Waking up, it felt like any other day: Hel was grumpy and there were some leftover crickets hopping around. I couldn’t see our neighbor, Nova, just yet. She usually likes to stay in her hide most of the day. I wanna ask her how she lost her tail, but there’s two layers of glass between us. The day went by fast. Kids started coming in like they always do. The two guys that like to watch us came in. They took Nova out and brought her somewhere I couldn’t see. Then I saw a hand reaching out to me. Suddenly I was on a private jet! I was quickly dropped off in a giant new house! I saw Nova there too! Hel joined us eventually. She was weirded out by our new home, but I loved it! It was so big! There was so much to climb and explore. The next day I woke up so happy remembering I was in my new home. I couldn’t see Hel from where I was, which she probably did on purpose. She wasn’t that friendly. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Nova yet. I hope she likes me! Later that day the watching boys came back. They let this weird green guy into our house. Then another and another until there were six of them! They’re much smaller than me, but they like to jump around too. I hope they want to be friends. They don’t seem too bad: just different. The next day I kept to myself mostly. The frogs seemed like they needed to adjust a bit. The watching boys came back again! They opened the door to our house and then they let in these huge bugs! They were really loud. When the watching boys moved them they hissed! They looked mean. I didn’t mind having more housemates; more friends is always good! Plus the house was big enough for everyone to have their own space. I personally like hanging out on this big vine that goes across the enclosure. The frogs like it too, and we share. The frogs can get hangry at times, but thats okay! Everyone has their flaws, and I’m willing to share! Tags:#Creatively&Innovation
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As mentioned in earlier blogs, Charlie and I have been concerned that we lost one of our six initial frogs. This was due to our inability to count more than five when observing their behavior. Earlier this week, we were happily surprised. On Monday, Charlie and I went in to check up on the animals before our first period class, and managed to count all six frogs. One of them must just love to hide! It was so relieving to see. I wish the rest of our week has been as relaxing. That same day, during capstone, Charlie opened the enclosure door without seeing that one of our crested geckos was on it, and she paniced and jumped onto his face. Thankfully, neither gecko nor Charlie was injured. Speaking of panic, yesterday, when I was feeding the frogs, I noticed a frog half sticking out of the door. It looked like I crushed him in the door by accident, and it gave me a heart attack. I threw the door open and ushered the seemingly unbothered frog back home. After further investigation, Charlie noticed there was a large gap between the door and that wall that probably allowed a curious frog to squeeze through. Luckily I saw before he got out. Charlie and I put up a temporary door block made of tape to keep the animals in. Over the weekend we are gonna pick up some paint sticks from Home Depot or Lowes to attack to the door to fill in the gaps. We’re going to have to put more than one layer in on the bottom because of how big the gap is. Once we fill in the gaps, we’ll paint it over the sticks so it won’t look weird. Today we need to check to make sure no animals got out when we weren’t paying attention. The frogs and the roaches would definitely be able to squeeze through, but at least the cresteds wouldn’t be able to get through. Observing the animals has been pretty okay, and there hasn’t been much stress behaviors. Tags: #problem solving #creativity and innovation During this week Connor and I had made a lot of progress towards our project. After having set up the enclosure with the heat lamps and adding decorations to the environment we were finally ready to start transferring the animals from their isolated cages into the large enclosure. On Monday we had started with the crested geckos,as mentioned in the methods , and moving them into the enclosure first. As expected, there was some stress behaviors exhibited by the crested geckos when being transferred. On Tuesday, we had moved the green tree frogs into the vivarium. The frogs were slightly more difficult to transfer over due to their tendency to jump.as soon as they have an opening. Overall there was little to know problems when getting all 6 frogs into the vivarium. The following day we had moved the roaches into the enclosure. We had discussed with Ms. Kushiner the previous day had talking about how the hissing cockroaches can potential become a problem due to their high birth rate. To avoid this becoming a problem in the future we had only put in male hissing cockroaches. This will allow us to control the number of hissing cockroaches. The reason why we did males instead of females is because there would be a chance that we move a pregnant female into the vivarium. Today we had notice something alarming with the frogs. When originally putting them in we had we are sure that we had moved six green jumpers into the vivarium. After going down to lunch that day and came back to the class fourth period we were only able to count five out of the six frogs. This had pattern of only finding five frogs had continued till today. We had asked Ms.K about the problem of the missing frog and she had reassured us that it was most likely a really good hider like most frogs. We think that the frog hadn’t died but either escaped or truely is a really good hider. The reason we believe that the frog hadn’t pass is due to there not being a strong scent of death within the enclosure. For now we are going stay on the lookout for the missing frog. Tags: #Collaboration#Communication # Creativity & Innovation This week was painful. We had Monday off for Italian Heritage day, so it wasn’t as bad as it could be. With the day off Charlie and I did some capstone work. We started building the platform, but because the spray paint took so long to dry, we had to take a break for the day, and we picked it back up on Tuesday. We finished making the platform then and proceeded to die. By that I mean we took the SAT Wednesday. As most people know, taking the SAT is so, so draining. Even on an easier SAT, it eats up all your energy. Even with that, we did get other Capstone work done Wednesday. Video Calling our raspberry pi mentor was very helpful. He put us in the right direction and we were able to order the materials, and we’re going to be writing the code for it next week. We got temperature probes, the pi circuit board and adapters that I personally don’t really understand, but that’s the beauty of having a partner: I don’t have to understand everything. Speaking of mentors, we were able to pick up the rest of our frogs this week as well. “But Connor,” I can hear you say, “I thought you already got all the frogs you needed.” We did. However, we relied on Animal Science students to feed the frogs and they let some of the frogs out. Somehow. This prompted us to get more frogs that we hope will make it to the new enclosure. This week, as mentioned earlier, we built the platform. We even installed the entire new platform and set up everything for the enclosure including the coconut fiber substrate and water and food dishes. We want to get more fake vines and bark for the enclosure, but other than that it’s all set up. We set up temporary heat lamps until the lamps we ordered get in. Hopefully on Monday we will be able to put the crested geckos into their new home. Tags: #Collaboration #creativity & innovation During this week we had gotten more in touch with our mentor and planning out what we will need for our vision to become reality. I personally am very excited and was originally the one to propose the idea that we could use the raspberry pi or some other type of electronics to semi-regulate the enclosures basking/heating lamps and the day/night cycle for the enclosure. We are currently behind schedule due to the three of our frogs becoming sick and dying. We are planning on getting replacement frogs next Wednesday. We are going to be reviewing with our mentor,Paul from slither and swim, of the current enclosure we are using to house the frogs as a temporary habit for them till we get the actually enclosure up and running.This had set us back between 1 to 2 weeks due. This upcoming weekend we are planning to get the supplies for the platform. The supplies will probably consist of screws, spray paint or wood stain, paint sealer , and sandpaper belts. We are going to get a light brown and darker green spray paint. Or we were going to get an Early American wood stain.We were between the wood stain and spray paint. The reason we think we are going to choose the spray paint because it will be faster to apply than the wood stain. We were going to get the probably going to get a lower grit to help shape the wood and a higher grit to help smooth the wood. We are going to be using the an oil based paint sealer to have it be waterproof and mold resistant. Tags: #Creativity & Innovation#Collaboration #Problem Solving |
AuthorSConnor O'Clair Archives
January 2019
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