Robert_Knox WLE Blog

Job Shadow Day: January 6th

I got there at 8 even though the company opens up at 7, then I left at 12. My day was really good I felt important. When I got there Scott let me sit in a meeting then he showed me the kitchen so if I wanted some coffee or hot coco. Then I went back to the meeting and got picked up by Scott and he showed me what Luis does, Luis showed me how to design projects on the computer...and I kind of kept falling asleep but Luis was not mad that much. But what really caught my attention is doing projects and 3D.

First Day in the office: January 20th

I first got some coffee so I could start the day off awake a ready to go. Then met Luis in the lobby then we went to his office I had to change my shoes and socks because it was raining really hard in the morning... I almost slipped and fell running to the building. After I got my cup of coffee Luis printed out a manual for me (that I got to keep) so I can get used to the tools and exploring models. It was kind of tricky because I was using an updated version Revit when the manual was a lower dated. But I had lunch, which I almost forgot to bring... I did manage to forget my chop sticks though.I also sold 10 chocolate bars in the morning. And that's my day so far.
My day so far is kind of chill, I'm just learning the basics of what architects do. I'm about to start doing schedules and material take offs. I could probably impress my mentor by constantly know what I'm doing and be a quick learner. Probably even also start a project on my own. An area I'm going to need help in is learning how to get a project set up. I was actually busy 'til lunch, that was the only down time I had. I don't have any questions for right now for my mentor or Academic Seminar teacher.

Starting a project: January 27th

Well today wasn't my first day, but it went well for the second day. My mentor had a meeting to go to in the city, so I stayed in Oakland at the office to learn more about how to do material take offs and scheduling. After that I had lunch, now I'm starting my own project. Meaning I'm designing a building like an architect, I have to do elevations (which I'll show in class). I'm also going to work on it more, because its multiple stories. I'm designing a music studio with a pool, cafe and all that other good stuff. I thought my day was going to be difficult learning all these things architects need to do.
What I found surprising is everyone who works here has a sense of humor. Its not boring and dry as I thought it would be. I just learned how to do more elevations when designing a building. Some of the people I worked with today told me something I'd be interested in. Its an after school program called ACE (architecture, construction and engineer). And its from 4-6 and you work in groups with kids and learn how to start projects, they pay for your scholarship, so I'm really interested in that. What I hope to learn is how to do call outs when designing a project.

Luis's Journal : February 3rd

   Dear Journal,
     My new intern, Robert Knox, is really impressive. So far he has learned how to do material take, scheduling, and went through the revit handbook. Every Wednesday when I see him, I see a little bit of myself. Learning about something that requires a lot of thought. Every time he walks through the door I always need to find work for him because he learns so quick its amazing. I probably wouldn't even had picked up on most of the things we're giving him if i were his age. I'm mostly impressed by his ability to keep working he's not lazy at all.
   But what I'm not impressed is, when he drift off and falls asleep. But I don't blame him, he wakes up real early and goes to bed late. What I want to learn from him is how to make a skate park design. What I always tell my friends and family about him, is that he learns quickly and always gets tired from the work we give him, but he still gets the work done.

Difference Between a student and Intern: February 10th

What I'm learning as an intern that I couldn't learn at Impact, is the process of starting a building project. The skills I developed at Impact are creative expression and productive collaboration. I use these skills at my wle to understand what I'm doing wrong and right. How I use creative expression is, when I design a building I have to visualize it then, then draw it on paper. And how I use productive collaboration is, when you're an architect you have to collaborate it other types of people. Such as engineers, electrician, plumbing and landscaping, and you need to collaborate with these people in order to finish a building.
The things I learned at my intern that I couldn't learn at impact are, how to start my own project on revit because revit cost 5 grand just to download the program. I always couldn't learn that some building that we all see are sometimes a mistake. And we you see different color concrete in the street, that power lines run through them. My role as an intern is constantly being busy with meetings, computer work and making sure files are renamed.

Grading Myself for WLE: February 17th

Well first I'll start with leadership skills, I think I deserve a 4 in this. Because I as an intern I already started learning about starting my own project, I'm still designing my own idea visually.

