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.