Team Assessment
We communicated through text messages and emails, which allowed us to quickly and efficiently coordinate dates and times. In order to share our work, we created online documents, allowing us to simultaneously edit and input information. Communication with our teacher was simple since we were able to approach him before, during, and after school hours. Similarly, our communication with our technical advisor was uncomplicated; we interacted with him through text message and email, allowing him to quickly answer our questions. Overall, interactions with each other, our teacher, and our technical advisor were easy and effortless. Every member of our group worked productively and made large contributions to our project.
Although we already knew about the benefits and importance of recycling before working on this project, this experience has opened our eyes to the lack thereof. In the beginning, we were brainstorming project topics, which meant practically anything that came to mind. Then, we began narrowing down ideas by which eliminating the outrageous topics and keeping the one which we could actually execute, a recycling robot. From there, we created an internal design which spurred the creation of our external design. After coming up with ideas, without physically achieving them, we began playing around with our Arduino Uno, something we were all new to. From there, we went from completing simple tasks, such as lighting up an LED, to more complicated tasks, like making a servo move. This led us to figuring out how to use servos with our sensors and getting the servos inside of the PVC pipes, which completed the creation of the internal components. From there, we designed the exterior of our robotic device using basic physics principles. Our completed project, like all innovations striving to solve a real world problem, is just a combination of a series that come together to make an amazing presentation.
Lesson 1: The importance of brainstorming before tackling a project.
Lesson 2: The importance of constant communication and organized meetings.
Lesson 3: The importance of creative and productive thinking when completing a project.
