End of Project!

Well now that project is officially over I thought I would post one last blog to just conclude on it. These past two days Anna and I have had time to finish the project report and presentation, and we also took a few classes just because it was fun and to stay with our normal format of classes in the morning and working on the written parts in the afternoon. Making the presentation allowed me to reflect a little bit on my experiences and I realized that I am so glad that I chose this project.  Ultimately, thinking back on all the other things I had considered doing, I could not imagine doing anything besides my project.  I had fun and interesting days every day, while still learning important aspects of health and wellness, which I had not known before. Our booklets turned out very well, and they look just like we wanted them to, bright and fun with bursts of color. Although because we only had 16 pages we could not do everything we had envisioned, but still covers a lot of topics and is rather informative. I had so much fun on project, and hope all of you did as well.  See all of you tomorrow at senior breakfast!   

Lantern Court

Over the last three and a half weeks I have been working at Lantern Court in the Holden Arboretum. Lantern court is an extension of the arboretum that includes a mansion and several gardens. During this time I worked with Julia, the horticulturist in charge of Lantern Court. This week I weeded in several flower beds. The most difficult part of weeding is making sure that you get the entire root system out, otherwise it will grow back in a short amount of time. After that I cut back some flower bulbs that were finished blooming. This cleaned up the beds and made the flowers go dormant so they did not die before blooming again. I weed-whacked around the edge of the beds, then put mulch down to finish it off. When mulching, it is best to put down a layer an inch or two thick, and it is important that the mulch does not come up against the base or cover any part of the plants. This will cause the plant rot away and can eventually kill it. The next day we planted lavender and shasta daisies in the sundial beds. When planting small things such as these, you need to dig a hole that is slightly larger than the pot that the plant is in. After you put the plant in the hole, you fill in any spaces with the soil you dug up, and pack it loosely but firmly. Any excess soil can be distributed around the bed until it looks neat and even.

Snow

ok so last thursday i was asked to groom a dog named snow in holding. So i went to get her and when i get there i am surprised to find a huskey with a lot of white fur. The name fit perfectly. I felt bad for her because thursday was really hot and theres nothing anyone can do to help her. I groomed her for two hours and even after that she looked the same as before. This lady that works there said something about polar bear fur and how it doesn't dry for weeks after it gets wet...we'll see about that! Polar bears don't live in ohio with hot humid weather. And plus she probably enjoyed the cool water. I brushed her outside so all of her fur could be used by the birds. (that might sound weird but i used to do it with my dog and they do use it for their nests.) The fur was everywhere. It literally looked like a cotton field. But after a while i got tired and went inside and another lady that works there gave me a cool brush that some how gets the dogs undercoat. It had a button that pushed the fur out into the garbage can too. They only use that brush on certain dogs that have a lot of fur so it was in a special place. But apart from that the office people havent had anything for me to help them with this week so i was mainly playing with animals.

post 12

Jim has been working on redoing the manual fort the Nexsim program. One of the issues is that the simulated pilots give varied responses to the same instructions. There is a dialogue box at the ground pseudo pilot position that gives the response that the pilot would give after receiving instructions from ground control. To keep things interesting, the dialogue box may say “okay, pushback at our discretion SWA123” or “SWA123 push at our discretion.” The fact that there are different responses is an issue because the manual only gives one example, so it could be seen as confusing because it could seem like you are getting the wrong response. Although there are other issues with the manual, this is the main thing that Jim is trying to resolve by making the manual clearer.

post 11

This past week, Pat and I have been testing the newest version of the Nexsim software, 1.60.4. This involves testing all of the functions on the academy airport scenario in order to make sure that the updated code didn’t change something that it shouldn’t have. In 1.60.4 there still seem to be issues with the “follow” command and with bringing air craft out of an “all stop,” but these issues will be corrected in a later version of the software. We have also been testing a scenario in which there are crash trucks located in a garage at the airport. The trucks can be put on alert and directed to a specific runway, as well as to a specific airplane. The trucks can follow a plane that is taxiing to a runway or a plane that is taxiing to a ramp. For example, if one wanted to simulate an emergency landing, ground control could call for an all stop and then send the trucks out to the runway on which the distressed plane will land. Once the plane lands, the trucks can follow the plane all the way back to the ramp in order to make sure the situation is under control.

Last Friday of Project

Yesterday, Anna and I officially finished the booklet! The cover is complete and looks pretty much how we wanted it and the pages are being printed.  We actually had a misunderstanding with our sponsor and it turned out that the way we had arranged the pages was not right and everything was shifted a page over.  However, while it seems like a simple solution it was quite the opposite. It involved having to re-lay it out to figure out which pages should be printed together and so forth. Eventually we were able to lay the pages out correctly.  Unfortunately, in the morning we had layed out the pages in what we thought was the right order, we put fun page numbers at the bottom of the page (which was a huge pain to line them all up), and ended up having to redo everything. It was kind of frustrating but at least the booklet will look better.  Also due to all of the moving of the pages, the fun page numbers we had made became way to hard to deal with so now they are just normal at the bottom, but it is all good. Thankfully when we printed the pages to see how it looked color-wise it was just what we had wanted! I can’t believe projects are almost over though.  Hope everyone has a great last 2 days of project!

Shadowing Another Product Manager

Yesterday, I spent my day shadowing Rebekah who is the product manager for accessories (bags, belts, filters and tool accessory kits). I really enjoyed my day with her. It was very informative and I think I am leaning more towards product marketing than brand marketing. We started off down in the Home Depot plannagram room setting up for a pitch to the Home Depot rep that is coming on Tuesday. She explained to me the line of products she was pitching and the different steps and phases she went through to get the line of products ready to go. This certain line of products is already in Canadian Tire stores (Canada's version of Costco) and they are now pitching it to Home Depot and hopefully Target soon.
She then took me on a tour of the labs on the first floor of the building. These were very cool to see. They had air quality testing, product quality testing, sound testing, motor testing, and a few other labs. They also had workshops where non-working prototypes were made. The sales team uses these as a real 3D models that they pitch to buyers to see if they are interested in carrying this new product. They also have workshops that make working models. They make a few working models of each design without molds for testing purposes. The working model then goes to the testing labs and they make sure that its up to spec. Then the model is ready for mass production and steel molds are made and mass production begins in China. It was very cool to see the inner workings of product conception and development.
In the afternoon she gave me the task of some research while she got ready for her pitch to the Home Depot reps. I researched the different tool accessory kits (attachments that connect to the vacuum hose) competing brands were offering and made a PowerPoint slide of them. I included pictures of the kits, their price, a description of what was in them, and their negatives and positives. Rebekah will use this information in the pitch to the company about why launching tool accessory kits will be a profitable idea. They already have one line ready to launch this August but in order to get more funding she must make a presentation including information about the market segment, the margin for growth in the market, and the competing products currently in the market. The company will review her presentation and report and decide whether or not to put a lot of money into launching a line of tool accessory kits.
Overall I had a very interesting and exciting day with Rebekah, probably one of the most enjoyable days I've had while on project. I really wish I had gotten to spend more of my project working with Rebekah and the other product managers because I think that's something that I might want to do after college.

