to improve our experience are so limited to whatever lovely budget mayor Lightfoot and governor Pritzker spew out onto us ever so generously.

 Despite research telling us that our schools are underfunded and kids aren’t getting the resources they need

(Photo by Scott Olson, 2019)

, we still insist on betting our money on the boys in blue hoping for… I don’t know, crime rates just drop by handing out speeding tickets like candy? Lightfoot represents downtown, but definitely not Chicago -- which is problematic when we want to advocate for something better than the occasional spoiled and chunky chocolate milk and out-of-our-teacher’s-pocket field trips. 

Truth is, the youth is annoyed with the efforts made by folks in office and I believe we know it's time the younger generations are in need of taking the wheel. If you've ever seen a teen really invested in politics, really out there in protests, really ready to hold up that fist and shout for a better future, then you've seen what the future council is gonna look like. Kids with passion on the
subject are investing more time to make sure that their change is noticed in these troubling times. I'm sick of having to even think of the struggles we put our teachers through just to have a functioning classroom. 

Having spent my freshman year in Curie, they made sure to work with what they had even when it wasn't enough. I still admire that effort and strive in my current days of high school, even when the public system hadn't treated me well. I could see past that, I could see that there were people in those same schools trying to make sure us kids had something to look forward to even when we thought we didn't. Shout out to you Manjarrez for making math fun even when it was straight from the textbook. 

Teachers are out there putting love into a system that doesn't love them back.

It's time we change that Chicago.

Rhetorical Analysis TIME

Short but punchy is what I strive for, it definitely helps when you've actually got the heart in the subject you're fighting for. It also helps when you've got a whole class dedicated to rhetoric, so let's get into that. Firstly, we'll go over the three main devices of rhetoric: ethos, pathos, and logos. 

Ethos is establishing credibility on yourself as a speaker for the subject you're talking about. I made sure to address myself as a high school student who's gone through and seen exactly how schools are struggling to work with the budget enforced by our machine. I'm also the son of an amazing school teacher who pours her heart and soul into her teaching. This makes sure that the audience knows I literally have hands on experience with what I'm talking about. You'd trust a medicinal doctor to prescribe you medicine, and you hopefully would trust a high school student that has gone through public school to talk about public school. 

Pathos is all about emotion and making sure that you can toy with the audience's feelings in a way that's beneficial to your motive. In this case I made sure to mention the oppressive nature of the Machine on our own people, making sure to emphasize on my writing style as well to guarantee the words I want to draw attention do. When you take on the voice of the people, they feel a little more inclined to feel the same way you do. My most raw and on-the-head use of pathos would definitely be the 8th paragraph, I go all in for a heartful approach on the school systems we have now and resonate very much with the struggles of schooling. 

Logos likes to pull up all the sources in any argument. It's there to make sure we know that we're not dealing with just fancy words made to play with our feelings but actual statistics and information to solidify our argument a little more. My entire OP-ED is littered with relevant sources that are put there to tell you that I'm not just spewing funny numbers out for no reason. I've done my research, my homework, and I'm letting you know that it's for sure real. 

Now getting into more complex and deeper roots of rhetoric, we look at some other smaller yet significant devices that drive my point home. I'm a big fan of metaphors, analogies, and definitely repetition when it comes to writing rhetorically. It's fun, easy, and especially effective. 

In the very first paragraph, I actually use an analogy to introduce the style of my writing at its most comical take. The sentence "it’s more of a “fingers crossed” kind of hopeful feeling that’s like banking on the birthday present your mother got you as the dream gift." is supposed to convey how I'm approaching my feelings on the subject, describing it in a more literal sense that I feel good about the future, but I know it's not a guarantee that things will turn out right, it's a hope that it does. 

Even when describing the machine, I make sure to use analogies to get my idea across of how the machine isn't really dead, but simply being run differently by stating that the new heads of Chicago are simply "brand new parts." I made sure to strive on this idea of the machine in a more literal sense for the fun of it.

I use repetition in the 7th paragraph when describing a teenager who knows what they're shooting for. 

"If you've ever seen a teen really invested in politics, really out there in protests, really ready to hold up that fist and shout for a better future, then you've seen what the future council is gonna look like."

There is a constant use of the word "really" in order to show that kids are passionate about what they're fighting for out there, and they do more than what meets the eye. It's a fun tool that I myself use a lot due to the sheer "punchiness" of the tool. 

CONCLUSION

I bet you had fun reading that. When it comes to this style of writing I feel like I'm in my zone. It's natural to me to push my personality into my writing, so when I'm given the opportunity to do exactly that I get to simply be myself in writing. Given that this wasn't without struggle, like I mentioned before I am new to taking approaches on politics in such a deep-dive matter. Finding potential politicians and sources was a struggle, along with finding where to even start on the topic in the first place. There's a weird sense of wanting to create perfection when talking about politics, because you'll never be right to everybody. Everyone's a critic in politics, and you simply can't do anything about it. You just have to stay true to what feels right to you. But that doesn't mean to shut off your brain when somebody's bringing their cards to the table either. No matter what I do, if I'm talking politics I'll always feel exposed in an argument even when I have a "moral high ground" on the subject. Thanks for reading. 