Go Nikki and Rose!!!: March 3rd

I read Nikki (of course) and Rose blog. Well I didn't read everyone blog but what some people are forgetting is to keep doing the blogs every week. But what they're doing is writing a lot of detail of what they are doing. Well it seem like everyone knows how to blog some people just don't want to, but I can try and remind people to do them. I feel I learn more because when some people talk about their WLE, they either say they don't like it or don't learn anything. Also some of the things I'm learning and doing most people don't know how to do. I'm feel I'm learning more b Its still interesting, I'm always doing something new, and I never have down time.
I'm work 10-11 hours so I have to be busy, but its been a fun experience to be here. Like next week at my intern I'm going to Berkley to design a bridge, to see if it can hold 35 bls. I'm also going to construction sites to see what its like to be out there in the field. Well I didn't do anything new today but continue working on revit. I still wish I could be learning how to design a skate park on revit. After I'm done with my first model, going to see if my mentor can help me get started on a state park model.

Analyzing my Workplace: March 10th

Well at my intern I work at a large workplce since its a company a lot of people are here, especially if there are important meetings. Its pretty fun working at a large place, it make me feel like I'm important cause I dress professionally, work in the city and work on the 15th floor. I really can't compare too much to others but Alex's workplace. I know he's doing architecture like me so he probably uses the same software as I do. I could also say where he works at is pretty big, the only difference I could think is that he works in Alameda and I work in Oakland.
The people I know who are in charge are the upper work men of Pankow Buildings. And the people that aren't upper work men are the people who does the project, such as architects, engineers, land scappers, plumbing, building constructors and construction workers. I really haven't met too many bosses here, I'm usually working in my office. But I actually met some of the bosses of AJ Construction at the last meeting. My workplace is a business, everyone who works here went to college, none of them went to a community college they all went to CAL colleges or out of state, state colleges. I like my workplace a lot, I could get time to enjoy lunch and get some fresh air. I don't have to be kooked up in my office all day. It makes me think college is very important to me and that in order to understand what I'm doing in life I need to step forward and do what I have to do

Finally Receiving a Pankow Hardhat: March 17th

    Today I had no down at all but lunch, I was working hard all day. I thought today I was just going to work on my model and call it a day. I did work on my model (that I'm going to present, shhh. Don't tell any one.) But I had to do extra work with it by taking 3D views of: 4 elevations, 2 sections, floor plans, details, overall site and schedules. Then as I was doing all this Jim wanted me to scan Luis's files so they can be sent to his email then I had to drag them to the desktop and rename them while I was doing this Andy wanted me to sharpen pencils. It was weird cause the pencil sharpener kept overheating and stopping. But when I was waiting for the pencil sharpener to cool down Kevin wanted me to sort out papers then staple them. So the whole day I was multi-tasking, but right I sat back down Scott walked in the room. I thought he was going to ask me to do something to but he shook my hand and handed me a hard hat and said "welcome to Pankow."
    For my exhibition I'm going to model a project. And I'll do this by showing what elevation, section floor plans, details, overall site and schedules is. I'll also present buildings that Pankow did around the Bay Area. When I present I'll show a walk through of my model and 3D view of it.
    My question I'll ask parents, "How does a building come together with the minds of 7 people?"

Over T ime: March 24th

I'm on track and I know this because so far I work 99 hours. Which is a good thing because I'm very far ahead of a lot of people. So by May 5th I'll have 169 hours done, I'm also doing volunteer work during Spring Break. I'm going to help out the company I'm interning at, but this isn't apart of my WLE. I just want to help out some one the best way I can. All I did today was work on my model, I got really far on it too. I got my section complete, elevation is done and all I have to do now is make it look good. My mentor had a 6 hour meeting I sat through, I got to see some new models that are going to be built.
The WLE exhibition, I'm still thinking of doing the same thing. I might even show pictures of the new bridge being built and also a walk through of my model. Its going to benefit my workplace because people will know the company that built most of the buildings we see today. They get to see how companies try to retrofit building and bridges to keep people's lives safer. I also might show a project I'm sketching out, its a building that is environmental friendly, which is some thing I always wanted to do.

Mentor Interview: March 31st

My mentor's name is Luis Perez, he's an architect who works at Pankow builders. And Pankow builders is located at 2101 Webster st. in Oakland. Luis's has a lot of task, he has to go through 2-3 hr. long meetings, design parts of buildings using revit and file PWF files into AutoCAD (I had to learn how to do that too). Luis was interested in design and he thought designing buildings would be perfect for him. One education background he need was Math so he could get down the scales for buildings. Well advice he gave me was learn your math. Keep a sketch book with me so I can sketch out parts of buildings I'm interested, he also says to get really good at scaling so I won't make a lot of mistakes when I'm design a part of a building.

