5/24/2022 0 Comments Week 12: The last blog!!! This is the final week of Genius Hour and we are both on our A-game. This week nothing no editing was produced and only 2 loaves of bread were produced in the kitchen for a comparison between the qualities of bread. One being zucchini and the other is pumpkin. This week has mainly been a full grind on our presentations and doing tests for various classes.
Bryce: It has been a wild (and very slow) ride. Spencer got a lot done in these few weeks and I am glad I was a part of it. I wish I would have gotten to edit more, but I think what we did have is perfect for talking points whether good or bad. I will try to get those steak videos in at least by the end of the school year. Spencer: I know I have stated many times that “this has been a crazy week”, but I must say that this one has been like no other. This week I have had many tests, volunteering events, and projects to do, and it has almost overwhelmed me. But despite these set backs, I have preserved on making pumpkin bread and finishing my genius hour slides. For the slides, I used a pregenerated template and based the slides off of the design. I included pictures of the products I have produced, videos of the cooking experience by Bryce, and even a loaf of pumpkin bread for everyone to eat in preparation for the presentation and hope that what I have is very presentable to my peers. This project has been a wild ride this year and I hope that everyone has had as much fun as I had on this project. This is Spencer Melton signing off on the final blog of Genius hour 2022!
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5/15/2022 3 Comments Week 11: 1 week to go!!!1 week to go, and this week has been crazy. Along with AP exams and being sick for half the week has really hindered our progress, but that's not to say there was not a lot of planning going into the final week. From editing, to talking to classmates, a lot has been going on this past week and we would like to address that in this blog.
Bryce: 1 more blog!!! This has been a very eventful week. Those ap exams were a real challenge. not only mentally, but as a literal block in our schedule. It really messed with a lot of my video making, so I have just given up on making the other videos. I am going to put my time into making the final video since we probably record Spencer's last cooking session. I’ll be sure to at least get some clips/photos for him. As for the final video, I am probably going to make a video that consists of the things I have learned in the past weeks. I hope everyone has a good time making their final presentations! Spencer: This week has been an especially crazy and challenging week, starting off with coming back mid week. Just recovering from COVID, I had to come back into school on Wednesday this week which immediately threw a wrench into my schedule. Missing both Monday and Tuesday made me miss 2 crucial days that I could have used to make connections with another student for the grand finale. However, when I returned on Wednesday, we talked about the plan and most was resolved. For this weekend, I have begun to plan my schedule for the final project and what to make in it. I have several ideas such as bringing my food to a Birthday party or cooking for people on Sunday. On an off note, my family decided to get a new kitten this weekend, he is orange and is about 6 weeks old! 2 weeks left! We have made our way through almost the whole project and we have learned so much. We will be pleased to talk about all we have learned. We have been working hard (maybe not particularly smart) and are almost through. Bryce: I have taken this week to learn more ways to make the video. I have learned how to better position the camera. The only unfortunate thing this week is that Spencer is sick. He can fill you in better in his portion. I did give him the run-down. I plan to make two last videos. One for a breakdown and one for the final cooking video. This project has been fun, but they haven’t been the most quality videos. I don’t know if I should write a document for people to read or if I should include it in the breakdown. Spencer: It is finally here, the STEAK VIDEO!!! I have seen many comments over the past semester asking for a well cooked steak to make for on the weekends to enjoy with family and boy have I delivered. I have gone all out for this special occasion picking out a well marbled New York strip from the chilled meats section. Always make sure your meat is fresh, never frozen #NotSponseredByWendys™, #WouldLikeToBeSponseredByWendys™, to ensure quality of the meat. I then took it home and seasoned it with Kirkland steak seasoning. Salt and pepper would also go well as a steak seasoning but it doesn´t matter. I then preheated a cast iron skillet that holds heat really well to medium high temperature and added in around a 1/4th of a cup of olive oil. This allowed me to, once putting the steak in, to sear the outside of the steak and seal in the juices. Next, I added in Thyme and Rosemary spices along with butter to the oil. This will add the flavor to the steak and ensure it is savory. After reaching an internal temperature of around 145 degrees, I took out the steak from the pan and rested it on a plate for around 5 minutes. The second I took a bite I discovered that it needed more flavor but was overall very savory. This however could have been due to the Covid, so you never know! Not an overall success for say, but definitely not a failure! 5/1/2022 0 Comments Week 9: The home stretchAnother off week! We have still been working on our project and we have something in special in-store. Since we are almost done we will be compiling what we have learned even if it wasn’t much, you can at least learn from what we should and shouldn’t have done.
