Starting the Product!!!

So last weekend I finally decided to start my product. I still have a few things on my check list that I wanted to do before starting my product, and I will do those things over time. But I found out that we have one month left before the product has to be due, and I thought that they would exstend the deadline anyway because we started a few weeks late on the personal project last year. But then I logged into our school website and found this:

So I send an email as well to Ms. Trumic to make an appointment for a new meeting, and this is what I recieved:
(Email of Ms. Trumic here)

Today it's the 17th of September, and the product is due the 10th. So last friday when I saw this I started panicking a bit and I wanted to start my product ASAP!! So saterday I got my equipment (the wood), but I had to go to a birthday party, so I was able to start my product on sunday. I drew all the wheels on the wood and started sawing some out. I took pictures of all my progress as I tend to forget to do that on my Technology projects. These pictures can be viewed in Appendix #?

List of materials

I have mentioned most of my materials, but not made a definite list.
So I will start with a list of materials and then a list of equipment

• Wood (0.5x1x0.02 m)
• Wood (0.5x1x0.008 m)
• Nails (0.8 cm thick, 10 cm long)
• Rubber bands (or something with friction)
• Nails (0.1 cm thick, 2 cm long)
• Weights (to hang on the rope)
• Weights (to hang on the pendulum)
• Rope

• Figure saw
• File (rough and fine)
• Final design
• Compass (to draw circles)
• Pencil
• Rubber
• Drill

How will I test my product

So originally I wanted to survey people about my product against my design specifications. My design specification are:

• Size of a shoe box (excluding Pendulum)
• Made mainly of wood
• Looks just like the design
• Shows how the mechanics of a clock works.
• The weight has to be easy rewindable.

So I was planning on asking questions like:

1. Is the clock (excluding the Pendulum) about the size of a shoe box?
2. Is the clock mainly made out of wood?
3. Does it look just like the original design?
4. Does it show how the mechanics of a clock work?
5. Is the weight easily rewindable?

But for people to answer some of these questions they would either have to see the product or know how it works. As I cannot bring the actual product around with me, or have time to explain exsactly how it works I decided that I will not do a survey. I would also need a lot of people to survey which is very inconvenient and time-consuming.
I decided that I would just reflect myself on how well I have done in my design specifications. As most of them are either common-sense or measurable I believe I can decide myself if I have achieved the specification.

I will check myself if I have reached the specification by:

Measuring the outline of an average/random shoe box, and measuring the outline of my clock. I will allow myself a 10cm margin of error.

	Length	Width	Height
Box 1	30.5	20.5	11
Box 2	30.5	17.5	10
Box 3	31	17.5	10.5
Box 4	30.5	17.5	10
Average	30.625	18.25	10.375
Rounded average	31 cm	18 cm	10 cm

Other materials are allowed to be used in my product, but it has to be mainly wood. If I have achieved this specification mainly relies on common sense.
Looks just like the design is an easy one. I have in no aspect in any way changed my design compared to my final product. The slightest change causes this specification to fail.
It should show how the mechanics work
I designed my clock in such a way that it will show how the mechanics of a clock clearly. If I will stick to the design then this specification will automatically also be achieved.
Then again, I designed the clock in such a way that the weight will be easily rewindable. So if the design works out OK, then I automatically achieved this too. But if I don't achieve the 'just like the design' specification I will time myself rewinding the clock. If it takes takes 60 seconds or less in a normal (not rushing) speed, I have achieved this specification.


If the majority of the questions are answered with yes... then I can proudly say that I achieved my goal.

Update

So I have been gone for a few weeks, and then when I came back my internet wasn't working. Only recently my wifi has been restored and I can continue my Personal Project. Whilest I was gone I got a book called "Clock Design and Construction" by Laurie Penman. Although I know myself and know that I won't be able to read the whole book page by page, word by word. I will though take abstracts from the book and use them, maybe even quote them.

My friend also went away on holiday, and when somewhere in Spain she saw this amazing mechanical clock, and specially for me she made a video of it. I will get her to post it on youtube or something so I can put it on my blog.

Also when on holiday in Friesland I saw this amazing machanical clock, too bad I couldn't take a photo, but you were able to look inside the clock from the sides. It had a ... pendulum. Though the clock was different, the arms weren't lined up, it was made from metal and everything was a lot smaller, but the mechanics behind it were the same and I could reconize the whole process.

