A Design/Engineering strength for me is problem solving. I feel that through all of my experience designing and building things, I have been able to troubleshoot well and find ways to overcome my challenges.

A Design/Engineering area for growth is ideation. In the past, I haven't put as much deliberate thought into my ideation sketches, so I end up with a final design that I don't love. I want to work on my ideation process so that I can design projects that I will love and use.

3 Documentation Commitments:

• making sure my images are correctly cropped

• adding descriptive captions and explanations of my process

• taking lots of process photos so that I have options and can present the work in the best way

Overall, people seemed to like my designs, the main feeback was to simplify and think about the location of my speakers. If I decide to make the shell design, I should 3D model and print it so the shape can be as precise as possible. I need to think about where my batteries will go, especially for the Golden Gate Bride design. The camera design would be the simplest to make, and I could make two similar cameras and connect them with a wire.

I believe this is an excellent design to meet my growth goals because it will challenge me to be really precise in order to make my final result look really clean and polished. I am also challenging myself with my digital project, because I am not very familiar with coding and I wan't to make that aspect of my project really good.

I am challenging my skill set, like I previously said, with coding, as well as making my design more creative with lights and buttons.

At this point, I have modeled most (85%) of my camera design. I have all of my measurements and notches for my press-fit design. I also have all of the buttons and controls that I will need for my speaker. I still need to finish making my design ready to laser-cut for my cardboard prototype.

My design is to create a camera-shaped speaker. From my prototype, I learned how I needed to adjust the tabs in my Rhino design, so that my laser-cut wood and acrylic will fit together well. I also learned that I need to change the size of my side pieces. Overall, I think that I will be able to complete the design well.

I worked with Leena on the amplifier PCB design and schematic. During the process of making this circuit, I realized how precise you need to be when making the schematic, and how important it is to find and solve the errors coming up. I also learned how to read schematics better and think about them like a breadboard with physical wires connecting everything instead of something less concrete.

I am building a speaker that looks like an old camera made of wood and acrylic. I still need to finish laser cutting my acrylic top piece. Then, I will need to glue the pieces all together and make sure that my circuit board and speaker are attached properly inside the enclosure.

The goals for my amplifier were to create something that sounds good and that I can display in my room. I made a vintage-looking speaker shaped like a camera, with my digital project attached to the back. 

This semester, I am most satisfied with how my speaker sounds and its visually clean design. I am also satisfied with my PCB breadboard and the soldered circuit. 

If I were to start over, I would make sure I have a plan for the order I build the different pieces of my project, I feel that I could've added more details had I not spent so much time trying to fix careless mistakes. 

What will still be with me 2 years from now is how much time and planning it takes to accomplish a project to the fullest. I will also still remember how it is more valuable to set achievable goals that you can complete within the time frame.