Bryce: This week has been a pretty slow week. I have been pretty busy this weekend but hopefully, the third vid will be coming out tomorrow. I haven’t really spent this week much on the genius hour project, but I have been planning. We have acknowledged that you guys want a steak video. I have also been worried about Spencer's knife skills, so he has been looking into some so we don’t have to edit a video of him getting stitches in the hospital. Imagine this title, ¨WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT, THE ACCIDENT¨. Spencer: Hello fellow humans. We are now in the home stretch of not only genius hour but in school as well. Knowing this I am looking forward a great end to this project. After last time making the spaghetti sauce and Bryce suggesting knife skills so I don´t die from blood loss in a video, ¨aka, a great way to get views¨” I have taken the liberty to search up tutorials to learn these skills. The main thing I have taken away from this is to make sure to always sharpen your knife first, which was most likely the problem last time. Also, always point the tip out to where you want to cut and slice forward in a U like fashion. On response for your calls for a steak video, I have found a suitable piece of meat for the job that models a New York strip and plan to pan roast it with garlic butter. I can´t wait to make this DELICIOUS CREATION!!! 5/1/2022 0 Comments Week 8: Back to work . . .Welcome back, everyone! I know that everyone is really excited to be back in school! YEAH GO TO SCHOOL! Anyway, after taking a long rest, we both knew it was time to get back to work. So, we decided to take it easy this week by showing you how to make a homemade spaghetti sauce recipe that is from my dad.
Bryce: This week was a blessing and a curse for me. First off, there won’t be a video of the recipe this week. I am sure I and Spencer will probably make a recipe (possibly modified to keep it secret). The reason for this missing video is that someone's camera died mid-recording and we lost the footage. I will find something else to edit or learn though. I am currently learning how to use each individual type of cut for a video and I will try to implement that into a different video. I still need to finish the third video. That one has been postponed for too long and it is honestly driving me insane. In other news, I did see that someone wanted to do a steak video so that might be coming up soon depending on how much I can manipulate sway Spencer into doing it. Spencer: Hello everyone and welcome back to cooking/baking with Spencer. This week has been pretty stressful and a rude awakening to my Spring Break oriented brain. So, in order to not be overwhelmed and to collaborate with my parents schedule, I decided to make my dads homemade, original spaghetti sauce. I started with browning lean, ground beef. This is just up to personal preference buy you can use any fat ratio you want. Next I diced us peppers and onions into medium fine pieces and set them aside to wait while I poured in already pre-made tomato sauce into the now browned meat. Finally, I put in the peppers and onions into the now boiling pot of tomato sauce and beef. From there I turned down the heat and let it simmer for around 45 minutes. Its a pretty simple recipe really but it is absolutely amazing on any type of pasta. 5/1/2022 0 Comments Week 7: SPRING BREAK!!!Spring Break is finally here and so is the mind set of break as well. We didn’t really do much this week due to the amount of tests coming up for us. Bryce has just been finishing up the editing from last week and Spencer has been preparing recipes for after spring break. I think its about time for a rest.
Bryce: I am still working on the third video. I probably won’t be able to work on it over the break but I am still finding the time for it. I will be learning more stuff about the video production aspect, even if I don’t get to put that into practice. I will have some sort of document typed up for the stuff I learned and also the struggles. I will probably be putting that on the website for everyone to use for future reference in case you guys plan on doing something like this in the future. Hey everyone, I know everyone is excited for spring break and so am I. This week I have very busy tying up the final bits of my work including preparing for tests so I have been pretty busy. This is not to say I don´t look at the comments asking for suggestions. Recently, I have seen many requests for a steak video and I am here to say that it is a priority of mine. I have been wanting to do that video for a long time but due to the wide variety of options and the unavailability of good meat to cook with has left me empty handed. However, my dad recently bought part of a cow, and the fresh meat should be coming in over the break. Hopefully, I can find a New York strip among the batch. I hope everyone has a good break! 4/3/2022 6 Comments Week 6: THE HALF WAY MARK!!!As we pass another week we have thought much about how to plan for the future. With the halfway point now behind us we need to start focusing on the end game. Bryce plans on finding a more effective way to record our videos while Spencer is focusing on the final project extravaganza!
