Google Day #2

3 goals

• Find an average salary for being NBA commisioner
• Find the jobs needed to be taken before reaching commissioner status
• Find the objectives needed to be excepted into Columbia University or University of Texas

What I found

• It has been found that the average salary of NBA commissioner is around $20-23 million a year
• Adam Silver (the next NBA commissioner in 2014 when David Stern retires) went through many jobs before becoming the next commissioner
• In 1992 when Adam Silver began he started as special assistant to the commissioner.
• Then, NBA chief of staff, Senior Vice President of NBA entertainment, Then President of NBA entertainment.
• Right now he is Deputy commissioner.
• Silver also produced multiple movies such as Like Mike, Year of the Yao, and Michael Jordan to the max.
• To become commissioner I must then get on the NBA board of governers.
• The board consists of 5 people that vote on if the commissioners predececer is right for the job.
• Columbia University looks at the workload of a student, interests and family, quality of noncurricular things, character, if the person is right for the area, and recommendations to consider the candidate.
• An average of above 2100 in SAT and 30 in ACT are required
• Also a 3.8 minimum GPA is needed for Columbia University

Links 

http://collegeapps.about.com/od/GPA-SAT-ACT-Graphs/ss/columbia-admission-gpa-sat-act.htm

http://www.insidehoops.com/blog/?p=8106

http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/admissions/apply/first-year/holistic

Next class

I plan on learning more about Columbia University and about starting an internship or an assistant job at the NBA headquarters in New York.

Google day 1

3 goals

• Find out what I should study to become NBA commissioner.
• Find out what colleges offer these courses.
• What exactly is the job description of NBA commissioner.

Job description

• Lawyer: must know all legal rights for things such as financial negotiations, NBA television, radio, and website rights, and head of the marketing department, like merchandise and sales promotions.
• Ambassador to the NBA: visit other countries and promote basketball around the world.
• Advisor/referee: The commissioner needs to hand down fines and solves disputes throughout the league and also defending the officiating in the NBA.
• Speaker: the commissioner also must address any problems throughout the NBA. That means talking to the media.
• Basketball fanatic: He must know what is going on whether in a game or know the history and some facts about the NBA, such as the LA lakers have the longest winning streak in NBA history at 33. Or that Wilt Chamberlain has scored the most points in a game for 1 person at 100.

Courses to study

• Business law
• Patent law
• Public interest law

My favorite 5 colleges that offer business law (in order of smart rank)

• Yale University (1)
• Harvard (2)
• Columbia University (4)
• Georgetown University (14)
• University of Texas at Austin (15)
• Ohio State University (39) (kevin asked me to add this)

Links

http://www.ehow.com/facts_5208225_nba-commissioner-job-description.html
http://law-school.findthebest.com/d/c/Business-Law

Today I learned
Today I learned what my responsibility would be if I became the NBA commissioner. Also I learned and chose a major I wish to take; Business law. Then searched some universities. My favorite is Columbia and after that UT.
Next class
I want to learn what minors I could take and what jobs could I have leading up to NBA commissioner.

Amazon Project.

Tech tool used:   bitstrips.com

COPA and FERPA

What I know.

• I know nothing.
• No, really, I have no clue what these are.

Questions?

• What does COPA and FERPA stand for?
• What does each do?
• How does COPA and FERPA have to do with the internet?

Learned stuff.

• COPA: Child Online Protection Act/COPPA: Childrens online privacy Protection Act
• Passed in 1998
• Imposing a two-year prison sentence or a fine of up to $200,000 for someone who posts something indecent about a child.
• The term "child" refers to anyone under 13.
• Gaining information of a child or posting information or photos of a child are illegal under COPA.
• FERPA: Federal Educational Records Privacy Act/Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
• Federal Educational Records Privacy Act of 1974
• FERPA refers to educational rights. Such as allowing a student to see their academic records and only the student and a guardian.
• Basically FERPA keeps student records secret like doctor patient confidentiality, but with student and educators.

