My Week Schedule

This is the schedule of my life from Friday, April 27th until Thursday, May 3rd. This is also a typical week in the life of Emma except other weeks I have soccer practice (out of school) and not as many school soccer games, I am also in class on Friday in a typical week. The activities on the weekend aren't
always the same but take up about the same amount of time.

Usually we don't get Drama, English or Phys. Ed. homework. If by chance we do I still have time for them, that's what would go in the FREE TIME areas. 

This activity has made me realize that my life seems busy but I don't regret a single
half hour of it!

DEATH BRIDGE!

Unfortunately I was away.

BUT

I observed the other groups while they frantically built, rebuilt, revised and tested. In the end everyone failed the competition. Not by a bit but by a lot. I'm not saying that I think I would do any better but this is what I saw that led to failure.

1. The lack of "research"
   By this I mean that it didn't seem like any of the groups really explored all aspects of the game. All the robots that came up to test were quite heavy for the flimsy bridge and that added to the overall failure around the bridge area. It seemed like groups didn't grasp the full idea of the competition and forgot to plan for certain variables.
   
2. Unplanned testing time 
   Many groups did this but I'm just going to pick on one group in particular. While Sylvie and Jeremiah were fixing the robot I noticed that their project manager was just wandering around, sometimes even helping other teams. Instead of wasting time Mohamed could have been practicing throwing, which ended up to be a big issue for many groups. If you can't get the rocket in the robot, you can't win.
   
3. Irresponsible testing habits ( Evan, Cian, Prasad: Evan drove their robot of the table during testing time.) The whole point in testing time is to find the flaws in your design and fix them. At the same time you're becoming familiar with the way your robot works. Testing time is NOT to be used for doing crazy stunts with your robot. Evan, Cian and Prasad's group was a perfect example of what not to do. They were the first group to bring their robot to the table and it actually looked pretty good! They worked on driving the robot then Evan drove their robot off the table. Of course the robot fell to pieces. Not only that but their sensor also broke so they could not compete in the challenge. This was accident was irresponsible and preventable if they had stayed focused and not gotten foolish. Unfortunately that meant there are now only 3 working sensors.
   
4. Giving into failing
   A lot of groups were very unprepared for this challenge. Lots of people also just gave up because they knew that their robot was never going to win. They just gave in. Although it may have seemed like a hopeless situation I think that they could have kept trying to adjust their robot and entered in the second or third competition.

Negotiations Card Challenge, REMATCH!

The challenge was exactly the same as last class except you could only cash in three sets at a time, so as to not clog up the line as part of your strategy. To refresh your memory: each group started with $15 million to bid on cards and negotiate. Different card combinations gave you a different amount of money and the goal was to have as much money as possible by the end of class. This time I worked with Chelsea.

What started us off in the right direction?
When looking at the decks we tried to rank them from most desirable to least. Right of the bat Chelsea and I bought one deck, which we thought was pretty good, for $7 million. Unfortunately we must have made a mistake because we looked through the cards and there weren't to many of them and didn't have a lot of the same suit. After that, most of the decks sold for higher than we could afford. The last deck though was of great interest to everyone except they only had $7 million left so we ended up topping their bids with $8 million. This was a good move because it gave us a really big deck that was way better than expected.

What was your best trade? How did the Negotiation lessons help?
Our best trade was with Evan. We were looking for a King of diamonds to complete a same set suit. We were fair with the deal and did a one card for one card deal. We knew and communicated to him what we wanted, we knew our limit (which was two cards and a value of $1 million) we knew his motivation (he told us it was for a four of a kind and showed us the cards), and we created an honest, good relationship. Our first bid was the bid we settled on so we didn't have to remake our bid. Although the deal didn't gain us many cards it was the quality of the cards that counted. We could have asked for more, and might have gotten it, but it was important that Evan felt like he was getting a deal because it was our first trade with him and wanted many more fair trades to come. We used what we learned in class about being direct and helping to come to a compromise, if needed, to make both parties feel good about the trade.

What was your worst trade? How could it be improved?
We only did five trades in total and our worst was again, with Evan. The time was running out and we only needed the four of clubs to complete a set that would make us $10 million dollars. I guess we were sort of rushed and didn't really pay attention about what we were giving away, we just wanted that card. We ended up giving Evan a 2 and 3 of diamonds. Not only did we give him more cards for less, they were also in numerical order and the same suit which increases their value. It wasn't a huge mistake but if we had made more trades we may have made more trades such as these which would have not helped our financial state at all.
We could have improved this deal by taking a breath and calming down. If we weren't as frantic to cash things in I think this deal would have gone better. We could have asked for another card to make it a 2 for 2 deal, not offered two cards and stood our ground on the one card deal or asked for money to accompany the card to make up for the quantity difference.

