I first learned about Google SketchUp in 8th Grade. I immediately became very interested, and was soon designing lots of models with it. My freshman year of high school (2007), was when my skills really took off. I had the idea of making the whole middle/high school in SketchUp. I knew it was going to be a huge task, but I was up for the challenge. I asked my tech-ed teacher, Mr. Merullo if I could have the plans for the school. He then gave me a smaller sized version I could take home with me.

      After I got home from the school I laid the plans out and started drawing the outline of the building in SketchUp. When I was done with the outline of the classrooms, I built the walls up and put the roof on. While making all the rows of bricks that are along the outside walls, I thought there had to be an easier way. So instead of building it all as one part, and having to make each individual row of bricks, windows, etc for every wall, I made each section of wall that had an identical part somewhere else, into a component. Then, whenever I edited one of them, it changed all of them, requiring a lot less work. I presented my progress on the project several times to the Tech Ed class I was in and even showed it to one of the drafting classes once. When it was getting close to the end of the school year, I thought I could finish the model by the end of the year, but soon realized I had too much left. I worked a little more after school got out, but then took a break for most of the summer.

      A week before school started back up in September, the courtyard was mainly complete with the walkways and pond built in the center. Later that month gutters and brick grooves were constructed on the round portion of building facing the courtyard. Afterwards, the weather station mounted onto of one the science rooms roof, was put up. During the months of October through December, I worked mainly on modeling the terrain, roads, and walkways around the school. One of the toughest things was making the PAC entrance and road going to the parking lot by the cafeteria because of the slope of the road and surrounding terrain. In January, the PAC entrance was done, and objects in the side cafeteria parking lot were placed in February.

      When it came to March, the model was mainly done, except for adding a few details here and there. I decided to focus more on the website, coming up with ideas of what it should look like and what it would contain. I first put all my ideas in Word, since I didn't have any experience making web sites. After I had a rough idea of what each page would look like, I learned how to use a web design program, and made the pages in April. From then until the last week of school, I was taking pictures and videos of the model to be used in the site and working on the other pages. I also asked the principal for more information and facts about the school building so I could include that in the website.

      From this point forward, I hope to share more of my work with the school and community. Even though it was a very challenging project, it was worth it in the end.