Do It Better
The Assignment
Our assignment was to take one of the projects that we did in STEM this year, and do it better! We got to choose which project we liked the best and wanted to recreate to make it even greater than it was the first time. It was a completely self-guided project, and we got to make our own decisions with what we wanted to do, and change whichever guidelines we wanted.
My Project
I chose to do the STEM Outdoor Space project better. I chose this project because I really enjoyed designing and landscaping the area, and I wanted another shot at it to see if I could make it even better than before. Since we were also allowed to change the requirements for the project, I made it so that there was no cost limit, so that I could design without worrying about the cost limit, but I was also careful to not go way overboard with it. Thus, I was able to produce a design that I really enjoyed, and one that I think worked out really well for the space available.
My Process
To start, I had to choose the project I wanted to do. After I chose the STEM Outdoor Space, the next step was to start figuring out what I wanted in my final design. To do this, I went ahead and designed a rough draft of a blueprint. It turns out that this wasn't actually too far off from my final, I only had to make a few minor changes. Next, I had to find the cost of my blueprint and find where and how I could get the needed materials. This took the majority of my time for this project, and when I was done, I only had about three days left to finish the project. Next, I wanted to make a 3D model. I decided to make this by using a videogame called Planet Coaster which I have to do this, although it is called coaster, you can build pretty much anything in it. The 3D model (pictured below) took me a good whole day to finish and then my last step was to take everything I had and put it together. I also included a short slideshow that I made that goes into depth about details of my design. Finally, once I had imported everything, I did some finishing touches on everything, and was done.
My Design
Here is a picture of my final blueprinted design. Some of its key features are explained in detail in the slideshow below.
Key Parts of My Design
3D Model
Here are a few of the pictures that I took from the 3D model I made.
Full View
Here is a full view of the design.
Shade Structure Area
Her is the shade structure with the concrete foundation, wooden support structure, canvas shading, and lots of seating.
Mustang Statue
Here is the second area, with a lot of grassy area and a mustang statue centerpiece. The mustang would look more like the one on the slideshow in reality, but this is the best I could do in the game.
Garden Area
Here is a view of the last area, the garden area, and you can see the rows of planters and the stone retaining wall.
Central View
Here is a more centrally located view, so you can see how the sections meet up with each other.
Shade Structure
Here is another view of the shade structure from a slightly different angle.
Garden Area
Here is a view of the garden area from the other side, closer to where the classrooms are located.
Costs
Here is the spreadsheet that I created for the final costs for this project, including the sources that I got the costs amount from. The total cost including contingency and tax in $59,377.51 or rounding up slightly, it is around $60,000. One major effect on the cost is the concrete foundation for the shade structure. This contemplates for around one half of the cost. If the design were to be used without the concrete the cost would go down to around $30,000, which is a much better price than before.
Reflection
For my final project for this school year, I would say that it went really well, despite the challenges that I ran in to along the way. Two things that I think went really well during this project were my critical thinking and my conscientious learner skills. Since this project was self guided and at home, I felt like I stayed on task a lot more for this project than some of the others, especially since I could make the project how I wanted. From the last project, in general stayed way more focused and on topic than I had before, and I am proud of myself for accomplishing it.
Two things that I feel like I could have worked on for this project are my communicator and critical thinking skills. For communicator, I mean this in a different way than usual, I am talking about how I relay my information and findings for the project. When I first did my slideshow, I think I wasn't putting my full effort into it, and I don't think it turned out as best as it could have, so I had to redo it, which took up some of my time. For critical thinking, I know I said that it went well, but also some aspects of it didn't go well. Since this project was a Do It Better project, this means that we had already done some of the research and work for the project from the previous time which we could have used. I realized this late on when I found that I was finding my information from a lot of the same websites, and so I went back to my previous work and was able to find things that I had already looked at before, and solved my issues much more efficiently. I feel that if I had noticed this earlier on, I could have saved myself even a little more time.
Overall, for the final project this year, I think it was a great way to end the year. Even though around a third of the year was spent at home doing online school becuase of the coronavirus, I still enjoyed the material and the classes, and I am proud of myself for pushing through and finishing the year strong.