This project has been really stressful and i'm glad that we have finished. The end result is better than I what expected to be but it's not the result I had in mind, but I'm happy with the result. The lens is fit into a square piece of plastic that goes between the smartphone and the case. The picture taken with the lens show a significant results to close up pictures but just a blurred image when trying to take pictures of something far. I tried using cardboard but it didn't work. i tried using magnets but none of the magnets worked well with the material. 

 This project has taught me that creating an invention is a difficult thing to do. Searching for something that might improve the way we live or do anything is very complicated and requires a lot of thinking outside the box. Being an inventor requires a lot imagination, something that at this age I don't have a lot of. At the beginning of the project my partner and I thought this was going to be easy because we had the plan for the camera lens but then we realized we didn't know how to get the resources for what we planned and had to improvised, we used cardboard, metal clips, and tape. We could have just left it like that but we wanted it too look more professional. In conclusion, I learned that creating something requires a lot of thought, passion, and creativity and it's not as easy as it seems.
 
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Our project so far has been really stressful. We had been constantly thinking of splitting up and working on individual projects because our project hasn't been going smoothly as we planned, but we are going to stick with it. We haven't done much with the project overall. We filed the rim of the lens so it can lay flat nicely on the camera. We have tried lots of ways to attach the lens to the smartphone case like using hair clips and metal clips but they haven't successfully. An idea I had was to attach the lens to small platform and then attach it to the case. That way the lens wouldn't fall of the smartphone. This weekend I will purchase the materials to make this. I hope this really works out because if it doesn't this I will be really disappointed and consider this a failed project.

What I learned so far is that it's not easy coming up with an invention. Trying to invent something that will make things easier and efficient is a really difficult job. I'm not sure how people managed to come up with such awesome inventions that people use everyday such as sticky notes or even a bike. All I know it takes a lot of creativity and I'm clearly not creative enough. Sometimes I wonder if it's easier for kids to come up with inventions since they are so full of fun and creative ideas. When you get older you have to think more realistic and radical which shrinks the radius of possible inventions. 


 
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We finally found a focusing lens after two tries. The first lens was made of plastic and made things blurrier. The second laser turned out to be a flashlight, so no luck there. The third try was on a laser pointer which was difficult to get out. I think managing getting the lens out of the laser pointer and finding it was big successes since my partner Mitchell spent all of class trying to get it out with a pair of scissors. There were a few scratches here and there but he managed to get lens out, which was pretty impressive. Finding out the lens actually worked relieved me because I was thinking of switching topics for genius hours and inventing something else and being almost halfway through the course was starting to worry me.

Our next step in this project is trying to find a more powerful magnifying glass and making it adaptable to most smartphones. We are thinking of trying to find a more powerful lens to use instead so we don’t have to put the camera up close to the item we are taking a picture of, that way the invention is more efficient. So far we have tried it on an IPhone, IPod, and a Samsung and they all require for the smartphone being up close to the thing we are taking a picture of, but the results are still breathtaking and it’s a noticeable if the picture was taken with the lens or without. Making it adaptable to different smartphones is another issue we are dealing with at the moment. Right now the prototype is the lens attached to a curl clip and with some duct tape to protect the smartphones from being scratched. I was thinking of maybe using magnets to attach the lens to the phone case, but we still haven’t decided how we can do that and where we can find magnets that small. Something else we were thinking of was making a PowerPoint presentation of how we did this project and the pictures we took.  


 
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Genius hour has opened up my creativity by making me think outside the box and think of an invention people can use every day. What I am doing for genius hour is a camera lens for smart phones that allows more magnification for the camera. I will be working on this project with my friend Mitchell. Even though there are products with the similar function, the purpose of this product is to innovate on that idea and make it more easy and comfortable to carry around. The only important material we will be using is a lens from a laser pointer that we’ll use as the magnifying lens for the smart phone camera. So far we haven’t made elaborated on the project itself. We have been looking at patents but haven’t really found a website showing us the patents. Hopefully we’ll get working on the project soon enough.

                We selected an invention for genius hour because we wanted to expand our imagination by thinking of product that will be essential for people. What I hope to gain from this experience is more inspiration for other projects I may do on my own time because for the past couple of years I haven’t been able to think outside of the box like back when I was younger. I plan on doing similar projects to this one, inventions that improve products. Starting this project has made me feel pretty excited to build an invention; it kind of brings the kid in me again.   


 
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I think the point where schools kill creativity is high school. The reason I think this is because high school is the point where your thoughts and opinions don't matter as much and it's mostly about fitting as much facts and information on specific subjects in your head to prepare you for post secondary studies. In elementary school creativity was encouraged way more than in high school. With most of the activities being such as: "Draw what you want to be when you grow up" or "how does your dream house is going to look like". A few days ago I saw my younger brother drawing some pictures of spaceships and monsters. So then I decided to draw as well since I haven't done that in a long time, but I could not come up with anything to draw. Back when you were younger you had to use your imagination a lot and now it's mostly about learning things straight out of a book, eventually shutting down your creativity and your imagination that makes each one of us unique, that's why I think schools kill creativity. 

"Why Schools Kill Creativity" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U 
 
Hi my name is Hiroshi Nakasone. I am lazy most of the time but I am hard working and energetic when I need to be. I like going for walks, playing outside, watching movies, swimming, listening to music, napping, and travelling. I have been swimming for about 9 years and still am, hopefully my school has a swim team this year. My favorite thing to do is listen to music. I like listening to music, it relaxes me relieves me from stress, and sometimes gets me motivated. I personally like rock music since my dad used to play a lot of his CD's when I was younger, so that has been a big influence the music I like.