Paweł's CAS Blog

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Horseback riding

Hi, today I had my 2nd lesson of horseback riding. I decided to learn at least the basics of this sport because I'd had very little experience with horses before (I had tried horseback riding maybe 2 or 3 times in my life). I simply thought that it would be nice to be able to do it. I focused mostly on improving my rhythm in the rising trot and I think it is very good now, even though trying to do it on a different horse was difficult at first. I had problems with steering while in sitting trot without using stirrups, so focusing on improving that next week will definitely be a good idea. This is me during the lesson last week (the person on the other horse is my younger sister):

Amnesty International meeting - Nationalism, Conservatism, Discrimination and Religion in Poland

Hi, today at the 2nd Amnesty International Club meeting on Zoom we discussed an ABC News In-depth movie about nationalism, conservatism, religion, and discrimination in Poland, A New Crusade: Poland's Embrace of Catholicism and Anti-LGBT Ideology . Our homeland has in recent years changed from being simply conservative to becoming a country led by the Church, which not only ignores the common issue of discrimination in Poland because of race, nationality or sexual orientation, but also publicly encourages such practices (especially on the national TV). Both the Church and the government have often attacked the LGBT community and immigrants. Multiple times human rights of either these groups or activists who have been defending them have been violated. I believe it is very important to oppose those tendencies and fight with the propaganda. Many young people like me (and older) say they are not interested in politics and treat it as though it was something abstract that did not infl

Cycling during the quarantine

Hi, I have continued cycling as a form of being active during this quarantine. I often go to forests not to have to wear a mask (this has been obligatory in Poland since April 16th). I think now when I go cycling more often my physical condition has become better again after a little bit worse period of full lockdown for people under 18. There aren't many technical things you can work on in cycling, but I have been trying to practice the efficient use of gears and I can see the effects of this when I cycle. Me cycling Unfortunately, the quarantine makes training in the Cobra club impossible (I also cannot find my rollerblades, so I haven't been able to practice this sport in quarantine). Thus, it is very important to me that I can go cycling to the forest nearby. I also use my bicycle to go to the local shop, where I have to buy all the things that we cannot wait for till the next online delivery, such as the most important food products. I've also continued going on walks

The first Amnesty International Club meeting

Hi, today the AI Club met for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. We talked about domestic violence during the quarantine and accidents in which boats with immigrants sank, killing many people. The most well-known example of such a situation is the tragedy that happened in Lampedusa in 2013, when a boat carrying migrants caught fire and sank, killing over 360 people. This was an international tragedy, but not the first situation of this kind. We think that after 7 years since Lampedusa, the boat accidents that happen to migrants are a problem of the whole European Union. The Italian government has for a long time collaborated with the government of Libya to stop migrants and send them back to the country they come from. As a result, Amnesty has accused Italy of sharing responsibility for the human rights violations by Libya. There were many tragedies such as the one in Lampedusa even in 2020, and little is being done by the EU to avoid them. A screenshot of the meeting on

Learning languages - update after the first week of French

Salut , today is the last day of my free week. From now on, I will not be able to spend as much time learning languages, though I am still going to try to spend at least an hour every day on this activity. Anyways, this is a good moment to summarize this week: the methods I've used, my progress in both Swedish and French, and my plans for the future. I'll start with the methods. At first, I did the standard thing - created a profile on Duolingo. I had heard a few times before that it is not as good as most people believe, but I wanted to try that popular platform. Now, I know this was a pretty good decision. Duolingo is not extremely effective, but it can be quite helpful in becoming familiar with the basic structures in the language when you are starting learning. Next, I found two great lists of 1000 and 500 most common words in French (created using different methods, so they maybe weren't very reliable, but at least different). I am the kind of person who remembers t

Cycling during the quarantine

Hello, during this pandemic many activities are not possible, so I try to be active by cycling. There is a forest near my house where I go, either by myself or with my family, about 2 or 3 times a week. I believe that in such a difficult time it is crucial to spend some time in nature, as it can reduce stress and improve your mood. I try not to forget how lucky I am to live in a house with a garden and have a forest nearby. Many of my friends live in Warsaw and I know this pandemic must be a much harder experience for them.