Bryce: This week, I finished the 2nd video. It took way longer than I expected it to take, mainly due to my procrastination. However, the 2nd video wasn’t too bad to edit although it did have its issues. The audio was much better and I tried to make it fairly short. Some of the audio didn’t match up very well, but I guess I just need to work on that. In the new video, I wanted to put some transitions since I thought it would help the video pass smoother overall. I am pretty worried since I didn’t have Cayden to help in the newer video, but it isn't his project so I had to make due. I will have to go over a couple of things with Spencer to make the recording process go quicker. Spencer: Over this past break week I have argued with myself on many different ideas. I can either go bigger with baking projects, or I can attempt to try and downsize into snaking like morsels. Both of these options have these pros and cons such as helping me learn how to make more complex bakes. However, choosing to pursue only one may leave me handicapped in the other field. So, after careful consideration, I am choosing to downsize my products so I will have experience in both fields. This may include cupcakes, macaroons, and mini cakes. As a matter of fact, I am considering my next bake to be cupcakes which will be a delicious treat on the go. 3/27/2022 4 Comments Week 5: SUCCESS!3/27/22
This week was a pretty fun and successful week. For the first time, we did an actual bake! Spencer, made a German chocolate pound cake while Bryce tried out some new filming angles to aid in the experience. Cayden however, couldn’t join us this week for a multitude of reasons. So we had some challenges with only 2 people instead of the usual 2.5 people. But in the end, it turned into our most successful week so far! Bryce: I had some challenges with the recent video, since we didn’t have the usual help of Cayden holding the mic. But, it is my project so I had to make do without him. We had to take more takes than usual because of the newfound difficulty, but also I tried some different angles which were a bit weird. The upcoming video I am holding off from uploading for another few days, since I want to use a couple more edits. I don’t plan on making it look “great” but I do want to maybe add music and also some transitions. I don’t really want to add effects nor do I want too many transitions. I am just going to use the upcoming video as a test so that we use it as a base for future films. Spencer: This week was an absolutely fabulous success. Even with a man down, we absolutely crushed it. For the first time in weeks, we actually had a solid plan of execution for the bake, days before the actual event. It was decided that since I had an event planned on Saturday afternoon, that we would do the filming and baking in the morning. So, I got up at 9:00 AM on Saturday morning and picked up Bryce from his house so we could begin the bake. From there, I began to lay out the ingredients and the equipment, while Bryce set up the equipment. Within 30 minutes, due to some argument about baking equipment we got to work. I combined butter, sugar, flour, vanilla extract, salt, and baking powder into a batter-like mixture. It looked so delicious that I had to try some, very cleanly of course. Next I set it in a greased pound cake pan to bake for an hour and 30 minutes. From there we hung playing VR until the cake was finished and set on making the icing which proved to be a challenge but a success. Sadly, Bryce and to leave early, which was sort of lucky sense the power went out as I was icing the cake. Stupid wind. I loaded the cake into the car and took it to the dinner with friends and it turned out to be a massive hit. I was so happy for the first time about baking that it has encouraged me to try out even more crazy recipes. Until next time. 3/20/2022 5 Comments Week 4: Directional ChangesThis week is one of our down weeks, where we are searching for what we plan to do. Currently, we are thinking about what kind of things we want to cook and also how we will edit them. We have a new email that we will set up so we can get recommendations for the future.
Spencer: The beginning of the fourth week was not very productive on my end. Balancing school, MPA, and extracurriculars have been quite difficult and has led to little progress being made. However, this past week's experimentation has led to a conclusive idea on how I will proceed going forward. I have found that while cooking is a good way to learn how to make balanced meals and take responsibility for the adults, it's quite boring. So, I have decided to pursue a more baking-oriented path. This is not to say that I don’t want to cook every once and a while just for fun. I believe that even though cooking and baking are two different things, they can both be incorporated to aid the other. Anyway, I look forward to working long hours in the kitchen, taking big risks, and falling into diabetic-induced comas from eating too much sugar. Bryce: I was finally able to finish the video last week. It should be uploaded on youtube as of writing this. I will be editing the newest video to hopefully be cleaner than the recent video. I did think that I should maybe add some music so I will be trying to find some (legal) music to use so I don’t get my projects taken down from copyright. Maybe this would be a good time to ask for some recommendations in the email. Once the video is up in good quality I will link it but it won’t be up immediately. 3/13/2022 6 Comments Week 3: Getting an upgrade![]() This week was a very productive and innovative week in which a lot changed production and culinary wise. First and foremost we upgraded the production on our video which included a boom mic and stand for our camera. We also kept the video stable by propping the camera up instead of holding it manually. Hopefully, the footage comes out great. In the upcoming video, the quality of the audio wasn’t great so I had to completely cut the audio. There were some problems with learning the software, and I am still learning but it did end up making the edits take longer. The video will take longer to upload due to some problems with the premiere but hopefully, it will be up by tomorrow or the end of the week at the most. In the recent video, we swapped to a different mic to minimize the static. The video was also swapped to be a simple view of the ingredients and the cooking process. I think this will come out better than the last video and will maybe require fewer edits. When we were recording Cayden and Spencer did have an issue with how the mic worked so there might be some parts that are quieter but I think I can fix that in post. I decided to take a break from baking this week, and instead have decided to pursue a cooking experience. Instead of German Chocolate cake, I instead cooked chicken noodle soup based on my mothers recipe. This sudden change was due to a change of plans for me going to the beach. It was not all smooth sailing even though I prepared many of the ingredients in advance of Bryce and Cayden arriving. I started by mixing together carrots, celery, garlic, and onions. There I sautéed them in a pan and added assorted herbs such as bay leaf and basil to bring out flavor. However, I forgot to add said herbs until the vegetables were half sautéed. Next, I added in 6 quarts of chicken and vegetable broth to create the primary part of the soup. Then, I brought the soup up to a boil and added in a shredded chicken breast and let the soup simmer to allow the chicken to cook evenly . Finally, I garnished the soup with another assortment of herbs and spices that included nature's seasoning, oregano, salt, and pepper. The finished product was appealing in all aspects, which my group confirmed by taste testing it. It did however need a little more salt, as all things do. Overall, this week was a great success in both fields. Spencer tried a new kind of cooking which turned out to be a great idea and Bryce managed to improve the set up and filming process to incorporate new angles previously not captured in the past video. We sure hope that this trend of improvement continues, so that it may develop into a wonderful finished product. |
CategoriesSpencer Melton and Bryce EllisSophomores at Davie County High School Archives
May 2022
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