Did we win?
YES WE DID! In the end we had $140 million dollars, beating out Nobu and Griffin's group by $1 million dollars.
Thanks to a last minute deal with Trevor we went from having $80 million (still a really good sum of money, we would have ended as second place) to almost doubling our total. Trevor wanted our 2 of diamonds and was willing to pay $60 million for it. Although this was the most profitable deal for us I wouldn't classify it as the best because he approached us with the deal and we were caught unaware and didn't know what we wanted, what we could offer and what his motives were. After the transaction, approved done by Mr.Kee, it turned out Trevor gave us the money just so that Nobu's team wouldn't win. Although that suited me just fine because that would mean we won, I knew it wouldn't happen in a real world situation.
Aside from that bizarre deal, Chelsea and I were successful and won because we bought two decks to start and had enough time to sort out our cards. We knew the value of our cards, what we had and what we needed. Since we had so many cards to start with, we didn't need to rely on trading and got to know our cards better. Chelsea is an introvert so ended up doing most of the sorting of cards and I made most of the trades. It was definitely an improvement from the last challenge. Without the bizarre, last minute deal (which was completely legal in game rules) we ended up with $80 million, $43 million more than last time. Our official total though was $140 million which was $103 million more than last time.

It was a huge success!

Negotiations Card Challenge

We started with 15M and had to bid for different decks of cards and then negotiate to get the best combinations and cash them in to get more money. I was partners with Noshin who's personality type is INFJ. We lost the challenge because we didn't have the most money. 

We didn't know the value of our cards which led us to some bad trades. We were also not very organized and we had to constantly go back and check our pile of cards before finalizing a deal which not only wasted time but also gave the opposition more time to think about the deal and whether or not it was the best for them. It also looked very unprofessional and made it seem like we didn't know what we were doing, which was not true. 

I mostly did the negotiations and Noshin sorted out all our cards and told me which ones we needed. We were both good at knowing what we wanted and knowing our limits on how much we could offer. There were many deals that fell through because other groups thought that they could convince us to pay more but we stood our ground and walked away to let them know when we say "final offer" we mean it. This helped us later on and people took us a little more seriously. We also kept a close watch on the time and cashed in all of our cards before the time limit. Some groups didn't cash them in before the bell and lost a lot of potential profit. 

Next time I would alter our strategy so that we took a little more time figuring out the value of our cards and organizing them. I would also make deals for cards with money because everyone was trading card for card and didn't know the dollar value of what they were trading. Overall it was a fun challenge and I learned a lot about negotiating.

• • 
    

Auction Hunters

For this blog I watched an episode of Auction Hunters called "Battle Bought" and looked at the different negotiation strategies used.

1. What were they trying to sell to who?
They were selling battle bot's to Chuck and Jason who are two aerospace engineers.

2. What were the opening bids for both sides? How did they come to an agreement?
Chuck and Jason started with $2,000 and that price was agreed upon under the condition that it worked perfectly. The battle bot didn't work perfectly so Chuck and Jason dropped it to $1,800. Ton and Allen counter offered by including all of the controllers plus the big battle bot for $2,500. In the end they compromised and decided on a price of $2,000.


3. Name 3 things you read off of observing body language during negotiations.
Jason's hands in a strained position indicated that he was still very interested but wanted to get a better deal.

Chuck was leaning a little bit away from Allen and avoiding eye contact suggesting he was trying to hide something. Perhaps he knew the robot was worth a bit more and wanted to keep that a secret. 

4. Identify any negotiation strategies used.
Alan and Ton used small talk to get the buyers to feel a little more comfortable. When they feel more comfortable they might give more things away with their body language. Another thing they did was a little sweet talking. "Wow I'm feeling humbled" said Allen after they talked about Chuck and Jason's work. When the deal was in danger of dropping in value they bartered and threw in some extra robot controllers and parts to bring the price up. This worked pretty well because they sold the buyers things they didn't originally want and thus raised the price of the deal.

5. In your opinion, who got the best out of this negotiation?
I think that Allen and Ton got the best deal out of this negotiation because although they didn't know the value of the product as much as the buyers but they used their superior negotiating skills to sell the product on their terms. I noticed that in they had an initial offer of $2,000 and that's what they ended up with in the end. Although at one point they could have walked away with selling only one item for a fairly good price they sold off the rest in order to squeeze the last few hundred out of the buyers. They also made a positive relationship with the buyer's which leaves room for further deals later on.