How my WLE project is going: April 20th

I finished designing my model I just got to print my floor plans, details and 3D/ render views. I also got some good pictures of the unfinished bridge, I got to walk on. Well I pretty much described it in my other blogs I'm just going to present a presentation about the building I'm designing, I'm going to tell how environmental friendly it is. The blueprints or printed copies will show how this building is good for the planet. What I'm planning to present is showing what the building looks like inside and out by showing elevations and section cuts. If I could I'll also give a small presentation of the new bridge being built and how stable it will be during an earthquake.
My plan to finish all this is finish printing my model design and take more notes and pictures of the new bridge. I'll do so by going back to the unfinished bridge because we're going back next week. And for my model everything is saved on my flash-drive so I just got to cross my fingers and hope the printer print all the papers I need in color. I'm thankfully already at or passed 100 hrs. so all I got to worry about is my presentation which is nearly done.

Almost Done: April 27th

I don't know what I'm going to do to thank my mentors yet, I know I could start by inviting them to my presentation to show them that I learned what they taught me. Hopefully my mentor won't be busy on the presentation night. Well I didn't know about the presentation until now, but I ask my mentor and he said anything is good. So what I might make a bacon cheese burger and garlic fries with a pitch of sugar to sweeten it. Or I could make orange chicken with some BBQ sauce mixed with the orange chicken sauce and a little bit of honey. Hopefully I can get all my mentors to go so I'm going to be telling them about it. Today at my intern I was going to work on Revit but I couldn't, my mentor didn't have his lab top today, so I helped Justin with the Power Point presentation by adding the photos to the slides.

Intro blog: How I plan to get my WLE: October 26th

Well like how I explained to Joel, is that I''m looking for an internship in architecture/ interior design, engineering civil/ structural, or illustration like tattoos. Those were my choices on a p[lace to work because I want to work somewhere that I can better my skills in art. So far I what did to get an internship was call a lot of places, even the place I interned last year couldn't have an intern because they wouldn't have work for me because of the company. But I have to do to get an internship is ask for help and contact the place where i got my tattoos later on. If I intern at the place I got my tattoos done, I would have to find the owner of the shop so he could be my mentor. What leadership skill I'll use is creative expression, I'll use it when I'm going to places I want to intern at, I'll show the professionals my art work.

Blog 1: First Day: November 12th

My first day at my internship was pretty busy. The first task my mentor had me do was design a star tattoo for a customer. After helping my mentor he had me build a tattoo machine from scratch. It took me all day because I kept getting wrong parts for the machine. My mentor was impressed that even though it took me all day I kept going until I was finished.

Blog 3: The work Place: December 3rd

The person that benefits from my workplace is Ozzie. He's the one who gets the ink and everything the shop needs. The strength of my workplace is the art work. It's one of the greatest strengths because in order to be a successful tattoo parlor, you have to be a excellent artist or piercer. Another strength my workplace posses is good energy, the collaboration is productive here everyone stays on task and know what they're doing. They set goals to make the shop look better, and help each other out if someones too busy. There not too many weaknesses here, I guess I could say for a weakness is the workers sometimes come to work a little late but when they get here, I'm always here getting the shop set up. I put down the plastic on the tattoo and piercings area. But as a tattoo and piercing parlor they have more strengths than weaknesses.

Blog 4: Leadership Skills: December 10th

The leadership skills I use when I'm at my internship are creative expression, it's what my project is about. How can body art (tattoos and piercings) be used to express yourself creatively? So I'm pretty much want to focus on the creative side of my WLE. How I use this skill is by drawing tattoos that costumers would want or tattoos designs I just like to draw. By doing tattoo designs people would like to have, I'm persuasively advising them to get a tattoo, I use this persuasion visually by getting my idea across the costumers.
I feel I use creative expression in advanced DMA just like my WLE. The only difference is that I use a computer instead of a pencil and sketch book in DMA. I would say communicate powerfully, I learned this by communicating powerfully with the costumers making sure they get the help that they need. My role as a student is way different as my role as a intern, I have more responsibilities and I interact with a lot of more people I don't know. I also have more freedom at my internship and treated as a worker or "apprentice" tattoo artist as my mentor says.

