2016/17 candidate record form, production logand … Without Power... · Web view2017-03-06 · 2016/17 candidate record form, production logand assessment record. Level 3 Extended

2016/17 candidate record form, production logand assessment recordLevel 3 Extended Project (7993)Please attach the form to your candidate’s work and keep it at the centre or send it to the moderator as required. The declarations should be completed as indicated.

Centre number Centre name19269 Woodbridge School

Candidate number Candidate’s full name6129 Alexander Robert Craggs

Work submitted for assessment must be the candidate’s own. If candidates copy work, allow candidates to copy from them, or cheat in any other way, they may be disqualified.

Candidate declarationHave you received help/information from anyone other than subject teacher(s) to produce this work?

No Yes (give details below or on a separate sheet if necessary).

Please list below any books, leaflets or other materials (eg DVDs, software packages, internet information) used to complete this work not acknowledged in the work itself. Presenting materials copied from other sources without acknowledgement is regarded as deliberate deception.

From time to time we use anonymous examples of candidates’ work (in paper form and electronically) within our guidance materials to illustrate particular points. If your work appears in AQA materials in this context and you object to this, please contact us and we will remove it on reasonable notice.

I have read and understood the above. I confirm I produced the attached work without assistance other than that which is acceptable under the scheme of assessment.

Candidate signature Date

Supervisor declarationI confirm the candidate’s work was conducted under the conditions laid out by the specification. I have authenticated the candidate’s work and am satisfied (to the best of my knowledge) that the work produced is solely that of the candidate.

Supervisor signature Date

AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (number 1073334) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number 3644723). Our registered address is AQA, Devas Street, Manchester M15 6EX.

7993/CRF


Submission checklist

To be completed by the supervisor

Extended Project working title Power loss through Disaster

Extended Project final title Living without Electricty

Form of projectEither written report

Or and accompanying written report

Is this project part of a group project?No

Yes If ‘Yes’, give brief details

Please note that failure to complete or submit a compulsory element may result in a mark of zero being awarded.

Select/tick Items that must be included Notes

1. A signed and completed Candidate record form, production log and assessment record This document. All pages must be completed.

2. Research based written reportIf the project product is an artefact or a production, an accompanying research based written report is also required.

3. Evidence of the project productEg photographs of artefact, investigation or production; a piece of creative writing (artefact); research based written report.

4. Evidence of a presentation within the production log

Presentation on the project process. Where the project product is itself a presentation (for a specified audience), a presentation on the project process must also be delivered to a non-specialist audience.

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The taught skills element

To be completed by the supervisor

Outline details of taught skillsRecord here details of relevant skills taught in a class/group and details of relevant skills taught individually to this candidate as described in the specification. Continue on a separate sheet if necessary.How to put in a contents page (specifically in Word)How to properly add in references and details necessy in a BibliographyHow to evaluate sources for reliability

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Record of marks

To be completed by the supervisorMarks must be awarded in accordance with the instructions and criteria in the specification.

Summary information to show how the marks have been awarded should be given in the spaces below in addition to comments in other pages of this document and any supporting information in the form of annotations on the candidate’s work.

Skill area Maximummark

Markawarded Supervisor’s supporting statement

A01 Manage 10

A02 Use resources 10

A03 Develop and realise 20

A04 Review 10

Total mark 50

Supervisor’s concluding commentsAlexander worked very independantly, read and researched widely with a minimum of guidence. He produced a very clear and detailed final report which from questioning he obviously understood in great detail. His background knowledge was extensive demonstrating research far beyond what was contained in the actual written report.

Internal moderation comments if appropriate

Supervisor declarationI confirm that no work assessed for the award of the marks above is also to be submitted, or has been submitted, for any other accredited qualification(s).

J M Allen Date 20 February 2017

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Record of initial ideas

To be completed by the candidateThis page records initial meeting(s) with your supervisor to agree your project ideas. Additional pages can be submitted if more than one idea has been explored.

My idea(s) for topic/titleThe first idea I came up with was the use of a genetic algorithm in order to attempt to create the "perfect image" from peoples suggestions. I also came up with the idea of using neural networks to improve one of many different systems, such as image processing, task optimisation and hill climbing. After the initial research phase onto both of these topics, I later went on to have the idea of what would occur if electricity was lost on a global scale.My ideas for research and development of my projectDuring research, I realised that it would be almost impossible to get the public traction needed to create a "perfect image", due to the requirement of hundreds of thousands of people submitting their opinions. Instead I focused on the other idea of using neural networks in order to optimise some arbitrary task. Research into neural networks is often hard work for the level I'm currently working at. A lot of the resouces available are aimed at University students and, although that normally wouldn't phase me, it is disconcerting the amount of mathematical prerequisite knowledge you need for a number of the courses. It is likely my research will take the form of a large amount of learning mathematical notation, so that I am then able to look for courses on neural network design.It seems that the books that are on neural networks are not of interest to me, due to them being in varying different programming languages or that the content that is within them is far out of date. Instead the main resource I have will be online mailing lists (especially ones for specific courses and programming languages, often those given excellent support), online courses and online question and answer sites, such as the popular stackoverflow.com.

