Week 4

 Friday: Last Friday, I learned how to change a tire. First I had to get the kit that comes with the car out. Then comes the most important part which is double-checking that the parking brake is on and putting a wedge under the back tire so it cannot roll accidentally. Then I took off the bolt caps and placed them on the floor of the car so they wouldn’t get lost. I then loosened the bolts slightly using a wrench. The trick to getting them loose when they are really tight is to step on the wrench with your foot to get enough force to loosen it. I then jacked up the car and then loosened the bolts until the tire could spin easily and placed them on the mat of the car. I then did the same thing in the opposite order and put the wheel back on. The best trick is to push your foot through the wrench when tightening it so that your foot doesn’t slip off of it.

Saturday: On Saturday, I learned how to play the guitar. I learned about what frets are and how to use them when playing from my dad. He also taught me that once you tune the first string on the guitar you can listen or feel when it is in tune with the note below it by playing the two strings at the same time. Afterward, I began to learn Fast Car by Tracy Chapman from a youtube video that I found online. I then went over to a friend's house and he helped me continue to work on the song. I found it difficult to coordinate the plucking and the playing at first but the shifting was the most difficult for me because after I had shifted I struggled to hit the right notes. I thought that this was a good beginner song because it teaches you how to pluck, shift, and move your fingers.

Sunday: On Sunday I learned how to put on and take off snow chains with the help of my Uncle. Getting the chains around the tire was not very difficult. However, once you get on the chains you have to connect them with an elastic cable which is very difficult to do. One thing that makes it easier to put them on is making the chains even along the outside of the tire. Taking them off is definitely much easier than putting them on.  I am glad that I didn’t have to learn in the snow because I can only imagine how frustrating that would be with your hand slipping while putting on the elastic part.

Monday: on Monday I learned how to power wash a sidewalk. Power washing is pretty easy to learn how to do. The biggest thing you have to worry about is using the right nozzle on your hose. This is important because, on softer materials like stone, the water can carve into the stone if the pressure is too high. The other thing you need to do is turn on the water before turning on the machine otherwise it will ruin the machine. A useful tip is to divide up the area that you are cleaning so you ensure you clean it all.

Tuesday: On Tuesday I performed a small outdoor concert at Catlin for the first time in a year in a half. While I played a piece earlier in the school year with the chamber group, it was nice to run through all of the songs that we had been working on for a full concert. Outside some issues, with the wind, the performance as a whole went well. My takeaway from this was that I definitely missed performing because rather than being nervous about messing up I was nervous because I was excited.

Wednesday: On Wednesday I attempted to hike the Wildwood trail in one day. My mom didn’t want me to go alone so she joined me. For the first 9 miles, we walked at the pace of 3 miles an hour but my mom's knee started hurting and we had to slow down and ended the hike at around mile 15 and exited using one of the fire lanes. I think that even though I didn’t finish I could probably do it. I think I would have to start earlier than I did because I probably wouldn’t be able to keep the pace of 3 miles an hour for the last 6-9 miles.

Thursday: On Thursday I learned how to watercolor paint. I tried to follow this video as a guide. I should have watched a video on basic mistakes first because I made three or four of them in my first attempt. My first mistake was that I didn’t tape the area of the paper I was painting causing issues with the paper raising up. I also did not know how to properly clean my brush causing some of the colors to mix a tiny bit. Another issue I had was I was getting too much water on the brush and it caused the paint to not settle on the paper properly. Here is my second attempt at painting. 

I think that the sky ended up better than I expected after I realized that the colors didn’t really match the video that I was using. I thought the trees that were smaller were good but it was very difficult to make the large tree leaves look good and have texture. I think that I also struggled with mixing the colors a fair amount in the sky but as I improved the lake's colors mixed much better. 

Reflection: I think that I did a good job of accomplishing my goals for this project. I organized my time well and planned out a rough idea of what was happening each week. I also thought that I did a good job of reflecting this week. However, I should have looked at beginner mistakes for watercolor painting because I had been doing that for some other activities/topics. I also thought I improved on my documentation this week and had more pictures this week than in previous weeks. I would recommend this project to someone else because you get to learn a lot of useful skills that will be very useful in the future. I would definitely recommend anyone learn how to change a tire and use snow chains because I wouldn’t want to learn it for the first time when it is necessary. It is also a great project because it is very flexible and people can change it to match their interests.