Circus Circus

Today was the last busy day before the Memorial Day holiday. This is because the fastest way the company ships is 2 day shipping and a shipment leaving today would arrive at its destination Friday, the last business day before the holiday. There was a situation today where an order was going to circus circus , a hotel in Las Vegas. The hotel is set up like a circus with a big tent and carnival games inside. They get most of their toys straight from the factories in China so there is no middleman like Classic Toy so they get the toys really cheap. But, for variety they get some from Classic Toy. There were supposed to be 128 pieces of the Rasta Banana going to Circus Circus, but the warehouse in LA only had 96 available as 32 were going to a small, local Mexican fair. Since Circus Circus is the much bigger and more profitable customer they diverted the 32 bananas from the Mexican fair to Circus Circus. They lose a small customer, but prevent disappointing a larger one.

Last Day of Workout Classes

Today was officially our last days of classes/working out that can be included in the booklet.  Since our booklet is done, we no longer have a need to workout because the information cannot go in the book. However, even though it was the last day we are taking classes, Anna and I are going to continue to go to Zumba classes on Thursday mornings because Zumba class is really fun.  We included some recipes in the booklet in our food/nutrition information section, so today we decided we would try some of them to make sure that they were edible so we wouldn’t print a gross recipe. So after working out we made a lunch consisting of the recipes from our booklet, and it was really good. I definitely liked the mango smoothie the best out of everything we made.  Also, since Cathy is now back in town we met with her to have her look over what we have been doing without her.  We actually have done a lot without her in town because we needed to; even though she was not here we still had to stay on schedule with the layout of the booklet so that it can get printed. I hope the booklet prints the same as it looks on the computer screen though.  

Wednesday

On Wednesday Anna and I took two classes in a row, which was really hard.  I was so incredibly tired for the second class that I did not like it as much.  We had actually taken the second class, Muscle Madness, before but at 6 in the morning and with a different teacher.  Even though the class was at six in the morning, I liked the first version of Muscle Madness we took; the music, workout, and teacher were all much more enjoyable.  Then we went straight to work on the booklet because we needed it to be completely finished for today.  Our sponsor had been out of town until today, and to get her opinion on the booklet, get it printed, and get it ready by next week we needed it to be done.  Thankfully after a long day of working on the booklet and the design and information and organization we FINISHED (well except the cover and back cover)! It was so exciting, and even though we still have the cover and back cover to do, the main part of the booklet is done.  It took a lot longer than I thought it was going to, but it is very relieving to actually be done with the writing for it.   

Helping in the Classroms

The past few days, I have worked a lot in the various classrooms of CLA, doing whatever I could to help the teacher. The way the school is set up, the students are assigned to a crew (a homeroom or admod) and go to all classes with the crew similar to what we did in middle school. They then have a partner crew, which is right across the hall, and these two crews share teachers. So, for the four main subjects, the students have two teachers. The math teachers also teach science and the english teachers also teach social studies. So the students go to their 4 core classes a day, but only see 2 teachers. What is interesting, is that the history and english classes are very aligned, for example: when the students were learning about Ancient Egypt in social studies, they were reading myths and other stories pertaining to Egypt in english. The math and sciences are a little more distinct, working on different projects at different times. Currently, in math, the students are creating a mini society, where they have created a currency and trade policies and will begin to learn about the financial aspect of a society. In science, the students are devoting all of their time to the community garden that they are building. All science classes venture out into the courtyard where they continue the hard work of building the flower beads and compost bin. It is remarkable that the students were able to completely design and think through the process of creating a garden of their own that they will use to produce vegetables for the community.

Exciting Meeting and Shadowing Ronnie from Jersey Shore

Today I attended a brief meeting in the morning with my sponsor on POP's for upcoming products. This meeting was especially exciting because the meeting was based off of the research I had done a few weeks ago. The first week of project I went to retailers (Walmart, Best Buy, Home Depot, etc) that sell Hoover products and took pictures of competing brand's POPs (Point of Purchase, the decals on the product that make claims) Brian had told me what a good job I had done on this project, but the real gratification came today during the meeting. The meeting was with a few high-up people in the finance, sales, and creative departments. Brian and his creative team used the book of POPs I compiled as leverage for Hoover spending more on POP creation and production. I know that the work I am doing for the company is very menial in difficulty but it felt really cool to see the affect of my report.

For the rest of the day I shadowed, Gino, the product manager of the wet division(carpet washers, carpet washing solutions, steam mops, and air purification systems). He is a very nice guy that is very good at his job and also happens to look like he walked straight off the set of Jersey Shore. He's very tan, extremely muscular, and super Italian. But regardless of him looking identical to Ronnie, we had a good day. He started off by taking me down to the plannagram room and showing me the different SKUs he manages in each of their big accounts (Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc). He told me about the products, their features, how well they're selling compared to competition, and his role in managing and promoting them. We then went to two meetings. The first was just a logistical meeting with the creative director and the creative director's traffic controller. The system that was in place for people to request art work and images from the creative department was not efficient or effective so they just hired a traffic controller whose job is to develop a better system. The meeting I sat in on was to lay out what jobs Gino currently needed the creative team to complete for him. The creative team was going to use this to update the totally bogged down system. The next meeting I went to was with an engineer. Gino and him were discussing products that one of their Canadian retailers wanted to remanufacture and resell. For this to happen, Hoover has to issue reman boxes with different artwork and sometimes different manuals that encompass several similar SKUs. They were discussing which SKUs it would be profitable to execute a reman for and which to deny from the retailer.