My summary of the comments and advice from my supervisorMy supervisor seconded my opinion on the genetic algorithm being unfeasible due to the required amount of individuals. He also made some excellent points on topics for neural networks, as well as two blog posts that I should consider if I wished to look into such topics from a basic level.We also (in another meeting) discussed the possibility that perhaps a neural network might not be the best idea, and for me to work on an idea in a completely new topic. Hence the idea of what would happen if power was lost to a large proportion of the world. This idea evolved through discussion and moved away from power (which could conceivably mean coal, gas and wood burning) into electricity, which is the more conventional definition. We discussed whether this would be a good fit for the EPQ, and after much discussion it seemed like it was.

Modifications I have made as a result of my discussion with my supervisorI modified the topic area I wish to study from a more computer science orientated subject onto the topic of electricity, or more precisely what would occur without it. This seemed to be interesting to me due to the fact that it was a subject I hadn't considered before. And was more diverse than just doing a computer science orientated proejct.Unfortunately, there are of course downsides to such a project. First and foremost being the availability of research data on such a topic will be difficult to find, and extrapolations of smaller events will have to be considered. Luckily however, is the fact that localised power cuts aren't that rare, so we know a lot of the immediate problems that will occur.

Date

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Part A: Candidate proposal

To be completed by the candidate

Working title of my Extended Project.Present the topic to be researched in the form of a short statement/question/hypothesis with clear focus.What would be the effects of losing power on a global scale?

my initial resources will beA few book recommendations from my supervisor and family.A number of government websites that deal with environmental emergencies.A number of arXiv articles on topics about the use of power in our lives.

the courses of study or area(s) of personal interest to which the topic relatesPsychology, physics and mathematics all have their place in the project. Even other subjects such as biology and physiology will likely be used in order to explain or discover the problems caused by a loss of power.

my intended productMy product will be a 5,000 word essay explaining what will happen on a term by term basis. Included within this essay will be information on how we use power currently, what would happen when we lost power and explanations of how such a disaster could happen.

Provide details of the courses that you are currently studying

Qualification type Awarding body & subject

eg A-level, Modern Apprenticeship, BTEC

eg AQA Mathematics, OCR Computing, WJEC English

A-Level OCR Mathematics

A-Level OCR Further Mathematics

A-Level AQA Computing

Qualification type Awarding body & subjectA-Level OCR Physics B

Notice to candidate You must not take part in any unfair practice in the preparation of project work required for assessment and you must understand that to present material copied directly from any book or any other sources without acknowledgement will be regarded as deliberate deception. If you use or attempt to use any unfair practice you will be reported to AQA and you may be disqualified from all subjects.

Candidate declarationI certify that I have read and understood AQA’s Regulations relating to unfair practice as set out in the notice to candidates above.

Candidate signature Date

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Part B: Supervisor’s comments on candidate proposal

To be completed by the supervisorPlease comment below on the validity and feasibility of the candidate proposal (Part A) as an Extended Project

Supervisor’s comments

Indicate the relation to, and development/extension outside of, the main course(s) of study or interest

Student very interested in computing and the infrastructure that supports it.

Comment on the suitability of the proposed initial sources and research base

Should provide a good starting point, the books should provide a good source of reference material. Similar scenarios are a regular topic in science fiction and consiquently are subjected to detailed scrutiny by obsessive (and often highly qualified) fans, hence a lot of material should be accessable via the internet.

Confirm that the project is feasible in the proposed timescale and/or indicate any potential difficulties that may prevent the candidate from meeting the assessment objectives

Potentially wide topic, it would be worth considering focussing on a specific disaster cause and specific country. Undoubtably feasible to produce a good quality report in the timescale discussed.

Indicate the expected format of the project product that will be submitted for assessmentResearch based written reportArtefact (for example prototype, model, artwork, scientific investigation, creative writing) plus written report

Is the project a contribution to a group exercise? YES NOIf Yes, confirm that there is a defined individual contribution by the candidate YES NO

List the other group members below.

Candidate No. Candidate Name



Supervisor signature Date

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Part C: Centre coordinator’s approval of candidate proposal

Supervisor’s nameJ M Allen

To be completed by the centre coordinatorIf you are acting as both the Centre coordinator and the supervisor, please seek counter signature from a senior colleague

Centre coordinator’s comments on the feasibility and acceptability of the proposal (parts A & B) as an Extended Project

Approved Approved subject to the implementation ofthe centre coordinator’s recommendations

Resubmission required

Centre coordinator’s name

Centre coordinator signature Date

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Planning review

To be completed by the candidateThis page records your outline plan once your proposal has been approved.