Whilest the internet was down I did continue a bit on my PP. I made my detailed design, but it is too big for the scanner, so I will have to find a camera and upload it, I will do that soon. But there are still some changes to be made on the design. I didn't add the arms yet, but I will ask my friends to help me design the arms because that's the only part I can get a little creative with in the whole clock, everything else is all practicle. I also saw a better design for the anchor in the book. Also I am scared that the weight will hit the pendulum, and because some wheels hit eachother and overlap, so I made three layers instead of two, I will colour code them.

How the wheels will be attached to eachother

I will start by taking a big board, 2cm thick which will go behind the clock where I will nail everything against. Then there will be some sort of rubber stopper, if I can't find a specialised one at my local do-it-yourself shop I can always use an ordinary stationary rubberband. Then my first wheel.

Whenever I want two wheels to be attached to eachother I will make the wheels seperately and then nail them together, but I will leave a small space between them, so the wheels won't touch eachother and won't cause any friction. The same thing will happen to the second/minute/hour hand if there is one.

Then another rubber band because the nails will leave some space for improvement or miscalculations.

Design Specifications

I now have to think of Design Specifications.
In Appendix 6 they give examples of design specifications.
These will be my design specifications:

• Size of a shoe box (excluding Pendulum)
• Made mainly of wood 
• Looks just like the design
• Shows how the mechanics of a clock works.
• The weight has to be easy rewindable.

Target Audiance

I have to find a target audiance for my product. Every single person in this world would use some sort of some sort, evern if it would be looking at the sun. But when I said to Ms. Lira 'everyone' she counted it as a wrong answer and told me to think of a more specific target audiance. Then I started thinking about who would rather want a mechanical clock then a electronic clock.

People who see the clock as a piece of art
People who are old school
People who are against using electricity
People who like the sound of a mechanical clock

So then logically my target audiance would become
"People who see clocks as a piece of art, who are old school, who are against using electricity or who like the sound of a mechanical clock"
But that's not really a good target audiance.
So I try to think of charasteristics of people who have a mechanical clock:

• What would the age most likely be: 50+
• What gender would the TA most likely be: Both
• What nationality would the TA most likely be: Dutch, because I live in The Netherlands, and can't sell it in foreirn counties.
• In what financial status would the TA most likely be: Mechanical clocks do normally cost a lot, so they do need to have the money to be able to afford it
• What would their house most likely look like: A mechanical clock is way bigger that a normal electronic one, so they need to have space to hang it up.

So now my target audiance looks more like
"Dutch elderly, who are old school, see the clock as art, don't like to use electrcity, like the sound of mechanical clocks, can afford to buy a mechanical clock and have enough space to hang it up"

But my target audiance doesn't have to be old school, doesn't have to hate electricity, doesn't have to like the sound of mechanical clocks. So because this TA would be too specific, I made it a bit more broughter:

"Dutch elderly, who can afford to buy a mechanical clock and have space enough to hang it up"

making this my Target Audiance!


People older than 5, who can read clock and enjoy owning clocks

• Age: What is the age range of the population who needs your service?
• Gender: Which gender would be most interested in this service?
• Income: What is the income level of my potential clients?
• Education: What level of education do they have?
• Martial Status: What is their martial or family status?

Clock making lessons in The Hague

I have to find a shop near The Hague where they make Mechanical Clocks. I don't really need to go to one, because I have most of the knowledge to make a clock, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if I didn't find one. But I need to have a lot of trustable resources for my bibliography. Also in my Appendix 14, Ms. Lira told me that it would be a good idea to get a clock maker to show you how it's done.
I asked my dad if he knew a clock maker near The Hague, and he did point out this school which teaches how to make jewerly with diamonds, gold and silver. But also has curcusses on how to make clocks. I checked it out and thought that it would be one of those one day curcusses. Turns out that the curcuss on making mechanical clocks is 20 weeks long, begins in November and cost 1200 euro... maybe not.
I still don't have a shop where I can go to, and the hope that I will find one is decreasing.