Printing, Printing and More Printing

I've been very busy over the past few days, so this blog post should have been made a little while ago so to catch up....

I spent most of last week and the first few days of this week working on the Internet Accounts report that I mentioned in my last post. This involved printing the home page, privacy policy, customer service information, return policy, and the results from searching the term "hoover" from 214 different websites applying to maintain the legal rights to sell Hoover products online. This project was extremely time consuming and took up and ENORMOUS amount of paper. I temporarily moved my cubicle to the copy center where I printed out a small forest's worth of paper. Although the project was not all that fun I did get a chance to meet a lot of new people while in the copy center. That copy center houses the main printers, faxers, laminators, automatic hole punchers, and binding machines (all of which I am now expert at using) for the non-creative marketing department, the finance department and the sales department. It was interesting to get to talk to all of the different people who walk through there on a daily basis. When I finally finished the project, I had seven 4" three ring binders to turn in to my sponsor. It felt really good to be finally done with that project, and to not have to announce at another morning logistical meeting that I will be spending my day working on the Internet Account reports. It also feels good to know that that report will influence which online dealers (both for commercial and consumer) Hoover will allow to sell their products.

Finishing the Hawken Farm

We made tremendous progress in the last few days on the Hawken Farm. With the finishing touches completed on the chicken coop, we have finally shifted focus completely to the garden. Mr. Wilson brought a truck bed full of compost for us to spread across the beds to provide nutrients for the soil. The initial compost spread across roughly half of the beds, enough to start planting.

We had to move a patch of onions that was growing next to the peas before project even started because the two do not grow well together (companion planting, yo.) Instead, I moved the onions to the first two beds where I introduced tomatos as well. These plants have a synergistic effect on each other. Ms. Clark and Liam had started seeds of tomato, eggplant, and hot pepper, in planters which had now sprouted. We took the crates of these sprouts and transplanted them into the beds. I combined the eggplants with the hot peppers because hot peppers keep aphids and other pests that attack eggplant away.

The next day, Nate and I went to buy irrigation supplies to provide water to our beds. We bought 500' of hose and a 4 way spicket adapter to turn the standard tap on the side of our garden into designated irrigation pump. We brought the hose back to the garden and connected it to the tap and winded it around the garden, making sure that it covered every part of each bed. We then drilled small holes into the hose and capped the ends. When we turned the water on, the hoses filled with pressure and water sprinkled out of every hole we drilled. The irrigation system worked.

Mr. Wilson then came back with another truckload of compost which was spread across the rest of the garden. The hose that crossed over pathways was buried.

The entire farm is almost finished. We have to construct several raised beds and spread wood chips across the paths on top of the preexisting cardboard. Hawken Middle Schoolers are coming up to help us out on Friday. We are going to have them help us plant the rest of the beds and haul bricks for final touches on the pathways. Besides that, the farm is finished.

post 10

On Tuesday May 15th I went to breakfast with Par and Jim. This instance was mainly meant to be fun, to enjoy good food before going in to work, but I heard Pat, Jim and Gary talk about meeting other places in order to discuss major projects. A lot of times they go to a bar in order to figure out a schedule for whatever project they need to work on and to get organized. It seems that having meetings in other places helps them to stay focused, while still giving them a change of pace from their work in the office. I would imagine that being in more of laid back atmosphere would help them to “think outside the box” and that a lot of good ideas are thought up in casual situations like these. This laid back situation at the CSC lab OAI is probably the result of the three people in the lab being good friends. I learned from this that when the people don’t just work well together, but are actually friends, a lot can be accomplished and work can actually be enjoyable.

post 9

Pat also taught me about runway names and how the names are chosen. Each runway is given a number from 1-36. The number is determined by the heading that the plane would fly in order to land on that runway. East is a heading of 090, south is a heading of 180, west is a heading of 270, and north is a heading of 360. For example, at the Academy Airport (the made up airport designed to teach students air traffic control), the runways are labeled 28 and 10. This is because runways are on such an angle compared to north that they would fly a heading of 280 in order to land on runway 28 and would fly a heading of 100 in order to land on runway 10 (drop the last zero off the end of the heading to the name of the runway). The name of the runway changes depending on which direction the plane will be moving on that runway. At the Academy Airport, planes landing traveling east would land on runway 10, while planes landing going west would land on runway 28 (even though it is the same runway, it is called either runway 10 or runway 28 depending on which way the planes are going). It is not the other way around because the planes that are landing on the east side of the runway are travelling west at a heading of 280, so the east side is labeled 28 rather than 10. So, if you have a runway, you either add or subtract 180 from it in order to get the name of the runway for going the opposite direction. If there are multiple runways at the same angle, they are labeled “R”, “L”, or “C” for right, left, or center runways. For example, the Academy Airport has two 28 runways (and therefore two 10 runways), so these runways are labeled 28R and 28L for 28 Right and 28 Left.

Balance

This morning I did a Pilates class.  Basically what I took away from the class was that I arguably have some of the worst balance ever.  The teacher of the class was flowing from move to move seeming somewhat effortlessly and looked so stable in each position. Meanwhile, Anna and I would be looking at each other as we struggled to stay balanced in each pose. Pilates was actually somewhat similar to the yoga class we went to this weekend, but harder and more intense because it was faster paced. I think what I decided from this class though is that Pilates is a good and can be a fun class and I do want to go back. Even though I was not very good at Pilates my first time I want to try it again because it seems like as you keep going it will progressively get easier.  I also hope that if I keep going to Pilates, eventually my balance will improve. Then in the afternoon we began designing some more pages and writing the body of a section in the booklet. In the middle of designing a page, we realized that we had designed the pages we did last week wrong.  The page size is smaller than normal 8.5 by 11, and they needed to fit on 5 by 7.75.  However, we forgot that for the other pages so we had to basically redo all the boxes we did last week and reorganize them to make them fit on the necessary page size.  However, based on our progress, I truly believe that we will finish the booklet on time, which was our sponsor’s worry last week.