Connecting.
COPA and FERPA are laws of the U.S. so technically if I live in Colombia, then they don't affect me. However, they protect the rights of children from being exploited or taken advantage of over the internet. These laws keep information withheld between a person and they keep weird online people from taking a child's information and from a person putting something indecent to a child online. I am older than 13 so another law like COPA would probably affect me. FERPA makes sure my records are kept into my family and not out everywhere for everyone to see.

Last Question?

• Are these laws kept in affect or enforced today or are they just generalizations that people know?

LINKS that i had used in the making of all these typed words and other things...

• http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm
•  http://civilliberty.about.com/od/freespeech/p/copa1998.htm
•  http://epic.org/privacy/education/ferpa.htm 
•  http://www.edtechteam.com/cue2011/legal

Design project day 5

3.Reflection

-What was the biggest problem you encountered? How did you solve it?

The cannon had difficulty launching. We decided to make it a flick cannon to make the accuracy better. Also because of the time-restraint it was hard to complete the project fully. We worked extra fast and completed the project as much as we could.

-When did you get your biggest "AH HA" idea? What was it?

When we decided to make the cannon a flick cannon instead of a slingshot mechanism. We had 30 minutes left and kevin had his ah ha moment with the cannon.

-Who in your group resisted new ideas the most and why?

Armando resisted a lot of the ideas. He just didn't think our ideas were any good when they ended up being quite good.

-What doubts did YOU have about the project and how did you overcome those doubts?

If we would finish in time and the game came together well. We worked fast and efficiently and it fit together very well.

-Who in your group played "devil's advocate" (a person who questions everything, even good ideas) and how did that help the process?

Kevin and Austin were both the "devils adcocate". We both quistened if our ideas would come together and agreed on the best way to put it together.

-What did you learn about yourself, teamwork, and the design process?

We learned that with the right people in a group we can finish everything.

Design Project Day 3

CHOOSE PHASE

1. It fits all of our criteria except the part of difficulty. It is a little more difficult then we thought it would be.
2. The parts we are keeping are our theme, war zone, size, colors, the simple things like that.
3. We are going to change the firing mechanism and the return system to reset the game. Also we are going to add a coin slot on a free game. Our firing mechanism will then be changed from a rubber band to a kid flicking the ball.

IMPLEMENT PHASE

1. First we need the firing area, the war zone area, the box or game area/land, then the reset mechanism, coin slot, then lastly the design and appealing part of it.

• Armando-design, assembely
• Austin-shooting, reset mechanism, assembly
• Kevin-shooting, reset mechanism, assembly

1. Camo design, duct tape, string, markers, jello. 

• Austin-duct tape
• Armando-Camo design, markers
• Kevin-string, celebratory cupcakes 

Design-Project day 1

Group Awesome

Austin Alvarez
Armando Lugo
Kevin Beloney

Define Phase
Middle school boys
medium

5 aspects to making a game successful

1. simplicity
2. addicting-ness
3. color
4. comedic
5. For some, stupidity

Research Phase
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJWF-nyZFvk
This link had a pinball machine in it.
It was simple, yet looked like a great pinball machine.
Although the flippers were made poorly so the boy barely could hit the ball with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5D_UjRb8u4
This was a skeeball game.
It was usable and the balls came back to you like an actual skeeball game.
The part where the scores were could have been elevated higher and he could have used different balls for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRq955hPWxM
Whack-a-mole machine.
This game is always fun and addictive to everyone who plays.
Unfortunately it was human powered which makes the game harder because you know there is a kid trying to cheat you by going to fast or something.
Ideation Phase
Games
paper football
temple run
car chase game
paper rugby
claw game
tank shooting game

Tank Shooting game

fun things about it

1. addicting
2. war themed
3. military
4. practical game
5. attention grabber

What can go wrong

1. Kids don't understand how to play
2. gun doesn't work
3. brakes
4. won't reset

Avoid

1. Draw directions
2. be 100% sure cannon shoots
3. build with extra duct tape
4. build reset mechanism perfectly