Learning languages - Swedish and French

Hi, I decided to start intensively learning languages by myself again as a hobby and form of spending time creatively during quarantine. I chose two languages: French and Swedish. I have been learning Swedish since this November, but have never treated it very seriously, so I'm still a beginner. Now, I want to combine learning Swedish with learning my 5th language - French. The only problem is that I know absolutely nothing in French. Apart from being able to say "Bonjour", "Merci", "Au revoir" and a few words like "chanson" or "français", I cannot communicate in French nor can I understand this language. Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49553523 So, I need to learn absolute basics in French before I combine learning those two languages (I will write about the ways in which I'm going to approach that goal in my next posts). Today, on June 2nd, I am going to start learning basic vocabulary and maybe some

Graduation 2020 Task Force - the final result

Hi, this last Friday the graduation 2020 ceremony took place and it was a spectacular success! After 3 weeks of preparations, we met on Zoom and celebrated this amazing moment. As you can see in the photo below, over 150 people took part in the meeting. Most of them had their cameras on, but we used the chat for conversations instead of microphones, because it would have been extremely chaotic if we had talked. The ceremony consisted of speeches, slideshows with comparisons of photos of the students now and when they were kids, videos from teachers and students (which I had edited), 4 musical performances and messages from students with thanks. We received lots of very positive feedback and I couldn't have imagined a better end result of our work. I feel like those 3 weeks taught me many things and allowed me to spend my time creatively doing something for others. There aren't many things that could have been done better, but among them, we discussed the idea of providing subti

Walking and cycling

Hi, since this Monday (April 20th) it has been legal to enter forests and people under 18 but over 13 (including me) have finally been able to leave houses without being accompanied by adults. This means I have been able to go cycling again and this Thursday I went on a long walk with my friend, Bartek, this time to the forest. It is not obligatory to wear masks in the forests, but since we are not from the same family we wore them and kept the proper distance.

Graduation 2020 Task Force - update

Hi, today I finished editing videos from IB2 students. This has been my most important task in the Graduation 2020 Task Force so far (others included research, preparing a short tutorial for teachers on how to record videos for the ceremony, etc.). I am quite proud of the result of my work, because I hadn't had any serious experience with video editing before and I think the final product is really good. I learned a lot during these two weeks and I think this knowledge will be very useful in my future life. This is a screenshot of my editing program with the videos I worked on (there were about 20 of them)

A trip to Grodzisk

Hi, today was the first day I could go cycling during this part of quarantine when people under 18 cannot leave homes without adults, and leaving lockdown is possible only when you have a purpose such as buying something or working. Fortunately, my father had to go to a nearby town, Grodzisk, to buy some necessary things for our garden, so I went with him to help him transport them back home. It was a very nice opportunity to leave my house for the first time in more than two weeks.

Graduation 2020 Task Force - the first meeting

Hi, today the first meeting (online of course) of the Graduation 2020 Task Force took place. It is a team of people from my school (students form MYP, PreIB and IB1 and one teacher) who prepare the graduation ceremony of the last year, IB2, which is going to take place about 3 weeks from now. Most of the team are people who have important roles in our school, for example our Prime Minister or the representative of MYP. I am a part of it because I know the platform we use for online lessons, Teams, well, and I have more technical knowledge than the other members. My task for the next meeting is to check if Teams have the capability of holding such a big event. Graduation from high school is a very important moment in students' lives, so we are very committed to making this celebration as good and memorable as it is possible online. For me, personally, this is a good way of expanding my knowledge, getting to know other people better, and, most importantly, making this pandemic less d

A walk on the last day of lockdown when I can still leave my house unaccompanied

Hi, yesterday was the last day when I could leave my house not accompanied by any adults and the first time during this quarantine that my parents allowed me to see someone who is not from our family (apart from salesmen when I went shopping). I used this opportunity to go on a walk with my friend who lives nearby. It was good to finally see another person from outside my family in reality, but it was not easy, because we had to keep a 2 m distance and wear masks all the time. I don't know how my Activity part of CAS is going to look now when I can't even leave my house, but I guess I will have to get used to this situation. Since the beginning of quarantine, I have also been unable to continue my service in the Amnesty International Club.