Shawty, We gon' party like it's yo birthday

Today was another good day at the factory. Barbara, the receptionist, was celebrating her (age redacted) birthday. So, the other office staff had gotten her a strawberry cake and brownies to celebrate.  We put candles on the cake and the brownies. Then Djako called her into his office, where we all were. We then serenaded her with the birthday song and ate the cake and brownies. Mr. Feuer and I then returned to his office, where imparted some wisdom upon me. Anyway, he explained that they try to introduce about 50 new families of toys a year. That is, one type of toy, for example a frog, in varying sizes. As the sizes go up, so does the price. Usually, about half of the styles pan out and are profitable. However, the other half fail and end up in the closeout section of the catalog. One gripe Mr. Feuer has is that the people who are in charge of buying the stuffed toys at the various amusement parks and fairs often change. Since this business is all about relationships, you lose the relationships you had made with those people, which caused them to buy from you more. When a new person comes in, you have to start again from square one and build a new relationship. But, by the time they have really come to trust you, they are replaced. It is a vicious cycle. Mr. Feuer says that the company has lost about 10 percent of its business over the past 2 years, due to a rash of changes in staff at these companies.

Mix Up

An interesting problem came up at the factory today. There were two orders for the same customer going to different places. One was going to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey and the other was going to Six Flags Great America in Illinois. The shipment going to New Jersey was on Fed Ex and teh shipment going to Illinois was on UPS. The supervisor at the loading docks had to leave early from work to go to a doctor's appointment. Thus, he left the employees under him in charge, who are much younger, inexperienced, and less industrious. As the UPS Driver is crossing Indiana and he stops, he noticed that the boxes from Classic Toy have Fed Ex labels. Uh oh. The workers at the loading dock had accidentally switched the boxes. They loaded the Fed Ex boxes on to the UPS truck and the UPS boxes on to the Fed Ex truck. Both trucks were headed in the opposite direction that the boxes needed to go and the boxes were on the wrong trucks. The UPS driver, very angry, called Mr. Feuer to tell him the situation and headed back to Cleveland. Mr. Feuer then called the Fed Ex driver and told him to turn back. This whole episode left Six Flags, Fed Ex, and UPS angry at Classic Toy and Mr. Feuer, which hurts business. They all lose time and money in this process.  It also left Mr. Feuer disappointed in his employees, and the supervisor exasperated with his underlings. Mr. Feuer lamented, "Young people these days want a job and to get paid, but they don't really want to work that hard."

Picture Time

Today Anna and I worked out in the morning; we did a class called Urban Warrior.  It actually wasn’t that bad, it was at least better than the description sounded.  It was basically cardio kickboxing without the big bag.  There was a lot of jumping and running around too.  Then in the afternoon we met with our sponsor, Cathy, to begin working on the image for the cover of our booklet.  We decided we wanted to spell out the title of our booklet using pictures of ourselves as the letters.  So today we took the pictures for that.  Making letters using a body is actually complicated and it took multiple tries for us to get the pictures looking like the letters.  The hardest letter to make was definitely the “O” but eventually we figured it out.   However, we still had more time so we actually were able to begin learning how to make the images into a silhouette so that they would look kind of like the images on the itunes gift card (with the bright background and the persons outline filled in with black) or something similar.  So we learned how to use Photoshop to silhouette the images so that the person was in black and the background was the color of the background for the cover.  

Post 8

Here are some of the things that I learned while working at OAI. I learned that there are 21 ATCCs (air traffic control centers) in the continental United States that control the planes when they are at high altitude going from airport to airport. All of the ATCCs are connected, so when a plane goes from one ATCC’s airspace to another, the center that the plane is leaving will hand off control of the plane to the center that the plane is entering. In the en route system (the radar system that the ATCC uses), planes can either be IFR or VFR. Under IFR, the ATCC is directing the plane where to go and the plane must follow this exact plan. Under VFR, the ATCC simply provides advisories to the plane about routes to take, the ATCC does not control the plane. Something interesting that I learned about is how planes fly overseas. The path that planes take from the US to Europe is a “one way street” so to speak. Since there is no radar over the ocean, they only have planes flying one direction at a time since they don’t know where the other planes are. It switches back and forth between traffic going from the US to Europe and traffic going from Europe to the US.

Post 7

One day, Pat gave me a brief lesson on how the whole airtraffic control system works. Starting from the ground, the planes are under the control of the tower at the airport. The tower’s tasks include the following: 1. Issuing clearance to the flight 2. Telling the plane the path to take to taxi to the runway 3. Clears the plane for takeoff After takeoff, the planes contact departure control. TRACON (terminal Radar) is a short range radar system that is used to control the approach and departure of planes. TRACON controls the following: 4. Identifying the aircraft and putting it on its route to its destination 5. Approach control is normally responsible for a 40 mile radius around the airport and up to 10-13 thousand feet about the airport 6. When the plane reaches the boundary of terminal airspace, approach control hands off control to the air traffic control center (ATCC) Once the approach control hands off to the ATCC, the ATCC does the following: 7. Provides service until the plane reaches the destination airport terminal After all of this, the reverse happens, the ATCC hands off to the approach control of the destination. Approach vectors the plane in for a landing. The tower deals with clearing the plane for landing and taxiing the plane to the correct terminal.