Tips for Negotiations

What you should do:

• know what you want
• know what others want
• know the value of what you have
• don't show uncertainty
• be friendly to others, firm but not pushy

What you should try not to do:

• wait for others to approach you with a deal
• look for things that are in high demand
• let others look through all your wares. Offer them something and don't let on how many pieces you have that they might want
• try not to make rush decisions, they often lead to bad decisions.
• let others know what you need. Once they know that they can manipulate you and you'll end up with a bad deal

Tanks

Group:Evan
           Gregor (team leader)
           Emma (parts collector)

1.Our team lost this challenge. Our tank was very un-tank-like and was not able to take a hit. The way the battery pack was supported wasn't that great and I personally think we had an excessive amount of gears and it didn't seem to help the overall performance. Our big problem was the securing of the wheels, gears and the battery pack.

2. We were all extroverts so we made sure that our ideas got heard, that's for sure. Even with that though we seemed to get along really well and had a very good work atmosphere. Gregor was the main builder because of his previous experience with Lego but also because he just picked up the materials and started doing stuff. Evan was also building. I was the one that asked questions because I didn't understand the plan of the robot. That lead us to conversations like this, "Oh yeah we have a great gear system. Emma what did you say about supporting the battery pack? Oh I forgot all about that. Let's figure it out now." All in all we worked great as a team until the testing part. Gregor did the most driving and sometimes didn't let Evan and I test it out.

3. Our team did best at allotting time for testing and emergency modifications. We finished building twenty minutes before the end time so had a solid 15 minutes to test. It was great because we all got to have fun driving without the pressure of competing. Our robot did really really well at first but then things went downhill from there. The gears started breaking off, the connection to the battery pack weakened... it was a mess but thankfully we had 5 minutes to fix things.

4. Next time I think we should spend more time on the brainstorming and putting together ideas part. We did share ideas but then we didn't really put them all together at the beginning. People just started building and worried about the rest of the design later. The questions I asked during the building time were good but should have come up in our brainstorming session. I think that thinking about Anti-winning would have really helped because our robot wasn't like a tank. We should have focused on stability and strength rather than speed. Tanks don't usually go fast but they are really strong. Ours was the exact opposite, very fragile and quick. I would have changed the design so that it had a way to defend itself against opponents.

DEATH RACE!

This challenge was a battle to the DEATH! Each team had to make a car made of lego pieces and drive it on foam squares in a large square. The catch was, no part of your robot could touch outside of the foam squares. Also, two out of the four outer edges, had a large drop from table to ground.

1. Our team lost. We lost because our robot design was not so great and we didn't get the hang of steering it. The design wasn't the best because the robot had its motors in the back and didn't have a good base to support the battery pack. During the competition the battery pack weighed down the car and sometimes made it split in half. We poorly designed that part of the car. We used a lot of collaboration to come up with the design. I had an idea to hold the battery pack and Jeremiah had an idea for the wheels so we tried to mix the two together but it didn't work out so well. I tried using the Anti-winning strategy and during the brainstorm process tried to make a slimmer robot. I think this helped a lot with our robot's turning because there was such a small area to turn in, without falling off the table.

2. Danielle and I are extroverts and Jeremiah is an introvert. I think that maybe I got a little controlling and strayed from my job as parts collector and spent too much time thinking about time management. I should have just left that to the team leader (Danielle) so that everyone could successfully do their job the way they wanted to do it. Other than that we worked really well together. We listened to each others ideas and had fun!

3. Our team did best at using only the pieces we really needed. We had a clear vision of what the robot was going to look like and which pieces would make that happen. We were also good at time management because we had enough time to practice controlling the robot and finding out who was the best and steering. This helped our team because each member felt confident that we were controlling the robot as best as we could. Also Danielle and I got to try controlling the robot which would later help us to give Jeremiah advice during the competition.

4. Next time I would spend more time on the design and brainstorming process. Perhaps think more about the concept "less is more" as well. The groups that did the best in this competition had three wheels or just two, which gave them more control in steering. I would like to try brainstorming how to get the job done with as little large pieces as possible (without compromising the strength of the design) and then think about larger designs. I usually start big and forget the strength and control you can get from a compact design.

The competition was fun but didn't live up to its name "DEATH RACE!" because we were all too afraid to bash into other cars thus making them plummet to their DEATH!

