Reflection

While creating the swing, the group and I were faced with some unexpected challenges. Because this was the first STEM project we did away from school and without a driving force, our group struggled on what it was that we would work on. Without someone telling us else what to do, we had to create an idea on our own. The idea of the swing came from a friend, who was working on a swing for his own project. With our project in mind, we had to work with two different “c’s”. We were forced to show critical thinking while searching for the perfect tree, and we also had to use collaboration on all parts of the project. Honestly, one of the harder tasks of the project was finding a tree. Where would we find a good, non-rotten tree? We searched up a hill, as we knew we wanted to find a large sloop, to make the swing lift of the ground father then it originally could. Eventually we found a tree in one of our backyards. However, there was an excessive amount of dirt blocking where we were going to be swinging, which we would later have to move. Using collaboration, we each had to work on different parts of the project to get it working. Darius worked on the seat, Josh worked on the ropes, Kash worked on a raised platform, and we all worked digging out the dirt that would have rubbed up against the seat. In doing this we showed an ability to use critical thinking and collaboration to create a pretty awesome swing.