Poopy Puppies

So today my advisor visited the APL. It wasn't that interesting because we mainly just walked around and i told him what everything was. He didn't realize how many animals they'd have...it doesn't look like they have a lot of space for them though so its ok. With all of the stray cats and dogs out there, there should be more. But the APL doesn't take strays, they only fix them. Part of their mission is to reduce the amount of strays by fixing animals people catch in their neighborhoods and charging $10 for it. Don't get the idea that you can take your cat there and get it fixed for ten bucks... because you can't. That is only for people that are helping the APL by bringing in cats that aren't their own. You can get your cat fixed at a higher price but its probably still lower than your normal vet's price. So today after i showed my advisor around i cleaned the turf fields in the back that the dogs play in. These fields are great because if you have a really high energy dog, that you just took for a walk and is still not tired and ready to go in, you can play with them in there. The two play areas are turf so it has a drainage system that is perfect for keeping those fields nice after a bunch of dogs use it. So i cleaned those with trifectant, which is a cleaning solution meant for animals' things. After that i gave baths to four little puppies. They were all boys and they were REALLY poopy. It was really gross and really cute at the same time. The puppies were so small and fuzzy, the only bad thing was they smelled terrible. So i had to bath them and move them to the adoption floor. After i gave the first one a bath i put it in its nice clean kennel and went to do the next. When i finished the 2nd puppy i went to put him in the cage with the other one and when i get there the 1st puppy is sitting in its poop! Lets remember these puppies were just in a cage that was filled with their poop, it was even on the walls. I will admit i was mad, only because i had to clean a poopy puppy a second time. So if anyone is looking for a cute puppy that poops a lot go to the APL. And then later on i met a ginger kitten that had two extra toes on his front paws. It legit looked like he had human thumbs. It was so cute. I guess there is a guy that comes to the APL looking for cats specifically with this trait. I thought that was funny. Thats all.

KC's Visit

So, today the esteemed Kenneth Clark of Mentor, Ohio visited me at the factory. Barbara, the receptionist, paged Mr. Feuer, telling him, "Ira, there's a man who says he's here to check up on Jonathan."  I left Mr. Feuer's office and as I was walking out, I saw Mr. Clark. We greeted each other, and then Mr. Clark had a conversation with Mr. Feuer about his children, whom Mr. Clark had taught years earlier. I then took Mr. Clark to my office. It is not really my office, it is the office of the designer, who is in China, visiting the factories there along with Mr. Feuer's partner, Mr. Abrams. So, I get to have his office while he is gone. I show Mr. Clark the shipment of toys I have been tracking. It is headed from here to Dillsboro, in southeastern Indiana, for a Homecoming festival. It is being shipped on UPS, and went through Mansfield and Richfield on its way to Cincinnati, where UPS has a major distribution center. It is currently waiting in Cincinnati, waiting to be trucked across the border into Indiana. I then show Mr. Clark the order form for this shipment, where the order was originally taken. Then, the packing list which shows what is being shipped. Next I show him the synthesis of a chihuahua stuffed animal, from the original concept, to a prototype, and then the picture of it in the catalog. It was originally named Cheech, but that was too suggestive. So it was renamed Chico. Then I took Mr. Clark on a tour of the showroom where he marveled at the vast array of stuffed toys. Marlee, the Rastafarian penguin caught his eye, and I showed him Chico, the chihuahua in real life. Next, I showed him how a toy gets stuffed, though a  hole near the leg usually. Mr. Clark then left satisfied, with a few "samples" for his kids.

Helping with the community garden

The past few days, some students and I have continued to prepare the garden. The garden is located in the courtyard of the school, surrounded on all 4 sides by classrooms. The plan is to have 6 raised flower beds, that contain both aesthetically pleasing plants and vegetables that are practical to eat. The students also created plans to create a compost bin, and they will use the recently decomposed matter to help fertilize and sustain their garden. The hardest part so far, has been bringing the 30+ pound cinder blocks through the building and into the courtyard, where they will line the gardens and support the compost bin. As you can imagine, carrying these blocks by hand may not have been the best idea. Just picture very small and skinny 6th graders, trying their hardest to walk 100 yards with the blocks. They have a look of pain and determination, as they labor through the halls. Unfortunately, as one might imagine, things went downhill quickly when one girl dropped a brick on her foot; and she broke one of the bones in her foot. Luckily, the teachers quickly treated her and took her across the street to the Clinic where she was put in a cast and taken care of. That's all the news on the garden and I'll update you as more happens.

The hawks, the raccoon..I'd like to just have chickens.

So I know being a Hawken Hawk, I'm suppose to love and believe the Hawk is the best mascot possible. I've come to hate Hawks this week. On Saturday, when I went to go tuck the chickens in for bed, Tater (a black and white chick), was all bloody and had his tail bitten off. I'm 90% sure it was one of those hawks that circles above the coop everyday and makes its intimidating cry. So, to keep that mean bird out from the babies, we built a "hawk net" on top of the coop. It keeps out the hawks, and makes me less worried about them all the time.

I was sent to Costco on Monday to find as many boxes as possible. We are using cardboard to line the paths in our garden and the perimeter of the garden. On top of the cardboard we are putting wood chips down, both which will help prevent and keep weeds from growing. 

Yesterday, Mr. Wilson had Stuart and I create a bucket with holes in the bottom to hold a piece of roadkill. He insists that this is great source of protein for the chickens, because as it decomposes it attracts bugs and then the birds eat the bugs. I'd rather just cook them eggs in the morning then have to deal with that smelly mess. Regardless, Stuart and I found a huge dead, bleeding out of the mouth raccoon on Sherman road. Below is a video for proof. I refuse to put that bucket near my chickens...there is no way that is healthy, or safe.

Today Stuart and I, before our AP Statistics exam at noon, put in all new fencing around the chicken coop and run. It looks amazing, and we put in a nice gate that opens and closes for easy access. I thought I'd end my blog for the day by showing a picture of the chicks. Tonight when I went to tuck them in (I have to let them out of their coop at dawn and lock them back up at dusk) they were all already in their coop, ready for bed. It's interesting to watch how chickens have personalities and like to have a structure and schedule to their life. 

May 15

Today Anna and I did both boxing with a trainer and GX Fit Camp at Urban Active. I had always wanted to do kickboxing or boxing at some point.  Unfortunately, the kickboxing class at Urban Active, called Turbo Kick, is at night at a very inconvenient time because of other commitments, Anna plays softball and I swim.  This means that we cannot do the class right now. We had one of the trainers help us because they have the equipment in their office and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be.  I mean, it was fun and I enjoyed it, but suffice it to say it was definitely a good workout.  Then about 15 minutes after we were done we did this class called GX Fit Camp, which was rather boring. To me, the class was not as fun or effective as a lot of the other ones that Urban Active offers.  I don’t know if it was because I was so tired from before, or I really didn’t like the music that they were playing, or what, but I just did not enjoy it.  But it is okay because you don’t have to enjoy everything.  It was great to hear about everyone’s projects today at Hawken, they all sound like fun!   

