November Extra Post

   This month, my mentor and I have been working on getting several new tracking units up and going. Earlier this month, we were having problems with all of the old tracking units and were forced to ship them back to the manufacturer in Florida to have them evaluate the units. My mentor and I have also been planning for my independent component by calling  people for interviews and discussing what needed to be done in order for me to get thirty hours completed.

November Extra Post

   This month, my mentor and I have been working on getting several new tracking units up and going. Earlier this month, we were having problems with all of the old tracking units and were forced to ship them back to the manufacturer in Florida to have them evaluate the units. My mentor and I have also been planning for my independent component by calling  people for interviews and discussing what needed to be done in order for me to get thirty hours completed.

Blog 10: EQ

Carl La Russa

North

11/12/14

Blog 10

1.) "I reviewed the rule of three for writing an EQ."

2.) 

     a.) No, it is too specific and it won't allow the person to find enough research

     b.) Yes, it is general enough so that the person can find a decent amount of research on the the    question.

     c.) Yes, it provides the author enough room to gather a sufficient amount of research.

     d.) No, too specific, not enough breadth and depth.

3.) Who benefits most from vehicle tracking software?

Blog #9 Lesson Reflection

Carl La Russa

11/4/2014

Blog #9 Lesson Reflection

1.) I was proud of all the props and things that I brought in to show everyone during my presentation because I felt like the other presentations that I saw where not engaging with just speech and pictures. I also believe that I presented more about my actual topic and how I work with it during my mentorship.

2.)   a.) P-

       b.) I believe that I had great eye contact with my audience, I never looked down at notes or at my props and I also had good volume, everyone was able to hear what I was saying. The content I presented was also relevant towards my topic and I thought I presented a bit more about my actual topic than others did. 

3.) The props, showing everyone the actual units and the iPhone tracking application really captured everyone's attention during my presentation.

4.) I would've had a much better conclusion, I think just ending my presentation didn't cut it and I believe I was graded down for it.

October Extra Post

Carl La Russa

North 10/30/2014

October Extra Post

Here my mentor and I are examining the trunk of his car for a potential spot to  place a tracking unit. The ideal spot for  the unit would be where it would get a direct sight line of the sky and power from the car battery.  We decided on placing the unit in some carpeted molding under the rear window. 

Here my mentor and I are examining Sygmatrack for any traces of the new tracker installed in his car.  We were also trying to register the unit that was going to be installed in my car later on.

In this picture, you can see the fuse box and car battery after I removed all the plastic molding  from the trunk.  The reason we needed access to these two is because the unit needs to receive negative (ground) power from the car battery and positive power from the fuse box through an input that only operates while the vehicle is turned on. 

Blog 8: Research and Working EQ

Carl La Russa

North

10/14/14

Blog 8: Research and Working EQ

1.) What is your working EQ? 

     How does tracking a person in a vehicle via GPS affect their driving style?

      

2.) What is a possible answer to your working EQ? Please write the answer in thesis format. 

•     Tracking a vehicle can be beneficial to the driver because it teaches them to drive more efficiently, not to take risks while driving such as texting or talking on the phone, and to get where they need to go on time.
• Using a GPS tracker inside a vehicle will also teach the driver to maintain and respect the vehicle that they are driving as there are many GPS systems that can detect damage to a vehicle and/or report it to the owner.

3.)What is the most important source you have used that has helped you come up with an answer to your working EQ?

     NPR news has published some articles related to my topic in terms the effects of GPS tracking. One article specifically talks about how parents utilizing GPS technology to track their children when they begin driving. The parents offer their feedback on the specific devices they purchased to track their children.

4.)Who is your mentor, or where are you doing mentorship, and how does what you are doing relate to your working EQ?

My mentor is Del Shindell, president of Sygmatech Inc. a company that programs and sells GPS tracking units. At my mentorship I do a variety of things, anything from installing a tracking unit into a car to working alongside my mentor to solve issues with the units themselves. All of the things that I am doing relate to my topic because I'm learning how a tracking unit functions inside a vehicle and what kind of information its sending to the computer where the vehicle is tracked.

Blog 7

Carl La Russa

North 10/2/14

Independent Component 1 Approval

1.) To complete 30 hours for my Independent Component, I plan visiting businesses and talking with professionals that work with my senior project topic. My mentor, Del Shindell has a long list of contacts that I can pull from if I need expertise in any one area of my topic. I also plan on dissecting the two different tracking units that my mentor uses along with delving deeper into how the units actually are able to extract information from a vehicle's computer and how that information is interpreted by a computer. Finally, I plan on studying the electronics of the tracking unit along with my neighbor Steve who is an electric engineer and have him help explain to me how each and every component of the units functions.

2.) Along with actually performing the 30 hours needed for my Independent Component, I  plan on setting up a digital scrapbook where I will have pictures of my activities along with descriptions of what I am doing in the pictures. My mentor will also allow me to borrow some of his tracking units to bring to school and show to people if needed.

3.) What I plan on doing will expand my knowledge greatly on my project topic because I will not only be learning about how the actually unit functions and behaves inside a vehicle, but I will be able to talk to professionals who have worked with these kinds of devices and gain valuable information from them that I might use for future assignments pertaining to the senior project.