Designing the clock

I am now trying to tick of all the things I have to do which is listed in my Appendix 14. "Make a really nice design" is one of them. So before I could start making the final designs I made a rough sketch of how I want it will work. This was my first try:

Then I started to do some mathematics and tried to figger out how many teeth each wheel needed. I started with the once labeled A, B, C and D below. The once which make sure the hands turn exsactly 12 times quicker/slower.



After doing some doodling on a page I figgered out that the ratio should be 48:12:36:12, so

A = 12 teeth

B = 36 teeth

C = 12 teeth

D = 48 teeth.

Then I looked at the diagram in the book a bit closer, and saw that they just gave the answers in the book. Just a bit different.

A = 10 teeth

B = 30 teeth

C = 6 teeth

D = 24 teeth.

I checked and found out that both are possible. They will both work, I will just more likely use the one shown in the book because the bigger wheels will be smaller, and therefore hopefully easier to make. Then I compared the ratios to the wheels, and found that the wheels were in the incorrect position. So I made my second sketch design.

The reason why I didn't make the A, B, C and D set in a square formation like the diagram is because you then had to get the minute hand through the hour wheel which would be extremily difficult to do, so this way it will be easier, more visual, more accurate and more artistic. Then I looked at the full page where I got the diagram from, and saw an easier way of making the pendulum and weight.

So I made a third sketch based on this discovery.

Then I thought that the pendulum goes left to right approximately once every 2 seconds. So if the pendulum has 30 teeth. The minute hand becomes the second hand and the hour hand becomes the minute hand. You can solve this problem by giving the escape wheel 1800 teeth, or just by adding more wheels. From the minute hand to the hour hand we solved it down exsactly 60 times. So why don't we just repeat this. This gave me my fourth sketch.

I also thought that if the escape wheel turnes once every minute, you can just as easily attach a second hand on it, for the clock to not only show which hour and minute it is, but also the seconds. On this sketch I also wrote down how many teeth each wheel has to make it less confusing.

The next problem I found was that I am now assuming that the pendulum will go back and forth every two seconds, but I can't assure that. My dad helped me with that, and said that the pendulum is just like a metronome. I have a metronome at home and it can go from 40bpm to 208bpm. So if it's on 40bpm it will go give 40 click every minute. When you move the weight on the pendulum up or down it changes the speed of the pendulum. The further up it goes, the quicker. The further down you move it, the slower.

For the clock I choose 30 teeth on the escape wheel, because it doesn't matter how many teeth the wheel has as long as the wheel it is attached to has the same number. Like in the sketch, the wheel the escape wheel is attached to, is also 30. So I could have choosen 60, when the pendulum has to go back and forth every second, or I could have choosen 15 when the pendulum has to go back and forth every 4 seconds. But I choose 30 to not make it go too quick, but not too slow for the results to become inaccurate.

Every time the pendulum goes back and forth once, one teeth will have escaped. So because there are 30 teeth, and it takes two seconds for the pendulum to go back and forth, the whole wheel will turn one whole round every 60 seconds.

To make sure the pundulun goes back and forth exsactly once every two seconds you just have to play around with the height of the weight on the pendulum.

A few days later a friend of mine wrote a comment suggesting that I could use the verge escapement instead of the anchor escapement I am using now. I did some research on different escapement and found that there are lost of different escapements you can use. But the verge escapement this person mentioned I made a design which would use this, and I concluded that I will stay will my achor escapement, so my fourth design.

But unlike my friend said, this only makes it more complicated to make. Altought the principal is easier, ik I would try to do this, my clock would become more 3D and harder to make and design. So I'll stick with my original design (the fourth one).

First Meeting with Supervisor

I finally had my first meeting with my supervisor. It took me a while because we planned a few meetings before and it ended up not happening for various of reasons. First I made an appointment for the (date here), and in the email it said that I had to be at 10.00 in A105. But I didn't read the email properly, so I though I had to come to A105 sometime that morning. I ended up going at 10.20, but she wasn't there, I reread the email to see if I had forgotten something, and (de rest spreekt voor zich). I emailed her and we made another appointment for the day before yesterday (date). But I went home sick, and my friend offered to go to Ms. Trumic and tell her that I was sick, but the lesson before (mentor) everybody had to clear and clean their lockers and take everything home, she forgot to go to Ms. Trumic.