My next steps in planning, researching and deadlines that I will set myself. What I intend to do, by when, what resources I will use and how I will implement the recommendations of the centre co-ordinator (where appropriate).I've borrowed both of the books recommended from the library and will read those over the holidays. I've also started reading through court records from the US, when discussing the use of nuclear electro-magnetic pulses. Scientists were questioned and were legally required to speak the truth to the best of their knowledge, which means it is also hopefully reliable. I'm going to continue to do online research into events that are similar to this so as to hopefully gain insight into what reactions of people will be, although finding similar events will be difficult.Hopefully the books will shed more light into the political situations that may occur, the writing, although fiction, will have been thought our thoroughly and made to be as realistic as possible (in an alternate universe, else the book might break immersion). Although breaking immersion in a book is acceptable in a lot of satirical pieces of writing, I hope that these will not.Finally there's several arXiv articles that I have bookmarked over the past few weeks on the topic that I hope to read and use as evidence for my writing.

My summary of the comments and advice from my supervisorHe said that although the books should definitely be taken as fiction, they were a good starting point. We had a very interesting conversation about US politics, stemming from the discussion of US scientists discussing such dire uses of nuclear energy and clearly being ill at ease while discussing such violent uses of their technology.He mentioned some other, more scientific, blogs that I should take a look at, including one from a Google employee who looks at a significant amount of "doomsday" scenarios. We also talked about events in Canada that caused a massive amount of power loss during the winter months and how many people it affected. These were caused by solar storms inducing a significant amount of current over the long Canada power lines that ran throughout the country.It would likely be significantly worse now, considering the powers of magnitude more lines we have in the world.

Modifications I have made as a result of my discussion with my supervisor and/or the comments from my centre coordinatorThe topic was changed from "power" loss to specific "electricity" loss. I was however suggested a lot more sources of information that I could use and will be evaluating whether they are reliable and possibly including them in my work, certainly reading them to ascertain their point of view and possibly assimilating it with my own.

Date

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Mid-project review

To be completed by the candidateThis page records your outline plan when you have completed your research.

Is my project following my original plan? How has my plan developed?It is indeed following the original plan, although there have been slightly alterations in order to be able to better source the information. It is turning out to be quite impossible to find data sources for countries outside of the developed world, so I will likely have to extrapolate from existing data sources in order to be able to find that.arXiv is proving to lack a significant amount of relevant data on this topic, although they do contain a lot of information that I need in order to give the background, introductory stage. I've also found the official US & EU power consumption websites, and they've proven invaluable.

My summary of the comments and advice from my supervisorContinue doing the current work, make sure to try to finish the project quickly as a lot of projects tend to struggle at this stage with actually completing the work.Although he stated that my research sources were reliable, he was also concerned about the lack of evidence in a large number of scenarios.

Modifications I have made as a result of my discussion with my supervisor at this stageNo modifications were made at this stage although I did more precisely narrow down the time frame I wished to present at (just before Christmas) and when I wished for my essay to be finished.

My final title and agreed form of project productAn essay with the topic of "Living without Electricity".

My planned next steps to complete my projectMy next step is going to be to complete the project by furthering research and writing into the area of what would happen in the case of losing power, rather than some of the causes.

Date

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Project product review

To be completed by the candidateThis page records the (near) completion of your project product. Outline the successes, failures, additions and/or changes you made as you followed the plan in your mid-project review

Did my project follow my revised plan (from the mid-project review)?It did indeed. I delved further into research, mainly focusing this time on the effects as opposed to previously where I focused on the causes. Thus, I made attempts to look at arXiv and Google Scholar for sources of information pertaining to the topic. Although official topics were sketchy, I did find a number of articles from the CDC, which often deal with organic diseases that cause similar panics to a blackout. They cover a range of topics, even ranging to some comedical articles on protecting against a zombie apocalypse.

My summary of the comments and advice from my supervisor at this final stageOne needs to explain all technical words in ones essay. Although I had explained a great deal of them, there were one or two that I had ignored. Examples of this are things such as "electrical breakdown voltage". I also needed to restrict the domain of some of my terminology. I used the more general "massive explosion" in place of "massive nuclear explosion", the omission of the word "nuclear" technically invalidated some of the points I was making. Numerous words were used which, while grammatically correct, did not lead to the meaning I was aiming for. It is possible one needs to talk about the change of alien causes happening. One needs to put figures in context of deaths on a normal day.

Modifications I have made as a result of discussion with my supervisor at this final stageDo I need to do anything else to complete my product?I considered all suggested improvements and implemented all of them bar one. A point about how books were likely to store information over the a hundred year period without being destroyed. For example, one user of a forum I participate in put the lifetime of a paperback to be about 40 years, and a hardback to possible reach 80 years in a scenario where they aren't being cared for. Open to the weather the cellulose will degrade quickly, leaving it unreadable. All other points were excellent however.

