Ive found that my learning has really taken off since doing the card task and the previous source that weren't really serving a purpose have been a lot more helpful and have used in order to understand how certain parts work in order to translate this knowledge onto the cards. 

The only difficulty I've has is explaining moving parts using just words and diagrams with only a few words. However its made me pick out the most important aspects and present information as clearly as i can. 

Im still finding this activity very useful and thinking this could make a good final solution to my way of learning this topic. The only negative side of this activity as it cane go ..on..and ..on ...on and im having a bit of difficulty knowing when to stop and when i have covered everything. The idea of this activity is to have small manageable amounts of information and i am finding that some concepts are difficult to explain on just one card and require a couple of cards to fully explain it. 


I am finding that the previous source i started looking at right at the start are proving much more useful now i am doing this task. such as the technology-student website however they do not cover everything i ned to know so have had to branch out and look at some other internet source as all the answers are not all in just one place. This is what i am trying to achieve with  my task, create just one place for all the answers (well most of them)

Ive been having a real problem trying to get my head around mechanical advantage.... i understand   Load divided by the effort which gives you a figure however i dont really understand what that means?..... for example if it was 500N / 100N = 5MA ...... what does that mean?..... ive looked on various sites such as the one below which give examples of how to calculate it including the GCSE bite size guide and i still am not sure..... is it saying that you can life 5 times the amount of effort you are putting in?...... this sounds correct to me?.... 

below is a useful website i looked at to understand mechanical advantage better, but again as i said it doesn't really confirm the questions i need answer ..

Ok, i encountered a problem! i have  somehow managed to delete all my files!!? i have tried to recover them with little success.... as this task was working well for me i didn't want to abandon it and start something else, therefore had to start again!... On a positive note it was interesting to see how much i could remember from the fist batch of cards i created and how often i needed to refer to my sources..... i was pleased to find that i  managed to create most of them unaided and from memory, only checking they are correct before saving and moving on to the next one. I can definitely conclude from this that this task actually does work and has helped me to learn!! .... however it is still a pain having to redo all my my lost cards again!!!  bit fortunately due to my decision to use very little design to the card this helped a lot. 

The way inwhich i thought id learn this subject has differed massivly from how i am actually learning. I think my original learning goals were a bit idealistic or maybe how i thought i should learn? but in reality it just wasnt work out how i originally planned. I guess i originally saw learning as a linear process inwhich you do one thing after another to get to a certain point, however its im finding its actually elements working togeather and feeding into each other and going backwards and forwards which actually creates the learning. I do also understand that learning is different for everyone, so whats working for me might not necessarily work for another.

A positive i have got out of my journey so far is i do have some really good sources of infomation to work with which i can use as a point of reference and input, however i need to process this and create some kind of output..... Learning is a system!  

As i mentioned previously the posters idea i started off doing was on the right lines however wasnt working as there was just too much infomation being crammed onto one page and think i got too caught up with the look of the poster than the infomation i was putting down which wasnt helping me to learn.

I needed to do something with very little design involved which can be repeated quickly and which pulled togeather the basic principles of each topic i am investigating. It would also be nice at the end of this module to have something i could use later on as a learning/teacher resource.

I started to make flash cards with key points in mechaninal systems which i am learning. This was really helpful way of keeping me focused on the topic and having a purpose for investigation and reason for aquiring all this infomation. For example; if the card is for third class levers- i would start looking at source of infomation about them (written, video's, practcle exdamples etc.)  and  also revisiting sources i had looked at previously, digging out the best bits of infomation (core principles and concepts) and then process it in a way inwhich i could understand it most effectively and make my learning of the topic more successful.  

I did another mind map of what i can think in the spectrum of mechanical systems to see how much i could recall. I think this was a good method of reviewing how far id come since my first mind map and some of the new areas i had discoved, however i dont think it really demonstrates any deeper understanding of the topics ive mentioned.

I think mind maps are a good tool for getting started or just giving a quick over view of a idea's, they can be as brief or extension as you wish but give you a good platform to work with.

I was getting bored of reading so thought id have a go at making some small scale models using some aspects of mechanical systems i had started investigating. 

Although i did enjoy this activity i don't feel like i really learnt anything from this exercise and spent longer on building than really considering what it was i was making. I think this is partly because i was following instructions on how to build the models and not thinking for myself. 

I think this would be a useful exercise to do later on in my learning when i understand the mechanical principles better. i could design my own model and apply the knowledge i have gained. which is what i stated as my last learning goal. 

I started putting together a poster for first class levers. This was a really great exercise for extracting the most 'important' bits and arranging the information in a way which is  clear and concise. the way i was approaching the poster was as if it is aimed at people who know nothing about the subject and had to make it as basic as possible.

Before i finished the poster i decided to abandon this idea as it was taking too long and became too caught up with the design of the poster than the information being presented. also it was requiring so much time just to demonstrate an understand of such a tiny area of the subject. 

I think it would be better to do a poster of a broader range of subjects in the area or maybe think of a way i can present a broad range of the subjects in a quick and clear way?...