Blogs
Blog #10: 11/9-15
This week was similar to lasts as we did not have any assignments due and talked about how people are going to be able to use the lab. Mr. Li and the other teachers are taking all precautions in order to maintain a safe working environment in D-Tech. I was surprised as to how much Mr. Li took into consideration when telling us our plan. There is a currently a sign up sheet to use the lab for an hour and a half each, 2 days a week. I am still unsure if I want to go or not because my house hasn't really discussed much of what we want to work on.
We are moving on from the assignments on canvas and strictly focusing on blogs and our 3 assignments that the class decided on. The 3 projects are definitely a good thing as its going to incorporate almost everything D-Tech stands for and will be the closest thing we get this semester to real teamwork. We will get to make 3 different products to make and try to sell to people. I am excited to get started on these and hopefully we get in the habit of using trello.
Vinyl cutter
Silk Screen
Blog #9: 11/2-8
We spent all of our time this week discussing the future of D-Tech. We got news that we will be able to come into the lab in groups. This is a huge step forward for D-Tech and somewhat school. Students will be able to see each other again and get to work on their own projects. Sadly, I personally don't see it being a possibility for students to come into their regular 30 kid class for hours at a time. If the cases spike, then school will get canceled and we will be back to where we started.
Joey, our house lord, managed to pickup the silk screen from the school. This is our first step of tangible progress so far this year! We should be able to start making projects and getting to coordinate with our house again. We are still exploring the possibilities of what we want to make because there is a lot to choose from. We are also able to use the cricket to make our custom stickers and we could also sell those.
Blog #8: 10/19-23
This week's assignment was making a slide deck and pitch for our business idea. I am surprised with how much more developed our idea has became and is sounding really good. On the right is a rough draft logo for the business. It was interesting to hear the other group's COVID related business ideas. Most of the ideas were health and safety relates such as masks and hand sanitizers. Regardless of how silly some of them sounded sounded, I was impressed with how well some groups were able to pitch their product.
The silk screens came in and we might be able to start printing soon. Next week is the pickup date and so far Joey, our house leader, has offered to bring a silk screen home to possibly start some of our projects. I honestly don't think many people will want to have a silk screen at their house and would rather just meet up at the school to work together. This week marks the end of quarter 1 and am hoping there will be a lot to look forward to next quarter.
This is a canvas we used to model our business.
Blog #7: 10/12-18
This week we focused on prototyping our fictitious business model. We have been working on a business idea that would be able to succeed in a post pandemic world. With COVID in mind, we decided to go with a business that aimed at helping smaller businesses and local restaurants thrive during COVID.
Our business model was to make a website that included everything their customers needed, on top of a social media page that directed people to their websites. This would increase the amount of people that discover the small business/restaurant and eventually gaining them more customers. It was fun exchanging ideas about the business idea with my group and it reminded me how much I miss working with them.
Blog #6: 10/5-11
We managed to meet up this week to get our group photo, shown on the right. One small problem that our group has encountered is that we are having trouble deciding on our logo. We have made a lot of different types of logos last year in AP 2-D Art as a project, however they look the same, if not worse than our original. It is not too big of an issue, however we have to decide on one really soon.
Right now, I am working on a group project with Joey and Justin. We are prototyping a business model after deciding on our business intent during the wake of COVID. Although we don't have a lot of it done, we have a good foundation. It was exciting to hear that we might be able to come into the D-Tech lab one house at a time to use the machines. Although nothing is confirmed yet, everyone is remaining optimistic.
Blog #5: 9/21-27
During class this week, we learned about the three lens that contribute to innovation and a successful business model. One thing I took from the lesson was the ability to recognize factors that contributed to a company's success, and how we can apply it to ourselves. I think it is definitely a useful tool to ask yourself before you commit to a business idea of your own.
On the group side of things, I'm glad we are starting to talk with out teams more instead of just talking about what we want to do. We plan on doing our team photoshoot at Arroyo Verde next week. We chose to have 2 silk screens and a vinyl cutter to make T-Shirts and possibly stickers. Although we are doing minor things, at least it is a start!
Blog #4: 9/15-20
This weeks lesson was about startup businesses. The information provided is has a lot of value to us because we are essentially bootstrapping as different startup businesses in D-Tech. It is crazy to think that large corporations such as Google and Tesla, mentioned in the slides, were once going through the same phase as every other startup business. They were startup disruptors which is why they were able to succeed, unlike the other 90% of startup businesses.
We were introduced to a planning tool called Trello, which all of us can access easily. Some things we have planned is choosing our logo, website on shoplifty, making logos for our T-Shirts, and taking group photos. The picture on the right shows what we have setup so far, it is very basic, but I can imagine learning how to effectively use it is going to be useful to us.
