Journal

Friday September 22: Today we met to talk about what needed to be done to complete the project. We went to our mentor to talk about the different steps that she did to complete the project last year. After we finished we created a proposal for what we would need to accomplish to implement our project, and split the work into different roles.

Friday October 1: I picked up the Building Request Form from the office today and went to Mrs. Pirmann's room to talk to her about how to fill out the form. She told me what items I would need to hold the event, and which room the event should be held in. I put down that we would need three carts of chairs and tables, as many TV carts, projecters, surge protectors, and extension cables as available. I asked that we could use the cafeteria because this room would not require as many chaperons as holding the event in multiple rooms. I was not able to hand in the form on this date because I needed to find two chaperons so I began searching for people who would be available on this tentative date.

Tuesday October 5: After asking my dad to sign the form as a full time chaperon, I attempted to hand in the form to the office. I found out that I needed to have Mrs. Pirmann's signature on the sheet to hand it in. I thought this was because she was our mentor and asked her to sign the form, but she warned me that she would not be able to be a full time chaperon, though she would be able to attend part of the event. I went back to the office and turned in the form to request the building for October 29.

Monday October 10: We received confirmation that we could use the building on October 29 for our event, so we began preparing advertisements and other forms necessary for sign ups. Anthony talked to the assistant principle and had the advertisements approved to put on the bulletin boards around the school.

Monday October 17: I went into a meeting today with Mr. Puckett about the event. When Mr. Puckett approved our form, he did not realize that we were working outside of Mrs. Pirmann's Extralife Event. He had safety worries about our event, and wanted us to make some changes to the format. He said that he would need to talk to some of the other building's administrators about the event, and would get back to me with further information about the use of the building. When I went home, I talked with Nick and Anthony online about my meeting with Mr. Puckett. Although we were reluctant to do so, we decided that if it were necessary, we would change the event to a 12 hour structure. We also thought that we needed to explain the event in more detail to Mr. Puckett because he may not have full understanding of how it may work.

Tuesday October 18: Mr. Puckett returned to us and told us that we would not be able to hold the event at the school. Although we were upset, we had to take the posters down around the school and inform people that the event was cancled for the following Friday. We talked about the possibility of holding the event at a local firehouse or church. We decided we'd see how much such an event would cost, and whether or not those types of buildings would be suitable for our event.

Friday October 22: Because of various difficulties involved in starting an event outside of the school, I have decided to do a different project for my Senior Project. We found that the firehouse would be costly, we would have the supply everything, and attendence would not be as high as at the school. I talked to my dad about the possibility of buying computer parts and building a computer then comparing the price of this computer to a preassembled one. My dad agreed to be my mentor to the project.

Friday October 29: We have selected all of the parts for the computer and have ordered them from Newegg.com. The main difficulty with selecting the parts came with finding parts that were suitable for the computer and compatable with other parts. We began by choosing a fast processor because most of the parts that work with the processor will work with eachother. Although we have selected most of the parts, we cannot begin to build the computer because the parts will not arrive for a few days and we will need to work on the computer during the week.

Friday November 5: All the parts have arrived and we have begun assembling the computer. Because this will take a very long time to complete and both my father and I have other work to do, we were unable to complete the computer but have planned to finish it next weekend so we can begin to load the computer which will also take a long time.

Saturday November 13: Today I spent the whole day putting the computer together with my dad. I was surprised how well the computer parts fit together inside the case; it seemed as if the parts were made to fit together. While putting the computer together, we handled the parts very carefully because most of the expensive parts were also very expensive. We were also sure to take pictures of all the parts before we began because we knew that I would need them for my presentation. Although we finished putting the computer together, I still need to load the operating system and programs onto the computer for it to be finished.

Saturday November 20: The computer is nearly complete today, I loaded the operating system on and began to download and install the updates. Although I have not put the programs on it such as Microsoft Office, these are not necessary for it to run and the computer is usable.