Last Friday Night (TGIF)

 Mr. Feuer talked more about the challenges of running a stuffed toy business in today’s economy. He said in the last few years, since the economy is weaker then
it used to be, his business definitely been hurt. As he puts, when people go to the amusement park, which is the type of venue to which he sells most of his toys, people have a hierarchy of things they will spend money on. When the economy was better in the 90s, people weren’t as worried about how much they were spending. Now, however, they must prioritize. First they go on rides, since that is why the came to the park in the first place. Then comes food, since they have to eat. Last is always playing the crazy carnival games which are unbearably overpriced. It might cost five dollars to play a game where you try to bounce a ball into a bucket, and you might only win 20 percent of the time. What you win is probably only a small stuffed animal, that cost the amusement park a dollar. Thus, when the economy gets hurt, less people go to amusement parks and try to spend the least amount they can, which is often just rides a little food, maybe a carnival game or two, which doesn’t leave much room for stuffed animals. 




PS: Get the title? 

post 6

Last Friday, I was driving from the Aerospace Institute to Hawken for track practice when I noticed something that I thought was amazing. One part of the simulation that they have the OAI is known as TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control). In TRACON, you work to vector planes and get them set up to approach the runway, guiding them so that they are lined up with the runway, going the correct speed, and are flying at the correct altitude. It is important to keep the planes at least 3 miles apart when they are approaching the runway and that they are separated by at least 1000 feet vertically. When it is done correctly one should have all of the planes lined up several miles away from the airport travelling about 200 knots at 3000ft with 3 miles in between each plane that is in line to land. If there are large gaps between planes, some planes will make a turn in order to fill in these gaps rather than getting in the back of the line. When going from OAI to Hawken, I travel on 480 and go right past the airport, so I often get to see planes coming in for a landing as I am driving. It was a very clear day on Friday, barely a cloud in the sky, so I was able to see planes lined up for their approach to Cleveland Hopkins. I saw two that looked to be pretty close to each other, and thought to myself “I wonder if they are 3 miles apart and/or 1000 feet vertically separated.” I also noticed a few planes maneuvering their way into line, turning in order to get in between two other planes. I thought that it was really cool to witness something on my drive to Hawken that was so relevant to what I am doing for my senior project.

post 5

I have also learned a lot from my sponsor, Gary Klingler. One day, he talked to me about the type of people he liked to work with. He explained a little about himself to me, talking about how he worked 40 hours per week while attending the University of Michigan. When he started his job working in air traffic control, he noticed how the stress of being an air traffic controller took a toll on people. He decided that he was going to work hard in order to work his way up to management as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t be stuck at a low level job until he retired. He worked his way up the food chain through hard work and determination. He told me that when he was looking for people to hire after CSC bought Nexsim (the company that Gary started), he chose people who were similar to him- people who have a good work ethic. He chose Pat and Jim because he knew both of them and knew that they would work hard for him. Gary explained that if you gave them an hour for lunch, they would both be back in 45 minutes. They would always get their work done as soon as possible and would work hard until they got it done. I learned from Gary that being hard working is one of the most important qualities that you can have if you want to be hired for any position.

post 4

Between three AP tests and two track meets I have not been keeping up with my blogging, so I am just going to post several blog entries in a row to get caught up. I have learned a lot from the people that I have been working with at the Aerospace Institute. One day, Pat was on the phone with some working in the CSC office in Rockville Maryland. The phone was on speaker, so I could hear the whole conversation. The Person from the other office mentioned that he had changed one of the programs for the simulations, that he had made something simpler and easier to use. However, the whole point of the simulation is to train air traffic controllers, and this short cut that was added did not exist in the real world. Pat told the man that he appreciated his work, but he should change the program back to the way it was so that it would still be realistic. Afterward, Pat explained to me that there were several ways that he could have handled the situation. He could have gotten angry and said something along the lines of: “you idiot! What were you thinking? Change it back!” He could have just said nothing and then had someone else fix the problem behind the guy’s back. Or, he could have said done what he did and calmly explained to the person what he did wrong and why it was wrong so that he could learn from his mistake without having his feelings hurt from being yelled at. Pat explained that this was usually the best way to handle situations like this.

Internet Accounts Report

Hoover recently acquired the legal rights to control which online accounts are selling Hoover products. Now each website must apply for these rights and Hoover has to go through the applicants and decide which ones to approve and which to deny. Brian and a member of his marketing team have come up with a set of criteria to approve and deny the accounts. They have begun to whittle down the list based on criteria like if the website has a privacy policy, if they have a customer service number, if they have a return policy, and a few other things. My most recent project is to create a report containing criteria about each applicant that passed the first round of approval. I have to go to each URL and print out their homepage, their privacy policy, their customer service page, their return policy, and the list of results for the search term "hoover". There are about 200 accounts that I have to do this for, so it will probably take me the better part of this week to complete. After I finish the report it will be given to higher up people at Hoover, who will ultimately decide which accounts they will approve for the online selling of Hoover products.

End of Week Update (5/11/2012)

So the chicken coop took a bit longer than expected. The amount of hardware and roofing that we had to fasten to the coop prevented its completion last week. But by Thursday (5/10/2012), the chickens had a finished home and spent their first night there.

Allie and I threw down cardboard to create paths and mark out future beds. We went for a very aesthetic look with natural curves, and even a little keyhole area for some chairs and a table in the back for people to enjoy the view of the garden.

I began to draw up new sketches for the garden as I eased into my focus for the project. I am currently reading several books on permaculture, which is the concept to create a garden that mimics the biodiversity of nature to yield more robust crops. The ultimate goal is to take what I have learned about permaculture to create a low-matainence, high-yield garden for Hawken.

To keep track of all of my research, I have been experimenting with a new type of notetaking called mind-mapping. When you create a mind-map, you start off with the central idea and literally draw lines that branch off from the central idea and provide detail. Mind maps allow you to make connections that conventional notetaking generally lacks due to the graphic nature of these alternative notes.

Example of mind-mapping

From these notes, I can now easily create Prezi presentations that will be used to teach permaculture to future students and farmhands.