So I thought that I was scared that I was not able to meet her before the holidays. We also had a substitute for Economics and Bussines that day, and we had Ms. Lira as out cover teacher. Ms. Lira is also the head of HI. I explained to her what my problem was, and she kindly offered to 'act' like my supervisor and tell me what my next steps would be. I made a list of things I have to do, and was suppost to record this list in my supervisor log, but it is too long so I just made it an Appendix. My list of steps that I have to do now is called Appendix 14. Then later that day I saw Ms. Trumic walking out of a classroom, I went up to her and explained to about how I was sick and asked a friend to tell her, but she forgot and etc., and she understood and she suggested that we could have a meeting now. I was fine with it because it was all the way at the end of the day and we had to wait for a little bit anyway. It only lasted around 5 minutes. She told me that I was on track, and was way ahead of her other students she is guiding. I explained what my idea for my PP was (making a Mechanical Clock), she told me that if there are any questions during the holidays I can always email her. She asked what my plans are roufly going to be, I said that I hoped to finish the product during the holidays and start the essay when I get back. We didn't make a new appointment because the next meeting will be after the holidays and we'll get a new time-table, so we don't know yet when we'll be available. I recorded both my meetings in my Supervisor log which is now Appendix 16

That evening I was home I checked my email. She send me an email about how I missed my appointment the day before, and suggested another time that day, but I didn't see the email before because it was send 9.00 that morning. So I missed that meeting as well. I have also put all the emails send back and forth between us here.

Human Ingenuity

We got a 54 page guide about this personal project. The definition on Human Ingenuity they gave was:

"Human Ingenuity is about the impact of the human mind on our world.
We work, play, create relationships, cause problems and then think of the ways to solve them again. We shape the world to the way we want it and reflect upon the consequences of our actions.
It's not only about us as individuals, but also the impact of our collective actions. HI can both small and simple or large and complex. HI can both good for us and bad for us.

This is why the two key questions for Human Ingenuity are:
Why and how do we create?
What are the consequences?"

The whole definition and more about Human Ingenuity you can read in the Appendices.

So if we would relate this definition to my project you can see clear resembalance. Clocks and is a very big and brought topic to talk about, so there are many different way on how we can go about answering these questions. But if we first take a look at the (opsomming) they gave us in the difinition about what HI effects how we:
Work
Play
Create Relationships
Cause Problem
Think of Ways to Solve them Again.

And obviously the invention of time has changed this definity, but what's so hard about talking how the Mechanical Clock has changed the way we live is that clocks did exsist

Different people have different opinions on how the clock has effected these points, but because I can't go around to every single person on the world and ask their opinion I narrowed it down to just my opinion, it still is my project.

How we live changed when we invented the Mechanical clock. The idea of the Mechanical Clock was used in the 1300s, but was very inaccurate. The pendulum was invented in 1581, and used in clocks a century later. So if you do the math,
1581 + 100 =  1681.
2012 - 1681 = 331
So only around 331 years ago a proper working, accurate mechanical clock was used. When this era was present, there were huge differences in the way we worked, played, create, cause and solve things. This was the first time reading object that was not only accurate, but also didn't need adjustments every hour. Candles finishes, and could be blown out. Water timers needed fresh water, and were very hard to read. The mechanical clocks were easy to read, and only needed someone to adjust the weights every so often. People worked and work better when the clock was invented. We show up on time, and leave when the clock stikes 6. We could/can record how much time we put into something, and make appointments without people showing up hours too late or too early, although 300 years ago they probably didn't have appointments and offices yet.

Supervisors announced

Not too long ago they (explain) announced our supervisors for our PPs. I got Ms. Trumic, she's an Physics teacher at my school. I am really happy I have a physics teacher because my project is physics and technology. I never had a class from Ms. Trumic, I never even met her. But I emailed her to make an appointment, and she will be available next Thursday the 28th.

Technopolis Brussels

With school I went on school camp to Brussels this year. It was from (date) to (date). We visited the trenches and some other WWI related things. On the last day right before we would go home we went to a museum called Technopolis. We had to look throught the museum and later do a few assignments on what we saw for our Sciences. But then I came accross one exsibition and it had a model of how the clock works. I got all excited and started taking lots of pictures, but then after actually reading what the model does I realised that I already knew everything what was happining. They just explained and showed how one teeth turns 60 times quicker that the other. Which if you read my previous post I already knew and explained. But if you didn't really understood how my theory (and now fact) worked you can read what they said in the museum and hopefully you'll understand now.

