RC Car Launch number 3

Today my friend and I launched the Subaru again. This time the weather was good and we used a shovel to clean the snow better. I amended the wheel and as it is now clear on the video the car managed to complete the same track in a much shorter time period. I have made the track wider, to avoid the bumps as much as possible. The insulation was improved using cello tape. We worked together as a team to ensure that the preparation was done better than before. We then divided the track at the middle to have some space for drifting, which also went reasonable well. Everything is clear from the video.

RC Car lauch reflection

The launch was relatively successful. It was snowing heavily and we had no shovels, so we had to clear the ice skating ring with our hands and feet. We did not manage to create a clean ice surface and therefore the car could not demonstrate its full potential as the chassis was constantly in contact with the snow, hence slowing the car down. From here I have understood that if I was to repeat the launch I would increase the height of the car by change the position of the dampers. The polythene bag insulation on the electronics did not last long, as snow filled the car from inside quite rapidly. Also the front left wheel was constantly at an incline for some reason, there fore it was harder to turn left because both front wheels spinning at different speeds. I will have to fix that soon. However my friend and I managed to make the car move at a surface it was not made for. Our aim was met and perhaps we will launch it again after mending it, improving the insulation and making a better track and perhaps try to drift on it.

RC Car

On the first of march I have planned to conduct a launch of another RC that I have. It is also an elecric motor one, except it is four wheel drive (not rear wheel drive like the Porsche). I will be going out to the local ice scating ring, clean some snow and attempt to create a track and simply see if it will be possible to drive in such conditions. I will use plastic bags for insulation. The car is a Subaru Impreza WRX Sti.

Valentine's day disco reflection

The disco itself went very well/ I was involved in the preparations of the event, in the music especially. A day before the disco we decided to check the equipment and unfortunately the cables were missing, which meant that we would not be able to play any music. We had to strees the teachers and ask them to call other schools to find the cables. Thankfully the cables arived on the day of the disco and it successfully took place. Here we should all remember to check the equipment in advance. However everything else went really well from our side, we chose a new location of the speakers, which successfully dispersed the sound, the sandwiches were tasty and were highly demanded, however we forgot to bring the sandwitch maker, so Peter had to return home and get them (planning issues again). Overall the kids really enjoyed it and we have gained massive experience about organising events. Hopefully we will organise another disco in march and we will be able to take into account the mistakes commited.

Valentine's day disco plan

Year 13 and year 12 have planned to have a valentine's day disco on the 14th of February. We have planned to use the school's speakers and our own dj set. Year 13 would be responsible for the music and sandwiches and year 12 would be responsible for the decorations and other things. Our aim is to entertain the students and add some variety to their lives, as for some students their life exists at home, at school and in the car that takes them to school...for ourselves we would like to gain experience of organising music at an event as we have never done it before.

Winter/Snow Day Reflection

Snow day took place on the 8th of February. Some things went well and some didn't. I was responsible for the obstacle course alongside with Stefan and Shaun. Until lunch we had classes of different sizes attempting our obstacle course and their times were recorded and the winners announced. They enjoyed it and that meant that our aim was met. During lunch students tried the course several other times for fun and because they wanted to improve their times. Then we repaired the course and after lunchtime we had a large amount of students at the spot and coordinating them was extremely difficult. Eventually it became impossible to coordinate everyone and we decided to conduct a relay race. It was okay until there was an injury and students were sent to classes. The main flaw was in the planning. We could not anticipate all of the possible difficulties that we would face and unfortunately not much help was offered with the planning, so really, it was an event, which was completely organised by year 13.  At times we had to improvise, but improvisation does not always work. Also, the lead time (inbetween time) between events was not taken into account, students did not come to events on time because they had to change and if we could redo the winter day, this would be where we would concentrate our attention. However I consider this a fairly good attempt. We conducted the Snow day, we entertained the school and showed the students several interesting winter sport activities, such as hockey, rugby in snow, football in snow, snow painting and several otheres. We came up with creative ideas together, such as providing hot chocolate. We worked as a team and this is what made the day go relatively well. I have gained a huge amount of experience and I understood that it is extremely hard to make everything go perfect when conducting such an event.

