This week one of our assigned readings was Why You Need Emotional Intelligence, an article from World Economic Forum. (Would highly recommend reading) It piqued my interest in specific because I spend a lot of time asking "why" about everything, including my own personality and how humans interact with one another. On Thursday and Friday as I previously mentioned in my post about week 3, we spent some time discussing various personality types, and ensuingly took some personality tests, one being the famous Myers-Briggs test. I had taken this test previously (a few years ago) but never really bought the results, since they would change every time I took the test depending on my mood that day. However, taking the test now, I received the result of ENFP -T (AKA "The Campaigner") and read the description and my reaction was "wow, this is so me". I believe the higher accuracy of my result was mostly due to having a better grasp on who I am as a person now, and being in a good place of strong mental clarity currently. As Amy told us, engineers are traditionally INTJs. However, I've been discovering that engineering is more of a concept that can apply to almost any field rather than one specific area itself. Therefore, there is no reason that only certain personalities make effective engineers. Now more than ever, diversity is becoming extremely important in the engineering workplace. This brings me to the concept of emotional intelligence. Prior to reading the article, I had never heard of this term. Despite this, I well understood what the article was getting at. One trait of ENFP's is constantly striving to improve oneself as a person and grow mentally. I am not surprised that emotional intelligence is so important to having a successful career, since most adults I have met that love what they do and are also successful at it have a good emotional intelligence level also. Emotional Intelligence is especially important in a field such as engineering which involves a lot of teamwork and collaborating with others. I found this quiz online, which includes some questions that helped me to understand what exactly "EQ" is getting at. They aren't overly easy to answer about oneself as they are pretty subjective, but quiz results aside I enjoyed having them simply to ponder over. Oftentimes people interested in STEM tend to think methodically and believe that knowing a lot about your inner feelings and personality is less important. However, this article proves that getting to know yourself is of benefit to people of all career paths and lifestyles.

This week will be a busy week for me as I'm sure it will be for the other ProGRES ladies as well, since most of us are in the building stage of our projects. We also have another lesson in MATLAB programming, and we are 3D printing another design. The 3D print design is due on Wednesday, but I already finished mine today (Monday). The glasses below are what I created today using Onshape (Solidworks CAD Software). I have decided on a design and will start working on my prototype for my project soon. I am the kind of person who would rather start working with physical materials and creating the official design as I go, rather than making all the dimensions beforehand and then having to change things if they don't work. It makes it easier for me to visualize the design. I will have another update by the end of the week on the status of my project.

This was a fairly busy week at ProGRES, as usual. Aside from my usual tasks (Creating maps using ArcGIS, monitoring the potatoes on the roof, reflecting on women in engineering articles, and working on my project), we also went on a few trips. On Tuesday we attended lunch at Engineers PEI and got to meet the Women in Engineering Committee, who told us about their own personal career experiences. On Wednesday, the other ProGRES ladies and I learned about a programming language called MATLAB from Dr. Nadja Bressan. Then, on Thursday, we travelled to the Wind Energy Institute of Canada located in North Cape. On the way, we stopped in Slemon Park to see turbine blades in storage in a Vector Aerospace Hangar. They seem so much larger when they're up close! On this day we met Carrie Houston, the manager of WEICAN. Her presentation and tour of the windfarm was really interesting and unlike anything I have ever experienced before. We also had the opportunity to enter the base of one of the turbines. On Thursday and Friday we also discussed the various types of personalities that people can have and how they operate in groups. Teamwork is an important part of engineering, and there are many diverse personality types that engineering attracts, now more than ever. Learning about how different personalities are likely to interact is critical for effective teamwork in engineering.

My name is Erin Chiasson, I am 17, and I will be entering my final year at Charlottetown Rural High School in the fall. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to participate in the ProGRES program at the School of Sustainable Design Engineering this summer, since I have a strong interest in the science courses I take in high school but have limited exposure to what engineering really is. To give you an idea of my background in science: I have taken advanced grade 11 chemistry and biology, academic grade 11 physics, and grade 11 and 12 computer studies. I do have a bit of a background with programming, GUI design, office software, and HTML/CSS website design. Despite my interest in various aspects of computer software, I had not touched any type of CAD software until beginning in the ProGRES program less than two weeks ago. We were encouraged to design a 3D model on OnShape (Solidworks Cloud Software) to be 3D printed here at UPEI. My design was a desktop organizer, which is currently in the process of being printed.

The ProGRES program is great because it allows me to work independently on my own projects as well as assist the group of summer research undergrad students with which I am working. The work environment here at SSDE is a wonderful balance of fun and hard work. The area of engineering research which I am focusing on is precision agriculture. I am working to design a method of transporting water to the roof of our building to water the potatoes which are growing there as part of my supervisors' research project.

I am working under the supervision of university-level research students. Their project is testing a product called Biochar as a sustainable alternative to fertilizer for potatoes. Aside from having experimental crops across PEI and New Brunswick where this is tested, they are also testing Biochar against chemical fertilizer on potatoes on the roof. They must tend to and water these potatoes, which requires transporting at least 48L of water to the roof per watering. I have been asked to create a design to make this process more efficient. I must follow the engineering design process:

1. Define the problem

2. Design Requirements

3. Ideate Possible Solutions (sketches)

4. Background Research

5. Analyze top 3 ideas Present the 3 ideas and make

6. Select best idea (build and test plan) recommendation on the best one

7. Build a prototype

8. Test and evaluate prototype

9. Improve and redesign as needed

10. Implement design

Currently, I have narrowed my ideas down, and will soon be ready to start working on a prototype.

Problem Definition

The problem which is being addressed is that the way in which water is transported to the roof is inefficient and impractical. The solution must be a device which can either be operated manually to transport a minimum of 48L at a time with no spillage, or a transport system to move water from the second floor roof to the third floor roof. The design must be safe and effective when operated by people of all ages, sizes, and heights, and may not take up a lot of space.