FUN!

This competition was really fun because even though it's fast-paced and sometimes hectic it really brings out your artistic expression, both in the making of the object and in trying to convince people to vote for yours as the best. By doing this we got to think less about function and more about the appearance of the thing. This was super fun but also helped in exploring the different uses for the different pieces.

In the first challenge many people didn't make it to the table and they had bad time management. But after that everyone made it to the table from that challenge on. Chelsea and I sometimes got to the table a bit early but it was useful for rehearsing our explanation and last minute reinforcement time. A lot of groups could have used that time because when it came to presenting time a lot of the objects fell apart mid-sentence.

Overall it was FUN! It was really fun to see how different each design could be.

Egg Tower Challenge- rethinking using constants and variables!

How our design countered some variables

Our design worked pretty well. It was strong enough and kept the egg in place. The only thing we needed to work on was height.

Rocket Catch

The competition was to make a lego structure that would catch nerf rockets. The structure would have to withstand four shots at it from a nerf gun or from someone throwing a nerf rocket at it.


Team members
Fatima- parts collector
Kelly
Me- leader


1. We lost because our tower was not strong enough or stable enough to survive a hit from the nerf rocket. Prasad threw the nerf rocket at our tower and it exploded into a million pieces. We did manage to land a nerf rocket into our tower before the attack came. The difference between the offensive side of this competition and previous competitions was that people had the option to throw the nerf rocket or shoot it from the gun. As we learned from previous competitions, the nerf gun does not pack much of a punch so we thought we could afford to make the tower not super strong. I think that the fact that you didn't have to use the nerf gun slipped our minds and that was the biggest mistake we could make. Our tower was designed pretty well to catch rockets and was fairly far off the table but we did not make it strong enough to withstand the force of a someone whipping a nerf rocket at it. We failed to look at all the factors affecting success and to counteract variables with constants.


2. Kelly is extroverted, sensing, thinking, judging. Fatima is introverted, sensing, feeling, perceiving. You would think that having two extroverts and one introvert on a team would be a problem but we managed to work really well together. I was the team leader that kept track of time because I was an extrovert and I just hate being late for things so I felt more comfortable being responsible of the time management. We communicated our ideas well and  gave each other a chance to explain our ideas. When asking for pieces for Fatima to get Kelly and I were clear and concise with what we wanted which was very helpful because it made things run smoothly. Once we had gotten all the materials we needed, each of us worked on separate parts and brought it all together near the end. 


3.  I think our team was best at time management. We worked efficiently and stayed on task and on time throughout the whole competition. We gave ourselves an ample amount of time for each step and actually ended up ahead of schedule. We used that extra time to test our tower, practice throwing the rocket into the tower and making minor adjustments and fixing the damage done during testing. 


4. Next time I think that our team needs to write down all the possible ways our tower could fail. I think that thinking about Anti-winning would ensure that we remember all the things we need to design for. If we had remembered that people can throw nerf rockets really hard at lego towers we would have built our tower stronger, thus making it more successful. Our tower could have been made to withstand a harder hit. We could also improve on our brainstorming part. If we had decided on a design together a little faster we could have gotten better materials. Since we took a little bit longer on that step, the other teams snatched up some of the useful pieces so we had to work with what was left.

Egg Tower Challenge!

Team Members: Gregor as captain, Mary, Thananjana, me (as parts collector)


1. Why did your team win or lose? Explain what happened. How did your team use or fail to use things you learned in class?
Our team lost this challenge. Overall we had lack of communication and did not consider all aspects of the contest. We were way too focused on getting the tower strong enough to withstand a hit yet we didn't even think to actually test out how hard the nerf gun shot. We learned that brainstorming is a really important part of solving a problem and that everyone should have their own original ideas. For the most part we did this well but we had a lack of communication and someone just put it upon themselves to just build their idea and add it to the group's structure afterwards. Everyone else didn't understand the idea and we failed to work things out. I have improved on managing my time and we used our time wisely. Also Gregor's idea was too complex for the allotted time and frankly you don't need an amazingly innovative idea to protect a toy egg in a tall tower.

2. How did your personality types affect your team’s performance?
Mary, Gregor and I were extroverts so that definitely affected our performance. I think that since we were all outspoken we had some difficulty with listening to each others ideas. Gregor had this idea for securing the egg but he didn't communicate it very well so everyone else was confused and didn't step up and make sure we fully understood. Thananjana is an introvert but everyone in our group knew that so we accommodated for that and tried to make sure we gave her many opportunities to speak up. Thananjana, Mary and I all had Feeling as one of our personality types so I think that affected how we approached Gregor's idea. I was too hesitant to question and challenge his idea because I didn't know if he would be offended or not. Now I have discovered that when it comes to designing everyone should take their egos out of it and we should all be able to challenge and question ideas freely.

