Blog 19: Independent Component 2

Content: 

LITERAL
(a) Statement saying: “I, Luz Cervantes , affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”
(b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component

• "How to Prepare Your Business Plan." United Nations. United Nations, 2002. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.

(c) Provide a digital spreadsheet (aka log of the 30 hours).   Post it next to your mentorship log.
(d) Explanation of what you completed.  
What I did for independent component two was test out a possible answer for my Essential Question. The answer and main focus was on making a business plan as shown below. I made it 13 pages and followed the regulations for a business plan in the United Nations. I had to research all of the information included as well as asked my mentor for further information on the business.
INTERPRETIVE  
Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  

APPLIED
How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped. 
This component helped me answer my EQ because it taught me that a Business plan is essential to make profit in this economy.  It's mainly more about the work and research that is put into it that's makes your Business successful. It showed me that the target marketing section is very important and it proved that it's a good answer for my EQ. As well as the marketing strategy section led me to my 4th answer which is "cake decorators should design a marketing strategy that will help create a positive demand in order to make profit in today's economy."

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

Content:

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.
I plan on creating a business plan for the bakery that I mentor at. I will also do research on pricing cakes and start pricing cakes at the bakery and figure out if it is a profitable price. I will do that by calculating the amount of materials and ingredients the cake contains in a spreadsheet.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.
I will log my hours and take pictures. I will also have a typed business plan and a spreadsheet on the data I collected from the ingredients put into each cake.

3.  And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.
This will help me by identifying if having a business plan is essential to be a profitable cake decorator. As well as if making a spreadsheet and calculating the probable profit on each cake is important in todays economy.

4.  Post a log on the right hand side of your blog near your other logs and call it the independent component 2 log.

Blog 14 : Independent Component 1

Content: 

LITERAL

(a) Statement saying: “I, Luz E. Cervantes, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”

(b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component

"Cake Boss" by Buddy Valastro really helped me with my independent component because it helped me evaluate what factor pertain to his success in making a mass amount of profit as a cake decorator in today's economy. It also helped give me ideas of experiments that I could try out in my mentorship to identify what is most important in a small business. 

(c) Provide a digital spreadsheet (aka log of the 30 hours).   Post it next to your mentorship log.

( its under "Links")

(d) Explanation of what you completed.   
Throughout my independent I helped out with decorating a lot of cakes and designing quite a few on paper. I also helped with attending customers and trying to memorize all the prices of the products to see how much profit the business earned. I also started looking into what materials where  put into making the cake and how much it cost, then i estimated how much it could be priced according to the articles I had read. I also helped rearrange the cakes and bread products so the customers could see the products better and it helped with the overall presentation. 

INTERPRETIVE

Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.

In the beginning of my Independent Component I just started doing basic stuff like Practicing shells and all the basic cake decorating techniques. After I got my solid Essential Question I started focusing more on how  the bakery that I go to makes profit. I did some experiments by comparing plain cupcakes and the "creative" cupcakes and what I found , was that the cupcakes that had a theme or some type of design were priced more than the plain ones. In the end I noticed that the cupcakes that looked like there was more effort put into them sold more than those that had no design. I also noticed that when a small child would walk by and see them they would ask their parents and what I found was that these cupcakes were mainly aimed to a younger customer base.  I also helped design some cakes, that are displayed below and I helped decorate them a bit. At times I had to be by the register and speak with customers and focus on prices of products.

 

APPLIED

How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better?  Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped.

The component helped me understand the foundation of my topic because at first I had thought about the skills, but it never came to mind that there was so much more into it. For example, I had never paid attention that the presentation is key to making a customer happy with your cake or product.  Also the more original you are, the more people are willing to pay a little extra for that item. For example the Christmas cupcakes as shown above compared to the plain cupcakes which were cheaper.

Independent Component 1 Approval

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.
Since my EQ is on how to be a successful cake decorator, I plan on doing my mentor ship at La Puente Bakery #1 and creating a club at school to teach people how to decorate cakes.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.
I will take pictures and log my hours at my mentorship and log the times the club meets.

3.  And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.
I will be doing my mentroship at la Puente Bakery #1 because I will be able to get more hands on experience on decorating the cakes. Throughout my mentorship i will be asking different questions on how to teach people how to decorate cakes. The club will allow me to learn more about cake decorating because it will make me research more on the activities, while helping other people learn the basics. This will allow me to learn what skills are important and how does aesthetics,creativity, and originality help someone be successful in the point of view of people who have a broad knowledge on what cake decorating is and compare it with people who are skilled.

 4.  Post a log on the right hand side of your blog near your mentorship log and call it the independent component 1 log.