The Gro-ier Bro

Introduction

    IT'S SPIN TO WIN IN DESIGN AND ENGINEERING! In this unit of D&E, we've been learning all and only about bikes to the point where I know exactly how to draw one from the top of my head. From learning the physics of motion on a bike to dissecting the entire anatomy of many bikes, we were challenged to design a bike for a persona that were practically randomly given. With hands on experience from our FEs with a bike shop owner and one of the marketers of the Lyft bikes here in Chicago, we were prepared to design something fitting for our target. Enjoy the revolutionary introduction of the strangest bike ever, the Gro-bro. 

THE GRO-BRO

I won't lie, this action project is quite the visual feast to lay your hands on. We've designed practically three prototypes of our same bike for you to take a look at and enjoy in its either quite technologically-focused or bare-minimum design. Before we get into looking at the design though, let me introduce our wonderful persona from Sydney, Australia: Clover. Clover's an interesting case, as after we evaluated her situation we had a handful of issues to deal with in one bike design. 

Firstly, Sydney is quite an elevated place, which means a lot of uphill action for our poor 11 year old friend to deal with. Secondly, tires are quite susceptible to flats when the ground is littered with a biker's nightmare. Third issue would be dangerous drivers on the road that aren't gonna be too focused on looking for a school girl just trying to get home. Lastly, nobody wants their bike stolen and nor does Clover. Except since Clover is an 11 year old who's likely to forget things, she doesn't want a good ol' trusty lock for her bike because she'll probably lose the key. 

Quite a long, long, long list of issues on hand! Yet our design team refuses to remain stumped for long, so after weeks of working on our bike we've come up with our masterpiece of a design specifically for our Australian friend with help from outside experience as well! After interviewing my mother on the joys and pains of biking, one actually resonated with our persona. This resonation came from her struggle from a bike which had possibly the worst gear shift that existed, having made her uphill battles just that much harder. Below you'll see our thought process on the bike, the designs itself, and lastly our mathematics for this wonderous masterpiece. 

Beginning with the anatomy of our bike, we'll take you through the journey of designing the Gro-Bro.

With our persona being an 11 year old girl, we can't have her lugging around a beefy bike to school every day. To combat this challenge, we decided to look into lightweight material in order to make sure this wasn't a struggle to store inside the house and school building. 

With carbon fiber and tubeless tires, we saw that our bike's weight significantly dropped to a much more manageable weight in comparison to other bikes. Carbon fiber is a strong and durable material that has been seen with more and more use due to its lightweight and durable properties in many of our everyday products, so why not bikes? Tubeless tires are a little unheard of in our day and age, but they're quite spectacular from our run-of-the-mill beefy tires. They're incredible for resisting puncture (about 90% less likely to be punctured and have a flat), while still holding up to the same standards that our regular tires do. This was to make sure that Clover didn't have to get a triple-layered set of tires to combat those pesky glass shards on the sidewalk and street. 

Now as for visibility, you may already see a few things that stick out quite intentionally. On the tubeless tires, we didn't really feel a need for something revolutionary in visibility due to the fact that what's already out there works quite well. On the tires, we've decided to put reflectors on both of them for drivers and pedestrians to spot. Not only are these reflectors on the tires, but also on the back and front of the bike for full visibility from any angle. Secondly, the flag of the united states on the back wheel. This more than likely has created multiple questions upon viewing it on our design, such as: "Why is it on a bike meant for an Australian?" or "Do the rainbows and stars come with the flag?" 

To answer both those questions: we thought it was a funny idea, also technically pretty practical. Nothing's gonna catch somebody's eye more than a national flag that isn't even theirs. Of course this is just meant as a gag, since the flag can be switched out for something much more sensible. But either way, the old flag on a bike easily makes somebody more visible on a street when they've got something waving high above their heads for people in bigger vehicles to see. 

Now to get into the most revolutionary part of our design: the compressible bike frame. That's right. This bike can compress on itself in order to shrink its size for easier storage. The two highlighted parts in the middle of the bike are meant to be the parts that can be pushed down and locked in place until the bike user is ready to head out on the road again. This would be incorporated inside the bike frame with a design similar to how a lock works, with the release button being put specifically on the bike handle for easy use. 

As for combatting uphill battles? We just made sure that our gear ratio fit that of a mountain bike. Mountain bikes are expertly designed to deal with uphill resistance, so we made sure to make the ratio on our bike 34:32 teeth (which is standard for mountain bikes). 

Lastly is the basket and bell. It's fun and practical, no harm in a little bit of ring-a-ding-ding. 

Alternative bike designs and mathematics

Now that you really know the deep dive on our bike's anatomy, it's time to get into both the mathematics and alternative designs. We have a 3D model designed by me, and a more math-heavy simplistic design created by my partner on a website called Geogebra. We'll start with the fun 3D side first, then close up with the mathematics. 

Hopefully that was fun to poke around in, because it did take quite some time to put together from the ground up. We used this 3D model to decide the scale of our design, primarily using the diameter of the wheels from the 3D design in comparison to our own. 

CONCLUSION

This was quite a lot of work on just one single action project. I honestly loved it surprisingly, despite the complications and hours of time poured into this, I have even grown attached to this weird bike. The mathematics felt overwhelming to look at on the rubric, but was easier to do than one would think. Overall, it was quite the experience that I feel proud of ending this unit on. Without any more further cheesy heart-felt writing, I believe that is all for this project. I sincerely hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading this massive amount of writing.