Winter Activity Day Project

The date for the winter activity day has been finalised. It will take place on the 8th of February. Year 12 Students will be running the indoor activities and the year 13 students will be running the outdoor activities. Year 10 will be taken to Bitsevsky Park. I will be involved with an obstacle course which was built in the volleyball area. The snow was very deep and we have dug paths and hills. Students from lower year groups will attempt to run a lap and their times will be recorded. This project has taken several weeks of preparation and was something new to me, as before I have never planned a project in a team. I hope to see our work prove succesful. Our aim is to entertain the entire school and to show them that there exists variety when it comes to winter activities. Basically, our aim is to entertain and our gain from the project is, to learn how to successfully run a planned event whilst working in a team.

Winter Activity Day

After finishing the Mock exams some students from year 13, namely Vinit, Stefan, Shaun, Gregory and Mark have decided to make the Winter activity day possible. Stefan has created a plan which was submitted to our CAS coordinator Mr.Gray. It has been decided that this event will take place allegedly on the 8th of February. We decided that because of a lack of "workforce" it would be smart to delegate some of the tasks to the year 12 students, as they are quite a large group and we hope that they will be able to creatively come up with a few ideas for inside activities, where as the year 13 students will be running activities outside. Outside will take place the following activities: Obstacle course on the volleyball field, fotball in deep snow, snow painting/sculpture building and perhaps hockey. Inside will be held quizes and other winter related activities. Perhaps the year 10/11 students will be taken out for a hike in Bitsevsky park. I am personally taking an active part in building the obstacle course. The entire even will help me try something new, as I have never before planned a project myself. By following the plan I will try to execute it with the help of my classmates and I hope our main aim to entertain the younger kids will successfully be fulfilled. We will be working at preparing everything and I will update the blog when I feel that a fair bit of progress has been made.

School Gym

Every two or three days I go to the school gym. I have read a lot about proteins and nutrition and have understood that bench press exercises alone without protein are useless. Therefore I have devised a plan to train different muscle groups every day, which is more efficient and will not require me consuming any protein. My aim is to now follow the plan and gain 2-3 kilos of muscle until march with the help
of ordinary food.

Weather Club

Since October we have resembled taking readings for the production of the end of year graph. The amount of people participating has fallen and it turns out that there are 3-4 pairs left that go out once or twice every break time and take reading in the cold. At the moment our main flaw is that the reading cannot be taken during weekends, hence every monday the readings are inaccurate, but perhaps we could be using readings of a weather forecast website in order to fill in the gaps. Our aim will be to maintain consistency and try to compare data with previous years in order to at least attempt to make judgements about the issue of global warming.

Fuel Filter

So, on the past long weekend my driver and me have bought and changed the fuel filter. It was spoilt because of the bad quality diesel sold on Russian petrol pumps. Last week the temperature fell below zero and this resulted in a condensate forming in the fuel tank. Water reached the fuel filter and the car was displaying an error continuously on the computer screen. The challenge was to locate and understand which one of the two filters was affected. It could have been the one under the hood or the one which is situated at the exit of the fuel tank. Obviously, as the fuel tank was under the car it would be quite difficult to change the fuel filter there, as we have not got such equpment, which could lift a 2.7 tonne car to a height of 2 metres. So we knew that the system was interconnected but the fuel filter at the exit of the tank is much stronger and  universal and rarely needs replacing and therefore we hoped that be replacing the one under the hood the error on the screen would disappear. Under the hood it was situated under the second fuel pump, which extremely difficult to unscre. We had to borrow an electric scew driver from the electricians to do it, as by ordinary human hands and a spanner it was impossible to do. We changed the filter, which is quite small in size( I expected it to be bigger) and th error disappeared. Again, I have enriched my knowledge of automobile mechanics. Our future plan is to monitor the condition of the car and if something breaks try to fix it without the help of official Toyota workshops, which by the way do not always do the job and just leave the old filter but reset the computer with a special program. The old fuel filter is displayed above. ( a clean one for a landcruiser is supposed to be grey)

Reparing again..