(Find and place the photos of Technopolid here)

Personal Project Proposal

I had to hand in my PP Proposal form, this form is also known as Appendix 4. Most of it is straight forward. All the proposals of all Yr10 students will be printed out and hung up anonymously in the staff room.
The asigned supervisors will choose a project (or projects) that interests them, so the PE teachers likely will choose a project related to PE, art teachers will (likely) choose an art project, and spanish teachers will choose someone who wants to do their whole project in Spanish.

My project is partially Physics, partially Technology. How this clock works and how the weights are all part of Physics. The actual making of the clock itself is more Technology.

I will now be assigned a Supervisor in the coming weeks, who will guide me throught this PP, and if I ever have any questions I have to go to her. We will have regular meeting were she will check if I am on track and doing the right things.

Basics of how a clock works

Before I confirmed that I would make a clock, I obviously researched a bit about if it is really achievable. I looked through some book in our school library. I found one book which names all the vocabulary of all the pieces of a clock, which I thought would be very usefull when I would go buy the pieces. Only later I came with the idea of making all the pieces from wood. So I photocopied it and put it here:

There are another book which explains a bit confusinly how the basics of a clock work. But I figured it out mainly by common-sense.

You have two types of Mechanical Clocks, one that works on weight, one that works on springs. If you have a clock that works on springs it means that you tighten the spring which holds potential energy and pushes a wheel round. If it works on weigth it also hold potential energy, because the gravity will pull the weight down, and the weight are attached to a wheel, so the weights will turn around the wheels.

How the wheels work is easy: when one wheel starts turning, the other once will aswell and eventually it will get the teeth of the clock to work. The next bit is a bit hard to explain just by words, but I'll do my best. One wheel is directly attached to the minute teeth, but one wheel (a bigger one) is touching it. because the wheel is bigger, the smaller one has to turn more times for the bigger one to go around once, in other words the big one will go slower. Then above the big wheel is another wheel. These are attached to eachother, not just touching. So whenever the big one goes around once, so will the other one. The 'other' one is smaller, and is touching another bigger wheel. So the small one will go really slowely, but it has to turn several times before the big one has turned once. Therefore the big one goes even more slowely. Mathmatically calculated the made sure that the speed of this one is acsactly 60 times slower that the minute teeth, which makes the hour teeth. Are you with me?

Then you have another problem. If the weigths or the spring makes one of the wheels go around, why doesn't it very quickly make all the wheels go around really fast and then stop? This is solved by the pendulum.

In the book it also explains how an electronic clock works, but that doesn't really help me in my project, and in the back it also explains a bit about the history of the clock. But this was only a small paragraph, so I just quoted it:

"Clocks

A rack-and-pinion gear was used in a water clock build by the Greek inventor Ctesibius in about 250BC. The water clock was an ancient device in which water dropped at a constant rate into a containter, the level of the water indicating the time. Ctesibius improved it by having a float raise a rack that turned a pinion connected to a pointer on a drum. The pointer turned to indicate the time in the same ways as the hour hand of a mechanical clock.
The oldest surviving mechanical clocks date from the late 1300s. Gears transmitted the constant movement of a regulator to the hands or to a bell. A good regulator appeared only with the discovery of the pendulum in 1581 by the great Italian scientist Galileo, who timed a swinging chandelier with his pulse and realized that chandelier with his pulse and realized that the time taken for each swing was always constant. Even so, it took nearly a century for the first pendulum clocks to appear."

