Design Proposal Finally Finished – Rachel Zinsmeyer

After working hard on the 21 page paper for close to a full six weeks, we’ve finally turned it in.  There was a lot of panic as all of the groups approached the deadline.  We approached our teachers, and fortunately, we were able to convince them of our need for a few extra work days.  The extra week was perfect for our group to rally together and finish the proposal.  I think our’s turned out really well and sounded professional, and I can’t wait to see what comments we get back from our teachers.  I included a few pictures of various sections of the proposal below.

We came into this deliverable with the “divide and conquer” style in mind, which we’d also made use of when we were working on our first memorandum.  This is a style that works pretty well for us.  It lets us still work collaboratively to edit and make adjustments, but it also lets each member have focus and specific tasks to accomplish.  To me, that was very important, especially on a paper this long.  When faced with that much to do, it’s much easier to say, “I have to do these three sections” than it is to think, “I have to write a little bit on fifteen or more sections.”  This method also improves the overall quality because each section is written with  more in-depth knowledge, and with a single voice to prevent confusion or odd transitions.

The night before the deliverable was due for real, our group was editing each other’s sections, just to double check for errors and in an attempt to make our project the best it could be.  Of course, this was the night my computer decided it wanted to be a jerk, and I couldn’t access the shared file we had in Google Drive.  I panicked a little bit, I have to admit, because I didn’t want to put more work on my teammates.  After I’d explained the problem to Karina, she told me not to worry; she would email me sections to edit, and I could send back the revised copy.  I included a picture of part of that email exchange below.  It wasn’t ideal, but I think it worked out just fine.

I’m excited to start working on building our prototype and seeing what design challenges we face.  The next few weeks should be really fun.