Cycling during the quarantine

Hi, it's been more than a week since the lockdown in Poland started. However, it is still possible to leave your house and, for example, go cycling. I use this opportunity to go on cycling trips to the forest with my family as often as possible. The usual distance is 3 km to reach a certain place, for example a clearing in the forest, and then 3 km back home. There aren't many people in the forest, so there is very little risk. During quarantine it is not possible to train in a regular way, so the purpose of cycling is more to stay active and also have fun doing that. It is also nice to spend some time in the forest with my family, but a problem often is that the speed my siblings prefer is usually a bit slower than the one I like. This is understandable, of course, because they are younger than I am, but when I go shopping at the local store I try to do it alone to be able to travel faster.

Mathematics Club during quarantine

Hi, today I took part in the first Maths Club meeting during quarantine and it seems as if we are going to continue to meet online during the lockdown. I haven't yet written about it in my posts, but I attend its meetings regularly every week to expand my knowledge and understanding of various interesting concepts in mathematics. I think that mathematics is not simply an analytical discipline, but requires also a lot of creativity to find "out of the box" solutions to problems. During the meetings, we solve many of such unusual problems and try to find the best approach to them. We also discuss different ways of thinking about some mathematical concepts, for example, in trigonometry.

Amnesty International Club meeting

Hi, today I attended a meeting of the Amnesty International Club. Seeing as yesterday was the International Women's Day, we spoke about women's rights, domestic violence, sexual harassment and social equality of sexes. I think these are very important issues which affect lives of each one of us and we should discuss more the potential solutions to them That's me with my friend during the meeting

Climbing at Mural

Today I went with my family to the Mural climbing wall. I spent there about two hours training.

Tensegrity

Today I worked with my friends on the tensegrity project, which connects mathematics and physics with engineering in a very interesting way. Tensegrity is a structure based on a harmony of tension which keeps its parts together. The most popular version looks like this: The goal of our project is to design and make a system of servos that would be able to make this structure move on a surface, turning it into a programmable and controllable robot. Our current idea is to extend some of the sticks to move the center of mass to the side on which we want the tensegrity to fall. Today we built a new tensegrity designed in such a way that its sticks can be easily adapted to an extending mechanism. In the following days we are going to start making the electronic system to perform first tests and check if our conception works

The end of the winter break

Hi, my winter break has just come to an end as today was the last day of skiing for me and my family. I think these two weeks were not only very beneficial to my physical condition and skiing skills, but also gave me an opportunity to rest from the busy school life. I've been skiing approximately 5 hours a day for 13 days, which gives me over 60 hours of enjoying this amazing sport.

The winter break begins

Hi, the 2 most active weeks of my year – the winter break - have just begun. I went with my family to Falcade in Italy to ski in the Dolomites. I am about to spend a week here with a Polish company called Fabryka Narciarzy. On the second week, I will live and ski in Ravascletto on a skiing camp organized by another Polish company, MoreSport.

Amnesty International meeting

Hi! Today on the Amnesty International Club meeting we spoke about how big fashion companies such as Zara, H&M and Primark violate human rights. Fast fashion, which means making the production faster and the costs lower, may seem like a good thing to us. However, it has a lot of negative consequences in countries where the clothes are produced and has become an important global issue. There are approximately 16.7 million children aged 5-17 currently working in South Asia. Furthermore, the deadly conditions in the factories of companies such as H&M have terrible effects on the workers' health. Many fast fashion companies, including Walmart, Zara, Desigual and Mango still haven't disclosed even the names and locations of their factories. In 2013 in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka District, Bangladesh, an eight-story building called Rana Plaza collapsed. It contained factories of companies such as Primark, Gucci, El Corte Inglés and Walmart. Although cracks had been discove

Climbing in Książenice

Hi! Today I went to the climbing wall in my village Książenice to practice boulder climbing. I had some great time there and I think I am getting better. This is me climbing:

Physics Club meeting

Hi, today on the Physics Club meeting I worked on the rocket project and talked with the team that is building a DNA model about their project. We discussed how they were going to buy the elements needed for the model. I will probably join their project later to help them build it before the Science Picnic organized by the Polish Radio and the Copernicus Science Centre this May. I have my own project for the Picnic as well. The Physics Club has a laser harp built by students in the previous years and my task is to design and build a system that could use energy created by pedaling on a bicycle to power the harp and make it more environmentally friendly.