Brainstorming my idea's for PP

I knew that I would really enjoy the Personal Project, if I came up with a good idea. That's the first step in my personal project, and I already got stuck. I though no worries, we will have an assembly about the personal project this wednesday. But unfortunately they only explained about the PP, not give advice on what to make. Then I thought of it. The perfect idea. Something that I have wanted to do sinse I was 6, but I was too young back then. I was going to walk the "4-daagse". This is an anual event in Nijnmegen. You walk either 30, 40 or 50 kilometers (depending on your age) every day for four days in a row. I was getting really excited about it because my grandfather did this lots of times when he was younger, my sister and my cousin gave it a try (but it was cancelled after the first day because it was just too warm), now it's my turn. You had to be 12+, and because I have only moved here at the beginning of the year this was the first opportinity I would get to finally join. You're probably wondering why my journal is called "Making of a Mechanical Clock" and not "Walking de '4-daagse'". This is because I was going to sign up for the 4-daagse, but then I found out that the sign up's closed only a few weeks ago. There goes my perfect personal project, and although I am already quite a while further, I'm still annoyed that I let this perfect PP slip through my fingers like that.

I was stuck, I had no idea what to do. I asked my friend to help, but she didn't take it seriously. She though of the most useless idea's and laughed at her own thoughts. My dad was a great help. He sat down and told me to say anything that comes up in my mind. He himself came up with some good ideas aswell. We were not at home, so he wrote an email to himself with all the ideas that we came up with. He then printed them out as soon as got were home, and gave it to me. The email is now my Appendix 15.

Me and my dad are Dutch, therefore the email is written in Dutch. I will translate everything now.

1. My first idea was to learn a new instrument. My dad learned trompet when he was little, but didn't remember much. We still had the trumpet though together with a few books. I wasn't too thrilled about this because I hate performing or giving a presentation in front of a lot of people. And if I would have choosen to do this I would choose a project which will force me to perform. Also I was scared that my commitment and entousiasm would drop, and therefore I would just not be borered to practice anymore after a few weeks.
2. Learn a new language is one of the hardest project I wrote down. I didn't have to speak it like a foreiner, and I was going to choose an easy one like German, because I already speak fluently Dutch it couldn't be that hard. Later I also though that I could learn a language for deaf or blind like braille, or sign language.
3. Build a website. I once took part in this ICT compitition in my old school, and my teacher have me this software to make profesional websites to the whole team in case we had to make one. I don't have this anymore because my hard-drive got replaced, but I could send him an email asking if I could have it another time. He said that using this software was quite complicated, but it will give amazing results if you do it properly. He said that he used to make money for making websites for people when he was younger. My dad really wanted a website about himself for business purposes. So he said that maybe I can learn how to use this software, and make one for him.
4. Baking a wedding cake. I would really like to do this project. I could practise doing techniques on very small cakes. I would make a final piece in the summer holiday, and make one again for the presentation day. The biggest set back was that it wasn't really a good PP, and it would cost a lot of money.

5. Design and build a huge guinea pig paradise. This idea had a line through it because it just wasn't a very good idea. I have three guinea pigs (now two) at home. And I would love to build a bigger cage for outside on the grass for them, because inside they have a big cage, but we put them outside as much as possible so they can eat the fresh grass. It's just that the cage outside isn't very big. So I thought maybe I could build a cage which is massive, with multiple levels. But my guinea pigs are old and not as active, so they wouldn't use it anyway. And it would take hours to clean the top levels, therefore the bigger it would become, the more inconvenient it would be for us.

6. Design and build a pillow storage cage. We have a big cough outside with several pillow on it. But whenever it start raining we have to store the pillows in the living room. So my parents want to get a box for outside where we can store the pillows in, so my dad said: Why don't you make one. I crossed out this option because this would be an extremily easy project to do which doesn't need any research, and not too much time to make.

7. Plant a spice garden. I wonder now why I didn't cross out this idea immidiatly. Holland it a bad place for growing spice (I think), and I only had one summer. I barely needed any research, and it was extremily easy to do. Enough said I think.

8. Walking the 4-daagse. I immidiatly crossed this out, because I just had to get this out of my head, there was no way I could do this. I could sectretly and illigally join, but then my school wouldn't really apreciate that I guessed. And I wouldn't get the medal which would be proof I did it. I also wanted that medal, not just for more proof, but also to keep for the future.
9. Run for 10km. My friend Finja wanted to run half a marathon for her Personal Project. But ended up choosing something else, and because I told her before how I though that was a really cool idea she said that I was allowed to use this idea as well if I wanted to. But about two months ago there was the CPC run, and this guy of around my age ended up in the hospital because he ran 10km. In the newspapers they therefore adviced children my age not to run more than 10km. My dad read that, and said I wasn't allouwed to do half marathon. So therefore we wrote down to run 10km, which would be a big achievement for me, but just not big enough because there are a lot of people my age who can easily run 10km. Therefore I crossed it out.

