Reflection

Since the Rube Goldberg project was the first of many projects this year, I feel like I have a lot of room for improvement. However, overall I was very pleased with my contribution and participation to my group and the project. My strengths in the project were my cooperation skills, my work ethic, and productivity. During the construction of the project, my group and I found out that some of our steps wouldn't work exactly as we had predicted in the blueprints, so we had to come up with new steps. In order to make this change as simple, and run as smoothly as possible for my team, I helped them come up with new ideas. I was flexible and made sure to incorporate some of everyone's ideas. I cooperated well with my group and made sure to treat everyone with respect. I also used my time management skills to make sure that everything was running smoothly and on time. If we got behind a little bit on one day, I would make sure to make up all the work the next day as well as completing all the work needed for that day. I also helped my team by calculating the physics in our project. My group and I all worked together to find measurements and plug them into the correct equations.

However, as I said before, there are some places I can improve on. I can improve on hiring my leadership roll in the group and by listening more to what my group members are telling me so I can understand more clearly what they are trying to get me to do. I think I should definitely work on increasing my leadership roll in my group for the next project so that I can increase my impact on the group. I think that increasing my leadership roll will help me be able to get my points across clearer, and it will be easier for me to thoroughly explain my thoughts. I also need to work on listening closer to what my group members are explaining to me. I need to work on this so that I can understand what my group mates are talking about, and be an active speaker in conversations. Listening will also help me be able to incorporate their ideas into the project.

During the construction of the machine, for the most part, my group stayed together and worked together while doing construction. However, towards the end we started to realize that we didn't have many artistic or design pieces on our board. So we decided to split up for the last few days to get everything done. When we split up, I mostly worked on the design aspects while my partners worked on construction. I think this method worked really well for us, because we finished a day or two early. In those extra days we had, we used them to prefect our board and practice our presentation.

Overall, I think my Rube Goldberg machine was very successful. The project was definitely a learning experience. I had to make sure to step up and take on more leadership rolls in order to get my points across, while making sure to listen carefully to my group members thoughts and opinions. This project helped me realize that my ideas aren't always the most important and perfect. A mixture of everyone's ideas is best. I think knowing this will help me achieve my goal of increasing my leadership roll because I will be able to accept everyone's ideas easily without thinking that mine are the better. I think this project has taught me a lot about myself as a person and a student, and I think the things I have learned will help me be better prepared for the projects to come.