Outdoor STEM Space

CONTENT

The next project we did was to design furniture for the space outside of our STEM building. Our senior engineers had designed a layout for the space and our freshman classes were tasked with designing furniture for that area. My group followed the engineering design cycle to best design our prototype. We started by identifying the need for furniture in our outdoor space. Then we researched and brainstormed ideas before finalizing a solution of a hammock/net seat. We prototyped our solutions and drew our first blueprints, but then we had to change our location and were able to use existing posts. This allowed us to redesign to make it bigger. We remade our blueprints and then made our model. We then tested and evaluated this before communicating our design in a presentation. We were able to use the engineering design cycle to create a product that was adaptive to our users' needs.

We also spent time on sun patterns so that we can productively use the sun so that our hammock was in the sun. We placed it so that in the morning the sun shined on it and as the sun moved and it got warmer there was shade on our hammock seat.

STEM Outdoor Presentation - Blueprints, materials, budgetings, and model are in slideshow

Reflection

In this project my group consisted of Caetano Lataliste, Stella Fleischhauer, and Hanna Thoms. In this project our group worked very well together and got work done quickly and efficiently. We all shared ideas and looked at problems from different angles. We were able to better complete this project with us all working so well together.

Two things I feel like I especially was good at were collaboration and conscientious learning. I feel I did well in these categories because I had a good work ethic and completed everything on time. Also I managed my time well and completed goals that our group set. For example, our group set a goal to complete the slideshow by a certain date, and by working hard and managing our time well we were able to do this.

Two things I feel like I need to improve are my communication and critical thinking. This is because sometimes I feel like I didn't communicate my ideas the best because I had trouble describing them. I want to work on my speaking/presentation skills so that my ideas can be heard and used. Also I want to improve my critical thinking because I didn't do much questioning and therefore didn't have much solution finding. Something I could have done for example is questioning where the perfect location for our hammock would be so I could reason and discover the best place for it.

Overall, I felt I did very well in this project, and my group and I did very good work throughout the entirety of this project.