10. Make a cookbook for vegetarian people. My friend suggested that I could become vegetarien, but that wouldn't be a good Personal Project itself. So I though what if I would become vegetarian and make a cook/tip book on how to become vegetarian. With delicious and healthy vegeratian food which I cooked when I became vegetarian. But because doing a cookbook is so unoriginal as lots of people are making a cookbook, and I don't really want to become a vegetarian anyway, I crossed it out.

11. Learn how to make and eventually make an Indian rice table. My mom sugested this out of nowhere. She said that I could learn how to make this dish by dish and in the end prepare the whole thing. She said that Indian people would start cooking days before the dinner to have the whole thing finished. But personally I don't really like Indian food. But I kept it on anyway.

12. Design clothing. My dad asked what most people in my class do, and I said cookbook or designing clothing and stuff, so he just wrote it down. I never thought about doing this, and I really never will. So as soon as I got home I crossed it out.

13. Knit a sweater. This would have been a great Personal Project if you didn't know how to knit. But I learned how to knit when I was around 6 years old, and have enough practice making this not a very good project. I still added it to the list because I love to knit, and I always wanted to make an actual sweater, not just scarves. I crossed it out because my friend coincidentally is also making a sweater for her Personal Project, therefore I thought it wouldn't be such a good idea to do the same if I would have chosen this.

14. Help with the voting for the new minister-president of Holland. This was a big NEVER. But my dad liked the idea and added it on anyway. Making this the second one I crossed out.

15. Train a dog for blind people. I thought this would be so cool to do. I always wanted a dog, but wasn't allowed to have one. But if it is for a school project my parents would consider it. The problem is that you only get one go at everything, and if I don't train the dog well it wouldn't become a guidance dog, and therefore I would have to keep it for the rest of it's life, and that is not an option, so although I didn't want to I had to cross it out.

16. Build a mechanical clock. My dad mentioned this, and my friend mentioned this as a joke. But I didn't take it serious till I did some research on it I found out that the basics are quite easy. Just the making would be the problem. I originally though I would get all the pieces made from metal at some do-it-yourself shop, but then I was scared that they wouldn't have all the pieces, or all the pieces would all be very expensive.

Ok so after all that, I took the once I didn't cross out, and made a table. I made a column for money, one for time, one if it is a 'good project', one if it is an 'appropiate project'. There is a small difference between a 'good' project and an 'appropiate' project. When the project is appropiate I mean that if I go up to someone and explain my idea, it will sound like a good PP, not that they will think: "Are you sure that's a good idea?". When it's a 'good' project it is well... a good project. A project that could easily be classified for PP's. So with good I mean that the title sounds good, while appropiate means the whole idea sounds good. Just take a look at the examples on Appendix 15.

Whenever the arrow is up in the first two colums it is good. So for instruments I wrote down that it would be expensive (which is negative), but time consuming (which is positive). And for the good/appropiate project, there is only one which has a different answer for both colums. The website has a cross for 'good', and a tick for 'appropiate'. This is because is I tell someone I am building a website, it doesn't sound like a good project, but when I explain it, it will sound like a reasonable project. There was only one project which had four ticks, learning a language. I had a arrow up for time, which is positive, but this would take too much time. I had a arrow down for clock on money because I first I though I would buy the parts all seperate which might be very expensive. I did some research on clocks to see if it also wouldn't be too complicated and found a picture. This picture has been the base of my whole project. This picture I have shown every person which asked me what I am doing for my personal project. This picture gave me courage to make this clock, which sound cheesy but is true.

This photo is from a website of this guy who sells do-it-yourself packages to make you own mechanical clock. I thought if everything would go wrong and I would just be clueless on what to do next I could order this packet and make it using the instructions. With this in the back of my mind I choose this as my project. Later after doing a bit more research I found that this guy lives in Hawaii, so if someone in Europe would orders these packages it would take approcimately 6-8 weeks for it to arive. So now I know I don't have a plan B, and I just have to be able to do it all myself.