3. What did your team do best?
I think our team was best at time management. We spent enough time brainstorming and were really efficient at building. Two people worked on the base while another worked on something else and the fourth person (me) collected the materials and helped build the base. We were a little behind schedule in the middle so we stepped it up and got caught up again. Gregor's idea took more time then expected so we didn't get enough time to test our structure.

4. What can your team do better next time? What can you change in your design to win next time?
Next time we need to do everything better. Although we understood all the concepts that lead to success we weren't quite effectively applying our knowledge. We need to make sure everyone understands what is happening and that everyone willingly agrees to each idea. As for the design, we should have tested the nerf gun for strength and accuracy. If we had found out that the nerf gun is really hard to aim and not that forceful our design would have been aimed more towards height than strength. Instead of a really strong and stable structure we could have taken more of a risk and made the tower taller. A taller tower may result in a weaker structure but the gun was not that forceful and everyone in our class has really bad aim so strength in structure was not an issue.

Tallest Tower Contest Reflection

1. Our team lost the tallest tower Lego challenge because we didn’t have the tallest tower. In class we learned about how the different Lego pieces work and what they are used for. My group used the pieces that we got fairly well because we used them properly and efficiently. We made a stable base and then worked up from there. I think that we spent more time discussing than actually doing and that was a major problem. Instead of using our limited time for building we designed and didn’t have enough time to build what we wanted.

2. Mary and I had the same personality type and Fatima’s was fairly close as well. We were all intuitive and every time we put a piece on our tower we spent a lot of time trying to secure it really well because we were all thinking ahead and solving problems that we didn’t have yet but could have in the future. This slowed down our progress quite a lot. We shared the “Feeling” personality trait and were all aware when other people didn’t have anything to do so we would stop and make sure everyone felt included and useful. Unfortunately this lead to some jobs being done multiple times by each member of the group just for the sake of doing something.

3.think that our team was best at sharing and communication. This added to the group dynamic and by having everyone involved there were no discrepancies and every decision was agreed upon by the whole group. The performance therefore went smoothly and there were no conflicts and everyone benefited from what we learned because everyone understood what went wrong.

 The performance therefore went smoothly and there were no conflicts. We were also very good at using every piece and putting them to good use. We were careful not to just stick a piece somewhere because we had to use it somehow. We found ways that its actual purpose could help our tower get taller.

4.For next time I think that our group could be more creative with our solutions and not worry too much about how each piece works but more how they will contribute to the overall solution to the problem. We could also split up certain jobs so that our expertise was distributed well and we all weren’t trying to work on the exact same thing. For example while the parts collector was collecting the other two members could continue building or discussing what comes next instead of waiting for the parts collector to get back. Next time our design could have a wider base in order to make it higher yet still fairly stable. Our base wasn’t that big so the stable area we had to work with, as the height increased, got smaller and smaller and less effective. 

Jung Typology Test

      1.  On the Jung Typology test I got, ENFJ: Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging

I definitely agree with my results. I find that I am concerned with external issues rather than my own feelings. I’m not quite sure how intuitive I can be but sometimes during movies I do predict what will happen next. I think a lot before I act and I do judge things a lot and I sympathize with people. This Jung Typology Test is creepily correct.

2. Career links: Counselling, Psychology, Social Work, Education, Physician, Science, Computer Programming.

In this list I’m interested in Psychology because I find that the way people think and why they do that is really interesting. Social Work and counselling sounds interesting too because you get to interact with people and help them solve their problems, but I don’t know too much about the profession. I don’t really know what they mean by “science” because it’s such a broad field, but I’m interested in science in general as well.

I was surprised that the test suggested Physician because my immediate response to that as a career option is, “no way”. I guess it’s because I used to hate the thought of going to the doctor’s office because of the association it has with needles. Since then I haven’t really reconsidered it until now. I also don’t really like the smell of doctor’s offices.

  3.  I didn’t really learn much about myself from this test. I just learned that I have mentally blocked out some options for careers because of past experiences. Now I think I should reconsider my options because I’ve changed and so might my interests, so I should take another look at everything. I learned that there are some really cool jobs that somebody thinks I might be good at based on my personality.