Climbing - Mural climbing wall

Hi! Today in the morning I went with my family to Mural, a climbing wall located near the Warsaw Chopin Airport. I had a lot of fun and I hope to come there often in the future. This is me at Mural:

WOŚP - The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity

Hi! Today is the Grand Finale of The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity - polish charity organization which collects money for buying new, advanced medical equipment for hospitals. It raises tens of millions dollars every year and has become a symbol of Poland. Our school was one of the places were the money was collected today and I decided to bring there some butter cookies for people taking part in this event. I made them yesterday by myself and gave them to the organizers of the Grand Finale in our school today in the morning. I hope the guests will enjoy them and give a lot of money to the GOCC. This is me preparing the cookies:

Ice skating during the Christmas break

Hi! During this brake I went ice skating to the nearby city, Grodzisk Mazowiecki, two times: on December 27th and January 3rd. I spent 2.5 hours practicing this sport and had a lot of fun. It is actually very similar to rollerblading, so I learn new things quite fast. I tried to perform the backward crossovers, but I still need some practice to achieve a satisfying result. I am going to go ice skating at least once in the near future. I think I know what I did wrong during the previous attempts and am ready to try to do it better.

Learning Swedish

Hej! Hur är läget? I started learning Swedish by myself about two months ago. I don't have a lot of time for that, unfortunately, but I really enjoy it because jag gillar svenska mycket! I've used a mobile app on my phone called Learning Swedish and the website www.swedishpod101.com to learn new grammar and vocabulary and practice my pronounciation. I also tried to seize every opportunity to learn some new Swedish words. Swedish is a very easy language to learn for an English speaker, since these languages are very similar. For example, forty is fyrtio in Swedish, two is två and to say 'are' you use the word är (pronounced almost the same way). Source: https://wallpapercave.com/swedish-flag-wallpapers

Write for Rights!

Hi! This day has come: Write for Rights finally begun yesterday! I spent two hours with my friends writing letters to governments and embassies in defence of human rights. The letter writing continued today and will continue tomorrow during the AI Club meeting. We all hope our voices will persuade the governments to stop these human rights violations. One of the people I wrote for yesterday is a South Sudanese 17-year-old who had been unjustly sentenced to death because of accidentally killing his cousin at the age of 15. Death penalty is a big problem around the world. A person who was mistakenly sentenced to life in prison can still be released, but someone who was executed cannot be brought back to life. We mustn't let governments systematically kill their countries' citizens. Write a letter!

Group 4 Project

Hi! This Friday I was a volunteer during the Group 4 Project event in my school. G4P is an obligatory science project prepared every year in groups of approximately 8 IB1 students each. I assisted one of our teachers who was grading the presentations, helping him with the schedule and organizational difficulties. At the same time, I had a great opportunity to watch the presentations and learn more about preparing a project like this. The knowledge I gained may be very helpful when I will be preparing my Group 4 Project next year. I'm sure it will be an unforgettable experience and a nice lesson of cooperation. I love physics and engineering, so I find the idea of G4P very exciting and I'm looking forward to the next autumn.

Amnesty International presentation

Hi everybody! The Amnesty International meeting last Monday was a quite important one to me, as I told the other members the story of Magai Matiop Ngong. This South-Sudanese 17-year-old is one of the people we are standing up for this year, for he was unjustly sentenced to death while being only 15 and is now waiting for the execution. I prepared the presentation with my friend Michał. He spoke about the story of Magai and I described the situation of death penalty usage in South Sudan and around the world. Magai Matiop Ngong Magai fired his father's gun at the ground to warn his cousin who tried to stop him from fighting with another boy. The bullet ricocheted and hit Magai's cousin, killing him. This was an accident and should not be a reason for sentencing a teenager to death.

