Written Task 2 Rubric

Written Task 2 will be evaluated according to the following rubric:


https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7Yf3lF8m8xuS3hVVFVRMUpNZWs

Balam as a team is an excellent example of perseverance to the point where it could be considered lack of common sense. Not only has the team overcome really hard obstacles to keep on going but we have shown great results with a lot of odds against us as well as errors which are natural but eventually become strength. Balam has taken more than 700 hours of my time since I have joined and I would double it gladly.

Let's start with these season in which we only had one mentor, our initial room/laboratory/bunker was flooded causing damage to the team’s stock of materials and of course being the smallest team (in members) of Mexico. All of the adversities did not stop us, in fact they made us work harder and better. You have only one mentor? Cool, all the team will focus on only one example and learn from one person only making thing even. You lost your bunker and part of your already little stock of materials? Cool while you move to another place you can make inventory and be fully aware of what the team actually possess. You are the smallest team? Cool, then everyone has knowledge of every area and the specialists are few so the there can be a specialist for each area.

The championship has only proved that the team still has a lot to learn and gave the team not only objectives for next season but standards to what we want our robot, knowledge, season and team to be. The championship was also great to prove that even after we felt we were the best and really special for winning the regional at Mexico City we went to the place where it is mandatory to have won a regional in order to participate, so as a learning experience it was really complete as well as having lots of fun involved.

Last season was an example of what the team is capable to do, and every season something new awaits to be tackled and the team awaits its new challenge to satisfy what we have come accustomed to. I am proud of being there to see and help the team with all of these challenges and of course I can't wait for the next season kickoff to bring a new, better and harder challenge.

FIRST is the company responsible of bringing a life changing philosophy, events and atmosphere to the life of more than 400000 students by making them more involved with the company and doing what FIRST does best, inspiring. FIRST meaning is: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. The name of this company is perfect for what they do for I can assure from personal experience that they fulfill said objectives. They are a global class company with the confidence to put pressure to the assistant U.S. Secretary of defense and unleashing an army of 400000 kids to government offices in order to get a commemorative coin for a U.S. Hero (I recommend you to watch Dean’s commentary on this year's championship closure to know what I mean).

I have been a member of FIRST since my first semester at high school (at the time I was 14 years old which was the minimal age to join) and barely made it to register by a margin of 10 minutes that was at late November. Since I have been part of my FIRST team I have developed abilities not only in  my affinity with tools and building affairs but also teamwork, friendship and coopertition (term of FIRST, I suggest and encourage investigation), these abilities where self learned by participating with the team but were focused and strengthened by FIRST values.

By participating in FIRST events these passion and commitment has done nothing but to grow stronger since you share that passion with people external to your team and find out your team isn't the only one staying up late in night until you finish that mechanism but rather there are more than 3100 teams that have done the same and understand what you have gone through, it is the moment you find out you are not the only crazy bastards working so hard for a robot. After my experience with other teams and FIRST as a company I am proud to say I am really lucky to be able to belong in such an awesome project.

Creative Writing: Thoughts on Captain America: Civil War (No spoilers)

Christian David Bauza Gomes

A01375193

Group 60

English IB 4th Semester

Thoughts on Captain America: Civil War (No spoilers)

Back in the most recent weekend after a long Friday of C.A.S events, fairs and parties, I went to my local movie theater in hopes to get an hour to finally watch one of my most anticipated films of the year: Captain America: Civil War. As a huge fan of superhero movies ever since the year 2002 when I saw the first Spiderman movie, I have been following lots of films based on these comic book characters and see how they do justice to those stories printed in paper on a much more massive visual media like cinema. The newest Captain America movie is no exception of this following, especially after reading in the news two years ago that it was going to be based on a critically acclaimed series of comics and personal favorites of mine which, fortunately, are on hands of both Marvel Studios and Disney. Based on what I saw on the silver screen last Saturday, here are my two cents on it.

The movie works as it had been advertised for months: A fight between Captain America and Iron Man, each with respective teams, over a simple decision that could both benefit mankind by preventing any more unfair deaths in low class countries but at the same time affect superhero liberties by putting a border on what they should do to prevent another violent act of terrorism from happening. One is on favor of the legislation, while the other is against it and, to make matters worse, he gets into more trouble to protect a childhood friend presumed dead in previous installments of the franchise who’s wanted by the law for murder.

As the struggle begins and grows more and more in development between characters, mixed emotions and reactions like laughter, tension and excitement from the audience can be heard or seen as the scenes go by, ergo, the cinematography and directing is just brilliant. The way the actors portray the characters makes a person feel he or she is reading the actual comic book. Apart from some of them being already known for their roles in previous Marvel films, others stand out enough for everyone to see more of him or her as years go by. For example: Nobody believed British actor Tom Holland could pull off a great Spiderman after the acting magnitude of somebody like Tobey Maguire in the original Sam Raimi films as the geek Peter Parker is or the great portrayal of the superhero itself from Andrew Garfield in the latest two installments. However, after watching this film audiences just kept on laughing and claiming how great he was and are actually looking forward to his solo film in 2017.

To conclude, I think that the combination of the mixed elements of drama, action and comedy in this film are enough to make a comic book geek and lover like myself “cry” over how amazing it was. This film is what Batman v Superman should have been in the first place. No random popular characters being thrown to try and keep the film and DC cinematic universe interesting for people in the following years and not mashing up several stories in the original comics into one, since it will only feel rushed and desperate by Warner Bros. But I digress. This film gets a 9/10 from me and I look forward extremely to what Marvel offers the demographic through the wide Cinematic Universe.

