Technology

Theme: Technology
Group: Jonathan Anker, Erik Contreras, Zack Wu, and Michael B. Chun

Our theme is the development and influence of technological advancements in America during the 1970’s and 1980’s. We explored the various inventions created throughout this time period and how they affected American society and science. We tried to convey the growing and ever-changing status of American technology and how it affected American lives.

The items we collected came from various sources of technology; multimedia, computers, Internet, and automobiles. For example, we have on our box VHS tapes, floppy disks, and even toy cars to represent all aspects of our theme. The VHS tape comes from the media aspect; they became a major part of the American lifestyle, and were the most quickly adopted piece of technology in history. The floppy disks revolutionized computers, as they provided new, convenient ways to transfer data through removable data storage devices. The toy cars are used to represent the automobiles of the 1970’s; during this time period, many new models were released and pushed forward the development of mainstream vehicles.

Our main source of our archaic items was our charitable teacher, Ms. Sanderson. She periodically passed around a box throughout the class with various items from the 1970’s and 1980’s, and we picked out the relevant items for our theme. We also found supplies from home; our parents and grandparents still had some devices from that time period, and we were able to “borrow” them for this project. Most of our items were easy to find, but we struggled mainly with thinking of items to represent automobiles. In the end though, we collected enough.

If I could do one thing differently on this project, I would prepare our resources and documents earlier for proofreading. I would especially double-check our outline and refocus more on American influence on the first time around, and not have to redo it.

To next year’s class, I would suggest bringing your own supplies to the assembly day and to not procrastinate in general. I found that many people were fighting over tape and scissors on assembly day, and having your own supplies would relieve a lot of the stress. Also I noticed that some groups only found their found art the day or two before. There is ample time to find items, so use it! You only need a minimum of 10 items and there are two whole weeks, so finding items gradually is a lot easier and a lot less stressful.
~M.B.C.