Thursday, November 23, 2023

My Critical Reflection

Before taking this module, I thought that this module would be like the general modules I have taken back in Polytechnic and that it would be dreadful and hard to handle. After briefly reading through the course outline and the materials from the student portal, I realised that the lessons and the assignments required from me were not as foreign as I have been exposed to them when I was taking my diploma. Personally, I am not very confident in my writing and presentation skills as I do not have a strong foundation in English and I thought this will be a good opportunity to hone my writing skills as it will be an essential going into university and my career. After going through this trimester of critical thinking and communicating, I realised that my writing and presentation skills have improved and I have gotten a grasp of how to structure different writings that I will have to write in the future.

Module Learning
Throughout this trimester, I got the opportunity to expose myself to different writings such as an introductory email, reader response analysis and a technical design proposal report. This taught me the different structures, flow and tone every type of writing should have and gave us opportunities to write our own and get feedback from my classmates and professor to improve on our writing. The biggest achievement for me is being able to write a full design proposal report using the writing skills and techniques taught such as using the PEEL framework in establishing my points. A big room for improvement for me still is the usage of words in a formal writing as I will tend to use fragments.
Another key takeaway from this module is learning how to fully utilize search engines such as google, google scholar and online libraries and Ais such as ChatGPT to aid my research to getting credible information. With information from the web, I learnt that we must reference the sources we cited the information from to give them credit otherwise it will be considered as plagiarism. This module taught me how to use the appropriate method to reference the sources I get my information from.

Project Learning
For my team’s project, I took on the role of being the writer and someone who runs and keeps the ideas flowing to improve our project. This allowed me to set the pace of my group and being able to come up with a step-by-step approach to work towards our oral presentation and technical report submission. Through group discussions I learnt how to communicate my ideas effectively to my groupmates and to take in their opinions and ideas. Leading up to our Oral Presentation, we did up the slides collaboratively and I made sure our formatting and the flow of slides and speeches were smooth. For our technical report, I am still learning the skill of being able to read through my group’s contributions and making sure the report is written in a uniform format and with one voice.

Throughout this module, the skills I have learnt will be extremely useful moving ahead in university and my career. Although I may not be the best at both presenting and writing but having improved in these aspects, I have gotten more confident in myself.

Monday, November 20, 2023

Why am I Excellent in terms of Student Participation

I believe I deserve to be graded excellent for student participation as I have always been punctual for lessons. Even though I missed a lesson as I was feeling very unwell that day, my enthusiasm and interests in classes stands out. For example, I would always answer questions whenever possible, clarify and asks questions when I am in doubt and takes the initiative to start group discussions to get the work done. This demonstrates my behavior and attitude towards learning and at the same time, improving on my writing and speaking skills. Therefore, I deserve to be graded excellent for student participation.

Monday, November 13, 2023

Summary / Reader Response Draft #4

The Momentum blaster is a dual-stage select-fire flywheel blaster that is powered by a single rechargeable 14.8-volt LiPo battery (Out of Darts, n.d.). The Momentum is capable of firing more than 30 darts per second, has selectable fire modes of semi-automatic, automatic and bursts with various rates of fire with each mode. Another feature of the Nerf Momentum is the on-board programming of the blaster, allowing the user to adjust the firing speed and the number of darts per burst to the user’s liking (Goodman, 2022). The key feature of the blaster is its brushless motors as it is more powerful and efficient, which will provide more power to the flywheels, which allows the blaster to reach higher rates of fire. Brushless motors, which are more durable and quieter, can spin the flywheels faster, which generates more kinetic energy in the darts, hence producing a higher dart velocity and range. Given the speed, versatility and usability of the Momentum blaster, it has a prominent edge above the Nerf Ultra Speed despite its product design as it be seen as an actual firearm.

One of the major advantages of the Momentum blaster is its higher firing rate and faster dart velocity. The Momentum can fire darts up to 35 darts per second (Out of Darts, n.d.), while the Ultra Speed can fire darts at up to 7 darts per second (Blaster Time, n.d.). This shows that the Momentum has a significantly higher firing rate than Ultra Speed, which will allow users to have an edge over their opponents when competing. This unique feature also makes the Momentum more desirable as competitors will have the advantage in any face off. Hence, the Momentum blaster will outperform the Ultra Speed.

Another significant feature of the Momentum blasters is its versatility due to its compatibility with various darts and magazines. The Momentum is compatible with a variety of different magazines and darts, which includes Nerf Elite darts and Nerf Accustrike darts, while only Nerf Ultra darts can be used for the Ultra Speed (Nerf Wiki, n.d.). This will be inconvenient for users as they will then have to buy the specific darts for Ultra Speed while consumers who purchase the Momentum can reuse their previously owned darts and magazines. Thus, the Momentum is a more viable option for users especially when they have preowned nerf attachments as they can reuse them and avoid spending more on a specific dart which is only compatible with a specific variation of blaster.

The Momentum blaster is lightweight and user friendly due to its unique product design. The Momentum is 1 kilogram and has a collapsible folding stock, which allows users to adjust the blaster freely to their own comfort (Goodman, 2022) while the Ultra Speed is 2.2 kilograms and only has a small front grip for users (Nerf Wiki, n.d.). This shows that the Momentum is more user friendly as compared to Ultra Speed as it allows users to find the most comfortable grip and firing position while the product design of the Ultra Speed is fixed and the user must accommodate to the structure of the product.

A major problem of the Momentum blaster is that it looks like a firearm and it might be mistaken for an actual weapon in the eyes of the public who do not know about this product. However, due to its design, the Momentum blaster is more versatile and allows for modifications and attachments to be added to enhance the efficiency of the weapon. The addition of the Picatinny rail, as mentioned by Goodman (2022), allows users to attach accessories such as a scope or lasers for better aiming and accuracy when firing the blaster. This will be very useful for users who aim to train and play competitively in the future. Therefore, despite the Momentum being built in a misleading way, the unique design of this blaster allows users to explore options to further bring the blaster to greater heights in terms of its capabilities.

In conclusion, a review the functions and features shows that the Momentum blaster surpasses those of the Ultra Speed blaster. The versatility of the Momentum in particular entices users of preowned Nerf guns to purchase one without the need to get new darts and magazines for it. The way in which the Momentum was designed also attracts people with an interest in guns to further customize the blaster to their liking.

 

References

Blaster Time. (2023, August 3). Nerf Ultra Speed. Blaster. https://www.blaster-time.eu/shop/nerf-ultra-speed/?v=0f177369a3b7

Goodman, L. [OUT OF DARTS]. (2022, July 2) REVIEW: Eli Wu’s Momentum (Brushless Beast) [Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZfGjV7Z_Fk

Nerf Wiki. (n.d.). Speedhttps://nerf.fandom.com/wiki/SPEED

Out of Darts. (n.d.) Momentum Dual-stage Brushless Blaster by Eli Wu.  https://outofdarts.com/products/momentum-blaster-kit-by-eli-wu

My Critical Reflection

Before taking this module, I thought that this module would be like the general modules I have taken back in Polytechnic and that it would b...