This year in july my fathers car turned three years old and the warranty finished. We travelled to Tver' in summer and a small stone hit the windscreen and formed a crack. Untill october the insurance company was finding a place where we could repair our car and they told us to go to an unofficial Toyota workshop, claiming that it is reliable. After we got our car repaired thei we noticed that thee new winscreen allowed wind to pass through on the top. On day it rained and the water went thriugh, down the "torpedo" and floded the comfort blocks of the car. This resulted in the wipers turning on randomle, headlights not turning off and other electronic issues.Then my driver and I went to the Toyota official workshop and asked how much the repair would cost and they said approximately 92 thousand roubles for three blocks of comfort. We decided that they were lying to us because water could not simply kill the entire brains of the computer, so we decided to fix it ourselves:) We dismantled the entire floor and part under the hood and tried to dry the computers. We used fans. It was an extremely difficult task as the car had lots of protection against ordinary people trying to repair it themselves. We spent about 1.5 hours to dismantle it and then we put the fans on. We managed to expose the steering an put some oil on it so that it works better. The main difficulty was to lovate these computers and finding the right ways of deassembling the car and then putting all the parts back as they were. I have learned alot about how to locate where wires go and how to carefully deassemble car parts and not brake them. Photographs helped to remember where some parts went( but thise were not on my camera, my photos are above) I also understood how to lubricate car parts. Our next step will be replacing the fuel filter which is under the fuel pump. I will update on that as well.

International Day

On the last day of school, 19th October we hosted the International day. Each country was allocated a room and activities were run. However someboody had to organise the GYM for the concert and prepare the dining hall and obviously it was the job for the year 13 students. We organized the stage and some musical equipment as well as the tables and cloth and serving the food to teachers and students. After everybody ate we cleaned the dining hall and enjoyed the concert. Unfortunately this was my last international day at BISM but I hope that we can be more organised and waste less time, while organising the upcoming events.

Gear Changing

Our family has several cars. The oldest one is a Mercedes C200 Kompressor, which was bought in the year 2001 and unfortunately the selector of the automatic gear broke down. When the gear was placed in Reverse the car did not move and when it was placed in Drive the car randomly turned gears on, which in many case resulted in dangerous rev's. So the problem was in the Automatic gear selector, which was to be changed. Me and my driver have bought the selector and changed it. It was very difficult to do this, as the entire front interior had to be removed. We used the C-class construction book to find the places where the panel was fixed in position. This was possible because my driver is a auto-mechanic. This procedure took us about three hours. Now the car works well and we hpe that no more parts will have to be changed in the future 5-6 months at least. The picture o the right shows the old selector.

RC- modelling

Recently I have dried my car, taped some parts in order to isolate the wires from the water and I have tried another launch. The weather was wet, which gave me an opportunity to test my new construction out and it worked to a certain exten, however I have noticed that the ariel is not working well. Perhaps there is a probem with the receiver component. Now the car is a bt more water resistant than before and my aim is to get it ready for the winter season, film a short video and fix the signal problem.
Perhaps it is not clear on the photograph but an isolation layer of tape is presnt on the wires near the engine and the purple receiver.

GYM

I have continued going to the school GYM 2-3 times every week. As I have previously mentioned, my aim was to increase the weight I can lift, while bench pressing, but at the moment I only managed to increase the number of repetitions I can do with the 70 kg mass. In order to increase my muscular mass I have decided that I need a more protein-rich diet in order to encourage muscular growth. I will be continuing to attend the GYM 2-3 times a week and I will also do 3*30 push-ups everyday before dinner ( wide hand positioning), as I believe that this will help me achieve my goals quicker and the reason why I want to do this exercise before dinner is to ensure that the protein in my food will be used up for muscle growth and not some other purpose. My aim is 90 kg for the end of year.

Helping at Parent's Evening

On the 9th october I stayed back after school to help parents, who do not understand English with translating from Russian to English so that they would be able to understand what the teachers have got to say about their son/daughter. I also served tea and coffee. Thsese were simple but important tasks. Perhaps it would more intersting if I would have to translate German or Hindi, which do not know as well as English and Russian. I will be trying to help out at the other parent-teacher meeting that will take place later this year to provide a service to the school.

Action Plan

-Helping at parent's evening
-Mercedes Gear Changing
-GYM
-RC Modelling

Tabloid Cover

Last week we were given allocated a task, which required us to produce a cover page for a tabloid news paper. I found it extremely difficult using Microsoft Publisher. Everything was tied up with each other and moving one component would result in the whole design changing. It took me approximately 2 hours to produce this cover page. In the future I will be smarter and look at tutorials on the internet before starting to work with a program I have never used before.

Big Ben

To be a little creative I decided to build the big ben. It is a 3D puzzle. It was quite difficult to follow the instructions and there were parts where I decided to ignore putting in useless poles inside but then they turned out to be crucial. I have learned that it is very important to dollow the instructions manual and be patient. Maybe I will continue building these puzzles if I have the money.