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.