My Choice Beyond the Stars

Well after mulling it over, I finally came to the decision that I am going to pick the suit design for deep space. I originally intended it to be an engineering suit but after a while I felt that it should be more specific.

This will not only be a space suit but one for deep space exploration, so it needs to be more advanced, not an air filled blimp like the ones we have nowadays.

The way I decided on this was reading about where humans are going to go to in space next. There is a lot of discussion going on about the direction of space exploration. Some groups want to go to Mars, others the moon and still others beyond all that into deep space. However if astronauts go into deep space, countless problems will pop up with the old space suits.

It's a brand new area of engineering exploration and I want to be a part of it.

I'm going to investigate these new ideas, create my own concept for a deep space suit and model it on Solid Works.

Artists depiction of a Deep Space suit idea

Picking a Theme

At the end of 8th grade, the staff at our school told us that we would be doing a Personal Project in 9th grade, on a topic of our choice.

At first, I thought it would be stressful to work on a big project whilst also completing all of my other coursework. However, when they told us we would have seven months to complete it, at regular intervals, I began to feel more confident.

The biggest decision I have to make is choosing a theme.

I have two main ideas in mind: something to do with marine biology or a topic related to engineering.

I have been interested in marine biology since I was a little kid living in Florida. I've gone snorkeling in the Florida Keys and would spend time studying creatures in tide pools. This past summer my family and I went to the Dominican Republic to go whale watching in Samana Peninsula. I made a video about the Humpbacks of Samana and posted it on YouTube this month.

The other theme I am seriously interested in is engineering. I have always liked building things -- first with my Lego blocks and then with computer programs like Minecraft.

This summer, I started thinking about developing a design for a multi-purpose suit that would be heat- and fire-proof and could be used for arctic and space exploration. I spent a lot of hours writing down and drawing my ideas.

Here are some notes I made on a whiteboard in my room in January:

So the question for me for my MYP Personal Project is:

Will I choose marine biology or engineering?

Welcome

This is going to be my Progress blog for my Personal Project for the MYP.

I'm going describe my process of picking a topic for my personal project, investigating and developing it.

I'm kind of eager to start it. So here I go!!!