Reflection

The Rube Goldberg was an amazing learning experience for me as an engineer and a person. From learning to work with a group to increasing my building knowledge. I learned that I haven't really done any group building projects and this was a great way to realize that working with people can help solve problems quicker and add creativity to the design. For example I was working on the LED's, completely stuck on a problem. (How to make the LED's turn on when the ball passes by them.) Alone I would not have been able to figure this out within the day. But the people in my group had the idea of using tin foil and tape. I also believe that this project increased my ability to think critically. I learned and solidified different ways to manipulate wood, paint, and pulleys. Personally I've never dealt with pulleys and had trouble at first, but I'm now able to use them confidently.

In the beginning of the Rube Goldberg project our group was not able to make the motor or button work properly every time. I think that I could have worked a little more on critical thinking, specifically timing and time usage. There where a few moments when there was nothing to do in the moment but if I would have looked ahead I could have seen the problem and tried to work on it. For example, the board had not been painted yet and we didn't do much for a class period. If we looked ahead we would not have been hit by the time crunch of painting. I also think I could improve on my collaboration. I think sometimes someone needs to kind of step up and make sure that things are decided. At times I felt me and my group where unable to make decisions quickly or we would bounce between ideas. I can tell you this got better the more we got to know each other but I feel that is still an area I could work on.