Date 20 February 2017

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Presentation record part A

To be completed by the candidateThis page records your presentation and its preparation.

Planned format of my presentation (eg timing, audience, use of visual aids, slides, use of notes, etc.).The presentation will take place over a lunchtime, starting at 1:45 and ending at about 2:15 so as to take around 30 minutes. No notes will be necessary, but visual aides, such as bullet points and graphs will be useful to help people understand the points I am making. The audience will be anyone who wishes to come, but given the scientific nature of the subject, I feel that few are likely to arrive. The visual aides will likely come in the form of a presentation to give, although there are other presentation tools around, I will likely use powerpoint due to the fact that I know it will work on the school system. Many times I have used websites, but those often have issues with the different aspect ratios the projectors usually enforce, as well as the internet explorer version we have at school.

Planned content of my presentationThe presentation will contain all information that was included in the essay itself, presumably going through it in chronological order.

Modifications I have made as a result of rehearsal and/or discussion with my supervisorNo modifications were made.

Date

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Presentation record part B

To be completed by the supervisorRecord and comment below on the delivery of the presentation

Supervisor’s record/comments

The nature of the audience (include numbers of staff, students and others present)

2 members of staff, the supervisor and the co-ordinator and 2 students.

The nature of the presentation (include use of notes, use of display items, and use of presentation software)

A powerpoint presentation displaying selected information from the completed project product. Use of notes were not required and Alex spoke clearly, confidently and knowledgably throughout.

Comment on the content and delivery of the presentation (for example clarity of ideas, structure of presentation, pace, engagement with audience)

Alex began the talk by turing out all the lights to represent living without electricity. This was well thought out and well done. His ideas were clear and thoughtfully presented and he engaged fully with the audience.

Comment on the response of the candidate to questions that demonstrated understanding and grasp of the project and/or its production. Give examples of questions asked and answers given.

Alex was happy and able to answer all questions and could do so without any hesitation. He was able to take the information he had gathered and address the questions asked.Q: How long would it take society to recover?A: we would lose about 90% of lives -probably taking about 150 years to recover to some extentQWhat non-Western sourcesdid you use- for example lots of Africans survive by subsistence farming (about 800000 people)?A: aware of the situation but unfortunately I don't speak other languages.

Supervisor signature Date 15 December 2016

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Summary and reflection

To be completed by the candidateThis page records your summary, reflection and evaluation when you have completed your project product and given your presentation.

Some questions you may wish to answer in this section include, what have I learned from completing this project? What new knowledge or expertise have I enjoyed or found valuable? What are the strengths and weaknesses of my project (including planning and organisation)? What skills have I improved? What changes would I make if I undertook such work again? What advice would I give to others undertaking such a project?When I undertook this project, I realised that it would be challenging, not due to the complexity of the subject, but due to the fact that no-one had considered such an event happening before. Although this led to many problems of the project, such as not being able to find any official sources to quote on the events of that which would happen, it did lead to being able to do something new and exciting. This project has enabled me to learn not only about what would happen if the electricity went out, it also allowed me to learn about the atmosphere surrounding Earth as well as how electricity is used in our lives today. Not only have I learnt knowledge, I've also gained an ability to critically evaluate sources and consider where to start a large project. Approaching it from the most basic point I can find, even when no such point is obvious. Although planning was something I would consider a strength of my project, organisation wasn’t. I was capable of doing all the work on time, but setting up meetings proved difficult and would often take at least a few weeks to come to fruition. My project also proved to be hard work due to the psychological effects I was looking into. I'm not a psychologist, and trying to decide what people would do in a crisis took reading a number of reports from other similar events in order to be able to consider what they were thinking. The other difficulty was that I wanted my project to be accessible by others, meaning I had to explain even the most basic aspect of how Electricity was capable of destroying wires. Although this detracted from my word count to an extent, it did help me truly understand the subject I was talking about. Often teaching someone is the best way of learning.As I talked about earlier, of course, my critical evaluation skills have improved in regards to looking at sources, something that will be inevitably useful in other projects. Doing this again I would be able to save a significant amount of time because I am now able to evaluate sources with greater speed and accuracy. Also, if I was doing this project again I would make sure to organise weekly meetings more routinely, rather than just popping in on days where I found myself with a challenge I couldn't solve myself.To others undertaking such a project, I'd make sure they were aware of the amount of extrapolation one had to do in order to gain a result. It can be quite challenging at times to find reliable sources.

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Documents

2016/17 candidate record form, production logand … Without Power... · Web view2017-03-06 · 2016/17 candidate record form, production logand assessment record. Level 3 Extended