Climbing training

Hello! Today I trained with my cousins on a bouldering climbing wall in my village. It had been funded by the state as a consequence of our request and has allowed us to train climbing in our village. I enjoy this sport and I go on a climbing camp in Jura Krakowsko-Częstochowska every year. Since the wall was built, I've been able to practice it near my home. All the same, I haven't used this opportunity really well. Now I am planning to change this and train there more often to improve my skills. Me on the climbing wall

Rollerblading training

Hi! Yesterday I was on my first rollerblading training this year and signed up for advanced trainings of the Cobra club that take place every Saturday. We practiced floorball on rollerblades and I had a nice opportunity to remember techniques I learned last year. We won the match 5:2 and I was one of the best players; however, I think I should work on the accuracy of my shots, so that I can play even better in the future.

Physics Club - 3D printing with a robotic arm?

Hi! This Wednesday on the Physics Club meeting I was trying to start 3D printing using the DOBOT Magician. I burnt the 3D printing firmware and opened Repetier Host (a program allowing you to control a 3D printer). Before printing anything specific, I had to test the extruder (heat it to approximately 200ºC to melt the filament and check if everything was working properly). I started heating the extruder and the temperature displayed on the screen of my computer started to rise very slowly. After a few minutes it reached 30ºC. I increased the target temperature to 250 degrees, which is the maximum for the Repetier Host. The displayed extruder's temperature started to rise quite fast; however, after reaching 60ºC it suddenly fell to less than 35 degrees and then started to rise again. I was quite confused, but I just kept watching the chart on my computer. The temperature reached almost 85ºC, fell to 45, rose to 95 degrees, fell to 45, reached 87ºC again... This process continued de

Amnesty International Club meeting

Hello! Today on the Amnesty International Club meeting my friend Michał told us about Sarah Mardini and Seán Binder from Greece, who had been arrested and accused of 'people smuggling' after rescuing refugees arriving on boats. Now they risk facing up to 25 years in prison. During the Write for Rights we are going to write letters to Greek authorities demanding justice for these heroes. Sarah and Seán are not the only people in Greece arrested because they had helped refugees; however, they have become symbols of this issue and by fighting for their freedom we are defending the rights of other people in similar situations. In my opinion, letting refugees drown just because they might cause some problems for Greece if saved and punishing people who are trying to rescue them is not just a mistake - it is an unacceptable violation of human rights and an act showing lack of compassion and sensitivity. Although this is terrible, we don't usually talk about such situations. The v

Halloween drone ghost!

Hi! Yesterday was Halloween and many children and teenagers spent the evening trying to get as many candies as possible asking people the question "Trick or treat?". However, my idea for spending this time was quite different. I had built two quadcopters as a part of my scholarship project last school year, and now I decided to use one of them in an unusual way - as a ghost. I stuffed a paper pendant lamp with LEDs and a battery pack, covered it with a white cloth and hung it under my drone. I asked my neighbours to switch off their house lights and invite everyone coming for candies for 7 pm. Then, at the agreed time I prepared the drone, switched it on and took off with the 'ghost' illuminated by LEDs. People around were quite shocked when they saw it, but they had a lot of fun watching the 'ghost' fly. I think this project was a big success. The most interesting part was when I had to design the construction of the ghost. At first, I hung it in a way tha

Amnesty International - preparations for the 2019 Write for Rights starting

Hi! This Monday was a very important day for all of the Amnesty International Club members. On that day preparations for this year's Write for Rights officially started in our school. We talked about the campaign: how it works, what the aim is and why it is important. It was possible to sign up for doing a presentation about one of the people we fight for this time and so I did. My friend Michał and I are going to talk about Magai Matiop Ngong, a teenager from South Sudan who was unjustly sentenced to death for accidentally killing his cousin when he was only 15. I am very happy to be able to be a part of a movement like this, because I know, how much it means for people like Magai. For us, it's just letter writing. For them, this campaign can be a life-saver. One person doing something small won't change the world, but when hundreds of thousands of activists work together, they can achieve a lot and make our world a better place. Magai Matiop Ngong

