World Problem: Overpopulation
Summary of Project
For this project, we had to pick a current problem facing any part of the world on any scale we liked, and come up with a solution for it using the Engineering Design Cycle. Once we selected a problem we were required to read and annotate three reliable online sources and then come up with a list of solutions based on our research. We then narrowed down our solution to the best, most efficient, and most realistic, and then out of those we were to choose one to pursue. We then had to construct a prototype or action plan for the solution we picked. We then communicated our solution by making a presentation and presenting it to the class,.
Content: Engineering Design Cycle
- Identify Need: As a class together we identified any and all current world problems that are important to us on any scale of severity so we ended up with a long list of world problems ranging from the discontinuation of the McRib at McDonalds to Bigotry against minorities and Climate Change.
- Research Problem: We then were tasked with selecting, reading, and annotating 3 articles regarding our issue from reliable online sources.
- Develop Possible Solutions: We made a list of all possible realistic and unrealistic solutions and brainstromed all possible solutions.
- Select the Most Promising Solution (s): We selected our favorite most realistic solutions and chose one to develop.
- Construct a Prototype: We picked the best solution and researched further to find the pros and cons of our solution and set up a plan to implement our solution and try to work around the cons if possible.
- Test and Evaluate prototype: We did further steps to further our action plan and do more research to find out what is in our way and if there was any steps we could add to our plan to get around the issue.
- Communicate Design: We then created a presentation to show the class our work and our research and our solution. We went in groups explaining to the class our group's specific process.
Reflection
While this was not my favorite project we've ever done, I felt it really helped me imporve most of my leadership and collaboration skills in many ways. In this project I felt we were at a bit of a handicap as we had only two people in our group. I felt that this really helped me improve upon my leadership skills and take initiative. It also gave me insight as too how to work diligently and our handicap gave me a fair chance to really share my idea and pull my weight. I took research from multiple sources with different viewpoints. I made graphs that clearly demonstrated a wide variety of data that created a nice visual for pur presentation.
In this Project however, i felt I seemed to get distracted quite easily and ended up being off task more than I realized. This lead me to realize that an area I need to work on that I wasn't paying attention too earlier was work ethic. While I did improve on my leadership quite a bit, I still have a long way to go. I'm very very far from a good group leader, and I hope to be one by the end of the year. In a group of two it should be easier to lead but I found it hard since I'm not exactly the outgoing type. In future projects I want to push myself harder to be more productive and take a strong lead in the group.
In this Project however, i felt I seemed to get distracted quite easily and ended up being off task more than I realized. This lead me to realize that an area I need to work on that I wasn't paying attention too earlier was work ethic. While I did improve on my leadership quite a bit, I still have a long way to go. I'm very very far from a good group leader, and I hope to be one by the end of the year. In a group of two it should be easier to lead but I found it hard since I'm not exactly the outgoing type. In future projects I want to push myself harder to be more productive and take a strong lead in the group.
Special Thanks to My Awesome Partner:
Tyler Leighton: tylerleightonsanmarin.weebly.com/
While we were short on members, I would say you could've counted for two. You were really productive and helped to fill the gap of an extra member we didn't have, you took a real leadership role in this project. Thanks for being an awesome partner.
While we were short on members, I would say you could've counted for two. You were really productive and helped to fill the gap of an extra member we didn't have, you took a real leadership role in this project. Thanks for being an awesome partner.