OK so this past week was mostly about the Q104 radiothon that is being hosted at the APL yesterday and today. All week i've been helping with the set up and decorating for this event. The decorating was the most fun out of all the tasks i've done for them. They had me make glittery music notes to decorate the walls. I also made signs that had lines from songs on them and we hung old records and the cases on the walls. It looks really cute! But more importantly are the animals i met this week. The first would be a puppy shar pei. His name was Mr. Puff n Stuff because he was so fluffy and cute. I got to give him a bath and it was THE cutest thing ever. The picture that should be to the right is of a puppy shr pei that looks exactly like him. Then i met a cat that has crazy eyes! I was walking by his cage one day and i looked up and saw him watching me with his eyes wide open and he followed me with his head when i walked by. It was the funniest thing ever. I got a picture with my friends camera so i can post his pic later next week. Then you will know what i'm talking about. I also met a cat that has the fluffiest hair i've ever seen. I've never seen a cat like this in my whole life and i've seen a lot of cats. If you can picture a miniature sheep with a cat head than you can picture what he looks like. I also have a picture of him too. Then i met another dog, her name is rhapsody and she is the sweetest dog ever. People know she is sweet too because she was the most walked dog in the entire kennel yesterday and that means a lot in part of the dog. If you go on the APL website you will see how pretty she is. So many people made comments about how pretty she is yesterday and its true, she is the prettiest dog in the kennel and she is probably going to get adopted today. And the last thing im going to talk about is Ozzie the office cat. There are a bunch of offices that connect to one room near the front of the APL and Ozzie lives in there. He lives there all the time. The APL adopted him! Isn't that funny. But whenever i work in there he always comes to sit next to me and "supervises" what i'm doing. He is kinda fat so the APL treats him well, but he's got the prettiest blue eyes. I go in to the office everyday to see him even if im not doing anything in there that day. He's so great.

At last, the chickens move in day!

This is what the garden looked like previous to working on it. 

The Garden has made substantial progress, starting off with a slow start and finishing strong. I didn’t think anything was going to be accomplished this week at the rate we started; but we finished strong. It’s funny the mixture of people we have in our group. Nate and Stuart were consistently quarreling over aesthetics and how the wood should be cut for the coop, but they survived. I don’t think we could have done it without the help of Liam, he mediates the group; however, he himself doesn’t actually know how to build anything. It all works out perfectly. I’ve taken on the role as mother chick raiser. I’d like to just spent the day taking care of my chickens, but Mr. Wilson doesn’t like that very much. 

Stuart and I worked to mark out the pathways and land for the garden. We are doing a complete renovation on the garden, taking a permaculture approach. In the garden, earlier this season, a group of kids, Ms. Clark, and I worked to set up and prepare for the growing season. Thus far, the only plants that managed to do well were our four rows of pea plants we started from seeds and we have about five rows of onions growing. Stuart and I took cardboard from the lunch room and mapped out the paths. We plan to keep the cardboard there to restrict growth and kill any plants from sprouting. 

Liam and I took a run to Home Depot on Thursday to get the needed supplies to finish the coop (stain, handles, locks, wire, etc.). We are trying to design a gutter system that will collect water from the roof of the coop and dispenses it into a filtration system, thinking maybe to water the chickens. The man at Home Depot was super helpful in explaining how the gutter system works and what we will need to create it. 

 Liam and I have also been working on composting, which has been a great success. It's going to take months to actually get fresh soil to put down. The lunch crew has helped out a great deal and been really supportive in our efforts to compost. Everyday Liam collects the compost and puts it into our bins. Usually, before he dumps it, I'll grab some pieces of fruit to feed to the chicken. It makes them quite happy.

Our composting bins! Yummy

We worked on breaking up the ground to prepare it for planting our seeds. Liam then raked out the top parts of the grass and such to have a cleaner soil.  

The coop is now complete as of May 10th! I worked all day on staining the coop and making sure every little detail was complete for the chicks to have a safe night. We had to finish by putting in fencing at the top so predators couldn't get in to attach the chickens from the roof. We put trim around the vents, got the roof secured, and put in an extra posting rod for the birds to hop on. I'm super excited and are the chickens. Last night they spent their first night alone, I felt like they were going off to college. I came in to check on them at 6 o clock, and they were all cuddled up against the fence together. I was worried that they were too cold. Then, at dusk, around 8:30 p.m. I came and put the chickens to sleep and locked them up in their coop. 

Chickens are checking out their new house :) 

eBay Project

My latest project has been focused on online marketplace selling. Marketplace selling refers to sites like eBay and Amazon; forums that connect buyers and sellers of all different types of products. Hoover previously had not been managing their brand's presence in the marketplace, until they discovered how much money was being made off of Hoover products in the online marketplace. My recent project has been to go through reports of eBay sellers that have been selling underneath Hoover pricing, and create a list of sellers that are making serious profits by selling discounted Hoover products. In my report I include the sellers name, the quantity of Hoover products they are selling, the total quantity of other products they are selling, the type of Hoover items they are selling, whether or not they are selling competing brands, the SKUs they are selling under MAP value, and the quantity to date of each SKU they have sold underneath MAP pricing. Hoover will then have its legal team contact these sellers, investigate their business entities and, if they are in violation, shut them down.

Doc. Stacy's visit

So today was another early start with Muscle Madness class at 6 am! I am so tired and sore from this class.  Besides just lifting weights and doing some abb exercises like what is in the urban iron class, we also got to go up to the track and then proceed to lung around the track and do side squats using bands for resistance.  Basically my legs are in so much pain right now.  Then I had Zumba class at 9.  Rick, or most people call him Doc. Stacy, came to visit Anna and me today at our Zumba class.  He looked so funny just standing in the corner of the group fitness room in his pants and button down watching this room full of people dancing around. I tried to convince him to do it, I even offered him snickers bars and Pepsi, but it did not work because he still refused to do it.  Anyways, then we met with Cathy, my sponsor, to show her some more ideas now that we had more information from our interview on Wednesday, and discussed some new layout ideas we had for the booklet to make sure that they were possible. Today we also had interviews with some personal trainers at Urban Active.  We talked with one female trainer and she gave us some really good tips and information that the other interviews had not provided, because she specializes more in what is good to do and eat and drink before, during, and after a workout; so it was actually a very helpful interview. 

Who needs fingers, anyway?

Not me, no sir!  I could probably do without three or four of them--they're just extra weight, anyway, right?