PE Lesson - Football and Floorball

Hi! We played two sports on the PE lesson yesterday: football and floorball. I'm not a big fan of the first one, but I really enjoy playing floorball. Even though I had played it many times before, I had known it only in a different version - on rollerblades - until this lesson. It was a completely different experience to try this sport without them. I had a strange feeling of moving very slow, but on the other hand everything was happening much faster and required more precision. I still prefer the rollerblading version, mainly because I really enjoy rollerblading. I used to train it every week in the Kobra club in my village, practicing racing and floorball, but I haven't trained since the end of this summer holidays because of changing my school. However, I'm going to continue it, starting next weekend. There are two main reasons why I love rollerblading, the first one being that it's easy to practice. You just have to take your rollerblades, get outside your ho

Programing DOBOT in Python and the international exchange

¡Hola! I have spent this week in Spain on an international exchange with a high school in Madrid, so I didn't have much time for writing my CAS Blog. However, it was an unforgettable experience and a fantastic way to practice both my Spanish and English. I had many occasions to compare Polish and Spanish and it made me more aware of the things that make my language a very difficult one to learn and pronounce. I needed creativity to communicate, because I didn't always know the word for something I wanted to talk about, especially when speaking in Spanish, and people I talked to didn't always know English well. I met a lot of new people and had a chance to get to know and understand Spanish life better. This exchange gave me also the ability to see Madrid, Toledo and try Spanish food. I spent this week with a movie-loving family and we talked a lot about Spanish and Polish productions and directors, so it was also a good lesson of the theory of movies. T

Amnesty International and my first bake sale

Hi! A week ago, I had the first Amnesty International Club meeting. We learned what we were going to do this year and decided to organize a bake sale to raise money for the Write for Rights event. That's why today many members of the Amnesty Club, including me, brought cakes we had baked at home. I prepared apple muffins, using a recipe I had found on the Internet. That's me while cooking: And this is the final effect: The bake sale was a success, for we raised a quite big amount of money. I also practiced some new baking skills, because I'm not really good at cooking. Today another Amnesty Club Meeting took place. We discussed the current situation in Hong Kong and talked about human rights violations in this case. I'm really looking forward to our next actions and events, especially the Write for Rights. I believe that Amnesty does a great job defending human (and not only human) rights. Many people around the world owe their freedom or eve

My first PE lesson

This Wednesday I had the first PE lesson during my CAS program. We divided into those who wanted to play football and those who preferred a running practice. I'm unfortunately not a big fan of the most popular team sports, so I chose running. I love practicing sports like skiing, rock climbing, swimming or cycling, but I'm not very good at doing anything with a ball like those used in football, volleyball and basketball (tenis is OK). In my opinion times of playing only these 3 main sports are gone, and introducing more individual and less popular sports on the PE lessons might be a good idea. Our PE teacher told us that if the weather allows us, we will try some badminton, so I'm quite optimistic. I am also really looking forward to the Winter Non-Public Schools Championships. I would especially like to take part in the skiing competition and I hope my school will win.

Physics Club - getting started with DOBOT Magician

Yesterday after classes students fascinated with physics and engineering instead of going home gathered to construct and learn new things as a part of the Physics Club. I was one of those students. I joined the Club in September and now every Wednesday I take part in the meetings. This time we worked in small groups of about 4 people each. Mine tried to get started with DOBOT Magician - a robotic arm recently bought by our school. We learned how to control it with a computer program and using controller from the kit. We also discovered how to program basic actions like moving, using a gripper and a suction cup. However, writing first sentences on paper using DOBOT was still probably the biggest success of that afternoon. I think I've learned a lot and am well prepared to discover other opportunities of using DOBOT Magician and develop my programming skills. In my opinion, robotic arms like this are the future not only of manufacturing but also many other processes around us