On my St. Louis Experience

From April 27 to May 1 we, Tec Balam Esmeralda, team #3527, were blessed to compete in the FIRST World Championship for the 2016 season. Even though how we got there was unjustified and really out of our control, we got there, and boy was the experience worth it. My previous experience on the robotics field, I had no idea of the magnitude it had outside of Mexico. In here, I thought we had a big community, we were competitive, that it wasn´t that hard to be competitive in the worldwide stage with the lack of industry and interest we have in Mexico.

I was wrong, so wrong, so much in fact, that I had no other reaction to it than to just laugh, in the inside of course. The Championship is divided into eight divisions of 75 teams each and the winner of each compete for the World Championship. Of those divisions, Mexican teams were in 5 of those divisions, the winningest team from us, Lambot, was in the eventual champion’s division. Of 8 teams, 6 of us didn’t get past the 60^th place tier, another team was found under the 40s, and Lambot team #3478, the most competitive team, was able to reach the division quarterfinals, but were unceremoniously knocked out of the water, on an embarrassing fashion (Lost 195-255, Lost 155-275) by the eventual champions. It was heart ripping to see the best teams in Mexico get tossed around without respect from these American giants. At the beginning of the essay, I mentioned each team’s number, which in this context denotes the seniority that each team has and is often related to the experience a team has with the competition. Most of the teams we competed against were in the 100s, 1,000 and the 2,000 range and were in the Championship for several years now, and some in a row.

Most of these teams had the support of every organization they reach, are able to get their robots fabricated by those same organizations and just be able to assemble the robot like a glorified Lego with the thumbs-up of NASA experts and 30+ experience engineers that have nothing better to do than help this teams out. This factor is what really sets us apart from the American teams in a bad way, we don’t get any of that, we design our robots thinking we will be the ones to craft each piece of it and assemble it on an uneven and mostly ugly way.

My goal for the next few seasons that I’m able to stick with the team is to get the most support towards us and make us able to compete with the rest of the world and show them that seniority nor country matters in order to be great and be able to finally win the FIRST Championship. 

Why wouldn’t I live in the USA?

Why wouldn’t I live in the USA?

There has always been the belief of a better life in America compared to what we can see in other different countries. There are a lot of factors that involve this point of view. We can talk about the economic power the US has created throughout History, or about the famous ideology of living in the country of freedom, where everything is beautiful and every person lives happy.

I don’t believe that, actually, I think Americans tend to live in such a manner that they suffer constantly for a lot of things. I have recently been in an American city, Saint Louis, and I found incredible that the city’s infrastructure is really big and really impressive but there’s not enough people to make it look as a powerful city. The first thing I thought was that maybe Americans were just lazy, but after a while being there I concluded that they’re not lazy, they’re boring. There was not a moment of the trip where streets felt crowded, or people walked to have some fun in town. The time where I saw more people reunited in the same place was when sports came in. Sports take a very important place in people’s priority lists in America, maybe that’s why it is such a good business.

That’s the American way of life in my point of view. Now, we can see a lot of differences between that way of life and the Mexican one. In Mexico, no matter what you do, you can’t get bored unless you stay home all the time. If you’re not watching soccer, you are hanging out with your friends, or going to parties, or socializing with new people. The thing is, in Mexico, the way of life is much more entertaining than in America. People there act all the same, as if they were some kind of strange robots which are connected to the same boring channel. Routine is the ideal world to describe it.

That’s why I wouldn’t be able to live in America. Such a constant routine would end up boring me to death and making me as fat as Americans are. I prefer a place where people don’t act as robots but as normal people, who are different in every way and act for different meanings. It is more challenging and gives a sense of humanity to life. 

What is Balam?

Balam to me is a safe haven from everything, my life, school, family, and all those things. There really aren´t a lot of places and groups that can really do that for me, especially at this point in my aging process. Many have questioned me for always sticking to it, my first season was at the lowest point of the team where there were no one but four juniors with little to no leadership. There is something about it, it may be the people around the project, maybe it’s the nature of the project, or maybe it’s what I can do with it that gets me to gravitate towards it.

As much as the project is focused on robotics, the essentials to its success is really interacting with everyone else on Balam, you are going to have to spend six weeks in a row with them from noon to 8 p.m. and there is nothing you can do about it, so they are what are going to make or break the experience for anybody. Luckily for everybody, we have some of the best people around each other and really make a family like environment around ourselves and the robot, there is no fun without us having each other. So I appreciate having the people we have on board.

FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is one of the toughest challenges that are out there for high schoolers to accomplish, and it is what Balam preaches. The nature of the organization is really living everything out for the robot, and getting the highest level of satisfaction whenever you see your time and part of you function properly and be competitive. The competition is the least part of it, but the means to get there is what really makes Balam worth it for me and recommendable to everyone who is considering to join us.

The results of the experience really goes a long way in the rest of my life, it makes itself an integral part of who you will be and will do for your adult life with everything behind you and all that is left Is a good memory of it. Everything about this, from the people you meet from being here to the feelings and confidence it resides on you after you form part of it, is something that nothing will do for you other than Balam, so yeah, Balam is really worth it.