Improve

Reflection

Our innovation project was an amazing experience that allowed us to ideate a solution regarding an issue that we felt passionate towards. Through this journey we were able to learn a lot. While researching various issues, we gained a lot of knowledge about issues concerning wildlife. We also earned a greater understanding of the engineering design process and learned that it isn't simply a series of steps to follow because many of the steps are often intertwined. Additionally we further developed the engineer’s toolkit skills and had to make sure to consistently manage our time wisely to ensure that we completed work on time.

Through this journey there were many highs and lows that we had to navigate. We had to overcome many challenges such as near the beginning of this sprint when we struggled to come up with our idea because most of our ideas had many complications. Another issue we faced was when we were attempting to gather materials and struggled to find LED lights. Also regarding the materials, the magnets we obtained were in a plastic casing and it was extremely difficult to get the magnets out. We eventually were able to combat this challenge by getting help from one of our teachers. In terms of filming our vlogs, it was quite challenging to find quiet spots to film, and filming and editing the vlogs was a lot of work, meaning that it was very important to manage our class time effectively. Another major road bump that we encountered was getting our electromagnet to work, and we had to redo it multiple times before it finally worked properly. Constant perseverance was vital to being able to combat these challenges.

Despite the various challenges that we faced, this project was a very enjoyable experience. Since we were able to choose an issue that we felt passionate towards and we were able to choose who we were working with, we worked well together and had lots of fun coming up with our design. We really enjoyed documenting our journey through our vlogs, especially the humorous parts, and all of the challenges we faced were worth it because we created a design that we are very proud of. 

Overall we feel that this project has made us better problem solvers, has made us more patient and determined to meet our goals, and has allowed us to grow our communication skills. In our future endeavours,  we plan to organize ourselves better, gather more feedback for our teachers and peers, implement more creative brainstorming techniques, and be more open minded.