Blog 5: Hours and Project: December 17th

At my internship, what I did today was help set up the stations where people get their tattoos and piercings done. After that I helped Bee, one of the workers at the shop with his tattoo. I helped with the dove, letter shading. (picture on the left) I also had some time to do some tattoo designs of my own. what I accomplished was learning how to set up a tattoo machine and seeing how different sizes of tattoo needles can effect your art work, such as a 12RS needle, which is a needle with 12 round width. This needle used for shading and coloring.
For my hours at my internship I have 72.5 hours. I'm on track because I'm always on time at my internship. For my WLE essential question, my question is: How can body art (tattoos/piercings) be used to creatively express yourself? The thesis is: Body art can be used to express yourself creatively by giving viewers an idea of your interests. For my project my idea is to:

Talk to mentor about my idea
Get tattoo supplies
Ask different people what they would get for a tattoo
Do the tattoo design on fake skin
Get feedback on design

What I accomplished so far was learning how to build/fix tattoo machines and learn how far to space my machines when doing lines and shading. The items I collected was pictures and tattoo equipment. So Hopefully my project goes well.

Blog 6: Mentor Interview: January 7th

My mentor name is Ozzie Mendez, he's a tattoo artist and owner of Ozzie's Tattoos and Piercings. His tattoo shop is located in Oakland, CA on Foothill. Ozzie's typical day is basically set up the shop, such as mopping and sweeping the shop before costumers arrive, making sure the stations are set up, turning on the tattoo sign in the window. He does this everyday at 11a.m, he hasn't had a day off in months. Ozzie became interested in tattoos because of the art, he has done a lot of art like painting, drawing and graffiti. But tattoo art was what really grabbed his attention, he loved the feeling of people loving his artwork. Sometimes costumers would just give Ozzie one idea and tell him to free style his art with that one idea. The skill Ozzie needed to become the owner of a tattoo and piercing shop was business, he needed to be good at financing his money.
Some advice Ozzie would give to someone don't lose focus on what you want to do in life, you have to be your own boss. Also practice a lot when it comes to tattoo art, and make sure it something you really want to do. Don't be focused on the money in this field, be focused on the art. A question I asked Ozzie was, why hasn't he had a day off in so long? Ozzie replied saying, Tattooing isn't a job to me anymore, it's my career, it's something I can't wait to do the next day... Plus i don't want my wife yelling at me.

Blog 7: How my WLE project is going: January 14th

What I did for my WLE project was get some ideas from people for a tattoo.The person who gave me an idea was Jordan C, he gave me the idea of designing a celtic cross with triangle tip ends. What I'm planning to do to finish my project is get another tattoo machine, either purchase or buy one. I already have the ink tattoo

Blog 8: Looking at other people's blogs: January 21st

•This week you’ll reflect on your internship in comparison to other people’s WLE experiences.
•Read 5-10 blogs written by your peers (click on this link: blogs)
•In general, does it seem like you are learning more or less at your WLE than other people?
•Whose blogs did you read? Who is writing the best blog so far? What are they doing that makes their blog effective? What can YOU do to make your blog more effective?
•Does it seem like very many people are blogging? Since you know how to do it, pick one person who you’ll show how to blog so they can start getting credit for their blogs and earn a better grade in Academic Seminar.
•Now that you’ve been at your WLE for almost 2 months, are you getting “bored” or is your WLE still interesting? Why or Why not? What can you do, or who can you ask, if you need more, new things to do?
•Did you do anything new today that you haven’t done before at your WLE? Describe it!
•If you didn’t do anything new, what do you wish you could be learning? How will you convey this to your mentor?

Blog 9: Description of my workplace: January 28th

•TAKE PHOTOS OF YOUR WORKPLACE TODAY (to use in your presentation!)
•When you present your WLE project on exhibition night (juniors and seniors who didn’t pass last year) or to your Academic Seminar (everyone, for practice), you will need to give a detailed description of your workplace.
•Write a two paragraph description of your workplace.
•Take a moment to look around your workplace and make observations.
•How many people work there? Is it a small business, a medium sized business, or a large corporation?
•What type of work does your workplace do?
•What sorts of people does your workplace employ?
•Do most of the people there have a 4-year college degree, 2-year college degree, or technical certificate?
•Where is your workplace located and what does it look like?
•Be as descriptice as possible so that the people who will eventually watch your presentation have a clear picture of where you were interning.