I learned a lot of things about China throughout this project. Something that I really had to learn a lot about was the history of China, specifically China during 100 AD. I feel like our group especially stood out because our time wasn’t set during the same as all the other groups so we had to know every detail about our country. I learned a lot about the Han Dynasty and the four great inventions that China came up with; paper, printing, gunpowder, and the compass. These inventions kick-started and allowed the other countries around China to further develop their own new inventions and culture while building off China’s ideas.
Along with the four great inventions China is known for, it also has many lesser known inventions. My group decided to recreate the Chinese earthquake detector from 132 AD. We chose this item because it was the very first of its kind and many other countries took the idea and created their own versions. It started a wave of new innovations all while showing off chinese culture. We choose to have a bunch of little chinese inventions in our booth but I’m glad we chose to make the earthquake detector our main product because a lot of people were really interested in it and impressed with the look of it. I think it was a good centerpiece that pulled the other inventions together. Many people were surprised to learn that we had molded and created the whole product on our own. I think they were even more surprised to learn that the dragon heads and frogs were made with clay and not bought. In addition to the earthquake detector, my group also brought in tea cups, a chinese kite, chinese lanterns, chopsticks, and red envelopes for a Chinese New Years theme.
Although we didn’t end up going with our original idea and making the mechanism on the inside work, the prototyping process was extremely helpful because it allowed us to see how we needed to build our final product. We decided that it’d be best to have something visual to present even if it didn’t work instead of having something that worked but didn’t look presentable so we started by looking for a base that would not only look good but would support the mechanism on the inside. Our original prototype was a box made out of cardboard and we figured that a ovular or circular base would be better, we wanted a shape that would make it look more like a vase. We ended up choosing the shape of a cheese ball, plastic container and then decided to go over it in paper mache to really get the shape we wanted. After multiple layers of paper mache, we cut the holes in the side in case we went through with making it a working detector and then we started shaping the dragon heads and frogs using the shapes we had originally come up with while prototyping. This really ate up our time so we didn’t have enough to make it work but we decided to invest our remaining time into perfecting the look of our final product.
Based off everyone’s booths at exhibition, I would really like to visit Chicago or Germany. Chicago’s product was really cool and it seemed like they put a lot of effort into building their product. I’m really curious about the ferris wheel, especially since it was an invention that actually went to the World’s Fair in 1893l. They’re booth also looked really good in general and was really eye catching. Germany, in addition to having a really nice looking booth had done a lot of research beforehand and I know some of the members had a preexisting knowledge of Germany so I would like to hear the facts that they could provide. I also know that Germany, in any direction of time you went, had very bad things going on so I would like to see how they managed to perceive it as a positive country that people should move to.
I think our booth stood out quite a bit at exhibition because it had a theme and I’m really proud that my group members, specifically Elizabeth Tran, came up with the idea of a Chinese New Years theme. It was a really unique idea and we also handed out pamphlets that further explained the Chinese culture and our project.
I think exhibition went really well. I overheard a lot of people talking about how interesting it was and I know a lot of the teachers we convinced to come were really excited to bring their classes. I also knew a lot of people who showed up so it was a lot of fun to get to talk to them and teach them about what I had learned over the past few weeks. I really liked the competitive factor of the whole thing with the, “who can get the most people to move to your country?” type of thing. All in all, exhibition was really fun and it came together really well.
Along with the four great inventions China is known for, it also has many lesser known inventions. My group decided to recreate the Chinese earthquake detector from 132 AD. We chose this item because it was the very first of its kind and many other countries took the idea and created their own versions. It started a wave of new innovations all while showing off chinese culture. We choose to have a bunch of little chinese inventions in our booth but I’m glad we chose to make the earthquake detector our main product because a lot of people were really interested in it and impressed with the look of it. I think it was a good centerpiece that pulled the other inventions together. Many people were surprised to learn that we had molded and created the whole product on our own. I think they were even more surprised to learn that the dragon heads and frogs were made with clay and not bought. In addition to the earthquake detector, my group also brought in tea cups, a chinese kite, chinese lanterns, chopsticks, and red envelopes for a Chinese New Years theme.
Although we didn’t end up going with our original idea and making the mechanism on the inside work, the prototyping process was extremely helpful because it allowed us to see how we needed to build our final product. We decided that it’d be best to have something visual to present even if it didn’t work instead of having something that worked but didn’t look presentable so we started by looking for a base that would not only look good but would support the mechanism on the inside. Our original prototype was a box made out of cardboard and we figured that a ovular or circular base would be better, we wanted a shape that would make it look more like a vase. We ended up choosing the shape of a cheese ball, plastic container and then decided to go over it in paper mache to really get the shape we wanted. After multiple layers of paper mache, we cut the holes in the side in case we went through with making it a working detector and then we started shaping the dragon heads and frogs using the shapes we had originally come up with while prototyping. This really ate up our time so we didn’t have enough to make it work but we decided to invest our remaining time into perfecting the look of our final product.
Based off everyone’s booths at exhibition, I would really like to visit Chicago or Germany. Chicago’s product was really cool and it seemed like they put a lot of effort into building their product. I’m really curious about the ferris wheel, especially since it was an invention that actually went to the World’s Fair in 1893l. They’re booth also looked really good in general and was really eye catching. Germany, in addition to having a really nice looking booth had done a lot of research beforehand and I know some of the members had a preexisting knowledge of Germany so I would like to hear the facts that they could provide. I also know that Germany, in any direction of time you went, had very bad things going on so I would like to see how they managed to perceive it as a positive country that people should move to.
I think our booth stood out quite a bit at exhibition because it had a theme and I’m really proud that my group members, specifically Elizabeth Tran, came up with the idea of a Chinese New Years theme. It was a really unique idea and we also handed out pamphlets that further explained the Chinese culture and our project.
I think exhibition went really well. I overheard a lot of people talking about how interesting it was and I know a lot of the teachers we convinced to come were really excited to bring their classes. I also knew a lot of people who showed up so it was a lot of fun to get to talk to them and teach them about what I had learned over the past few weeks. I really liked the competitive factor of the whole thing with the, “who can get the most people to move to your country?” type of thing. All in all, exhibition was really fun and it came together really well.