Driving Question: How can we utilize principles of cinematography, storytelling, and editing to create a two-piece film?
Project Summary: For their joint mastery project, CM2 Students Che and Alf set out to create a holistic anthology consisting of two films. Both films fall under the same concept but possess their own unique properties and location. The films were crafted independently of one another, formed from footage and recordings gathered by the pair of students.
Student Reflection: “By embarking on this project, not only did we hope to create videos that we would be proud of, but we also hope to be able to hone the skills of film making and video editing. Inspiration from films and videos often reaches the two of us easily, so by creating our own videos, we also hope to inspire other people, too.” -Che and Alf
Driving Question: How can I apply my understanding of closed system ecosystems to design a better farming system in my city?
Module Overview: In the Biocities module, Seb looked at how naturally functional systems work and how we can apply that understanding to increase the efficiency of food production in a more sustainable and resilient fashion.
Project Reflection: “The Biocities module was really interesting. I loved the independence given by the educators and the ability to take the product where I wanted to take it. I learned so much about agriculture, useful 3D design skills, and animation techniques and was able to conduct a closed-system experiment via a BioBottle.”
Driving Question: How can I modernize traditional Filipino fashion?
Project Overview: For her mastery project, CM1 Student Gigi Engalla set out to create a fashion collection that modernizes the traditional Filipino. To do so, she mastered elements of couture craftsmanship and developed a deep understanding of Filipino fashion by learning about its significance and how its classic features can be integrated into a modern medium.
Driving Question: How might I build an app that uses music therapy to improve the emotional wellness of teens?
Module Summary: Music therapy is a unique form of rehabilitation that helps people of all ages deal with emotional, physical, and mental ailments by creating and listening to music. For her first TGS mastery project, CM1 Student Yeli K. coded an app that uses music therapy to help teens deal with emotional issues and created a corresponding pitch video to showcase the app.
Student Reflection: “I am doing this project because mental illness has affected so many of my friends and me, and I believe that music therapy is an amazing non-invasive solution for adolescents. This project could bring about true change in our society. Additionally, this project introduced me to advanced coding concepts, which I would eventually like to pursue as a career.” -CM1 Student Yeli K.
Driving Question: How can I have a powerful impact on English and Hindi speakers through a bilingual album?
Project Overview: For his mastery project, Vansh creating a bilingual hip-hop album. The lyrics, sung in English and Hindi, reflected the various personal experiences Vansh has had in his life. In the final tracks, the vocals and the instrumentals sit peacefully beside each other with neither fighting for center stage.
What were your initial goals for this project? How did they change over time?
Initially, I wanted to finish an album within two years, but the more I learned about the process, I realized that being a good singer/instrumentalist was a completely different set of skills than transferring that quality onto a laptop. Because I did everything on my own, musically, I had to produce, arrange, record, play, mix, and master the track all by myself. I also had to learn elements of photography and videography, such as cloning and color grading.
Lastly, for marketing purposes, I also had to teach myself how to run an ad campaign and reach out to people kindly and ask them to listen to your music. I was not familiar with almost all of these processes, and learning all of them – at different levels – made me realize that I had to change my goals. I still ended up making many songs, but I didn’t finish any of them because mid-way through the project, my goal became to release a single before graduation. I definitely think I accomplished said goal.
What are you most proud of?
I’m really proud of the single I ended up creating because it’s a transition to a journey I’ve always wanted to embark on and marks the end of my impactful time here at TGS.
What are the biggest lessons you learned through the process of your mastery project?
I learned how much knowledge there is on the internet and the difference having a supportive community, like TGS, makes when one is pursuing a project of this magnitude.
Driving Question: How can I utilize my knowledge of Mayan mythology to create an original piece of Mayan artwork?
Project Description: For this personal project, Noemie set out to demonstrate creativity by creating an art piece inspired by Mayan culture. The piece was based on experiential research Noemie performed during her time in Tulum, Mexico.
Driving Question: How do shutter speed, aperture, and editing affects the final product in portrait photography?
Project Description: This project was about learning how to apply aperture, shutter speed, and editing to the pictures, finding creative backgrounds, and improving my photography skills mainly in portraits.
Student Reflection:
“Mainly, during this project I found how big my passion is for photography. I hadn’t realized how big it was and how much knowledge I was missing. What was challenging was the editing because figuring it out took me a while. It was very exciting to go out and take pictures for the first time with the proper knowledge, but mainly, having the chance to show people my work.”
Driving Question: How can I make a farm-to-table egg delivery service become a viable business in a suburban community?
What did you take away from this project? I learned that perseverance is very important in order to get the end result you want. When I thought I was done and then realized there was something that bugged me in my video I made sure to take the time and fix it. This was very frustrating at times but in the end I was very happy and confident with my proposal.
What are you most proud of? I’m most proud of the extremely useful life skills I learned throughout this process….and that I made $485 of total income.
Driving Question: In what ways can the philosophy of decentralization and blockchain technologies be catalysts for disruption and efficiency within the current modus operations of the business world?
During their Panama term, Che and Scott elected to develop a game that gamifies the backend of Blockchain to simplify and educate users on how blockchain really works.
The game concept they developed is Metaminers, which aims to have users build a blockchain together with their friends. Users add to the chain by playing minigames, receiving rewards for completing entire blocks. Unlocking blocks leads to a chest containing rewardables that can be used to help solve problems easier in the future. As part of their process, Che and Scott spent quite a bit of time developing a wireframe of their product including graphics and other assets, examples of which you can see below. For their smart contract, they chose to mirror the inherent ethics held by founder Satoshi Nakamoto during the creation of Blockchain.
Driving Question: How might we collaboratively implement a design-thinking process to meet the needs of the community we serve?
What were your goals for this module? How did you achieve them?
Our main goal for this module was to take the US ballot design issues and come up with a new ballot that the people understand. We went through many interviews with users to meet this goal and detected the main problems with the existing ballots. We found that generally, they were very confusing and out of order. We took the information we learned and implemented it into our design. To make sure that our design hit our goals, we got many rounds of feedback. In the end, the above design proved to be the most self-explanatory and neutral.
What did you learn about yourself, your creative process, or about your medium?
We learned tons about the US voting process, as well as how to lead effective interviews.
What did this project mean to you?
This project was very relevant to Hanna and interesting to Samy because of the US election happening this year and the scandals with voting fraud.