This seems to be the unanimous opinion of every tool in the shop--Abby doesn't need fingers.  After burning, slicing, smashing, and tearing the skin off of them for the past few days, I think they might just be right.

At some point, there has to be a limit, right?  Anyway, the past couple of days have all been basically the same.  I've been working on leaves for the tree on the Holden Arboretum's gate, which I thought would be a great privilege, but really it's just been painful.

The process is fairly straight forward; draw out the stock, make a point, flatten it, add leaf groves, make next leaf.  Which, of course, means I get bored after a while.  So I start day dreaming.  Not a smart idea when working with 800-degree-or-hotter iron.

Anyway, my hands hurt, so I'm going to stop typing.  Adios!

Ms. Moulthrop's Visit

On Tuesday, Ms. Moulthrop came down to CLA for a visit. It was a lot of fun touring her around the school and introducing her to the students of CLA. We spent a lot of time walking around the building, talking about the school itself, charter schools in general, and my experiences thus far on project. We were lucky enough to visit some classrooms and talk to the students about the material they were learning and the projects they were working on. It was nice to see the students so engaged in their learning and so inquisitive with respect to the new material. We also spent time talking with the dedicated teachers, learning more about the CMSD school district and how charter schools play into that equation. We also talked to teachers about their jobs at CLA and what drew them to working in education, specifically an urban charter school in Cleveland. It was interesting to hear their responses, as the teachers have various reasons for becoming educators and different career paths, but all feel lucky to have been a part of CLA's inaugural year.

Today

 
 This is a picture of Marlee, the rasta penguin I was talking about last time.

Mr. Feuer says one of the stars of the new line of stuffed toys is Frank Weinerman. Frank Weinerman is an anthropomorphic hot dog with a cape and a face. He is the "frankfurter superhero". Mr. Feuer and his partner used to be the only ones who came up with names for the animals, but now the designer comes up with the names. Then he runs the names by Mr. Feuer and his partner, who have veto power and can reject or change any of the names. I'll talk about some of my favorite names now. Crusty is a red crab, a thinly veiled reference to the boss of Spongebob on the Spongebob Squarepants tv show, who is a red crab, and owns the "Krusty Krab".Edge is a bald eagle with a sinister countenance. One might call him an "angry bird" on "edge". Mr. Feuer tried to make an imitation of the Angry Bird, called the Noggin Bird but in turn legal action was taken against him, in similar way to the Rasta Banana incident. Rovio, the Finnish company behind Angry Birds, had already made an agreement with another toy company to make licensed angry birds stuffed animals. When Mr. Feuer made his angry bird imitation, he was a served a cease and desist order. After discussing with his lawyer, Mr. Feuer decided not to go forward with producing his Noggin Birds.

AP Exams

Due to my APs today and Monday, I have not been able to do as much for project.  I had the AP Chemistry exam on Monday from 8-12 and then the AP Spanish exam this morning from about 8-12:30.  After my AP exams I eat lunch and then meet up with Anna to work on the booklet and set up interviews.  On Monday we wrote some paragraphs for some of the sections of the booklet and outlined a lot of the others.  Picking which information we want to include is challenging, because we have to decide what the “audience” of the booklet will find interesting and helpful.  However, determining what we want to write and include is necessary to begin deciding the layout of the booklet and what would be the best way to present the information to the readers. Today after my AP Anna and I went to Urban Active to plan our interviews with the trainers there for Thursday.  It was actually hard to find time talk with the trainers because they only get paid when they are training someone so they are not very willing to spend a lot of time being interviewed, at least not until they get off work.  However, we eventually found both a boy and girl trainer to talk to so we can get multiple perspectives.  We have had to modify our schedule due to the rather inflexibility of the trainers’ schedules. But after moving some stuff around we have managed to fix our schedule while maintaining the necessary number of hours.  My last AP is tomorrow so then I will be able to return to normal days of senior project.  

Website Audits

For the past few days I have been working on performing website audits for Hoover. This entails going to Hoover's major online retailers and using their search engine to search a list of 12 terms, printing the results page out for each search term, and marking incorrect items. While this is not one of the most exciting tasks I have had while on project, it was definitely very useful for Brian. He explained to me that one of his theories as to why Hoover sales on retailer websites are lower than they should be, is because the search results of key terms sometimes yield products from competing brands. I found his theory to be true. For example, on some websites I would search things like "hoover vacuums" and Dyson vacuum products would appear on the results page. It is important for Hoover to contact the retailer reps and ask them to fix these incorrect item placings or allow Hoover to feature products on searches such as "dyson vacuums". After this problem is fixed, revenue from online retailers should increase.

Rainy Cleveland Day

May 8, 2012

The chicks are getting eager to move out into their coop! They've outgrown their box that's staying in my kitchen..and it's getting quite smelly. Over the weekend it was quite nice out so I had a lot of opportunities to let the chicks play outside in a puppy pen that I used for my dog, Charlie. He thinks he is like the mother to the chicks and watches them everyday. My mom has designated him as the chick babysitter. Whenever I say, "Charlie, where's the babies?!" He runs over to the chicks and barks and circles them. 

Tater and Tot!

Bug the Chick

Yesterday I had two APs so I wasn't at project (AP Environmental Science and AP Psychology). Unfortunately, today has been quite rainy, foggy and wet; however, the chicks are loving playing out in the garden today at school! I spent some time today digging in the garden and feeding the worms I found to them. Worms are like chocolate chip cookies to the little chicks. The boys made some great progress on the coop at the end of last week. Here are some pictures to show their progress. All we have left is to add the roof, make the chick run, stain the coop, and add some finishing touches. 

The inside of the coop where the nesting beds are for the hens.

I also spent some time today working on the budget and adding it all up. We’ve spent a total of $498 during project on our numerous projects we have going. Today, Stuart worked with the group and explained his design layout and plan for the garden, which is focused on permaculture and utilizing our surroundings to their fullest potential. Finally, I’ve been working on creating a brochure and advertising plan to promote what we are starting at Hawken with the farm and a fundraiser plan to sell seeds. Nate has been creating labels for the seeds we have, hoping to make more revenue to add to our bank! 

Lucy is ready for her new coop to be built