JIA Seats Second Blog Post – Alana Calles

During this past week, JIA Seats has had their main focus on finishing the design proposal. The design proposal was an enormous step we took as a group, as it was immensely helpful to be able to accurately and explicitly write down all of our planning and research neatly into one single document. Making a detailed document about everything we have discussed, researched, and imagined since the start of this entire project was starting to come together when we created this design proposal, and with simply a few changes and tweaks to the final product, we will be able to take another important step as a group. When it came to our group specifically, JIA Seats has come to a few easily fixable dilemmas when nearing the deadlines of our design proposal. When it came to time management, there was some trouble, but even through the last few revisions of the proposal, all members of JIA Seats were there making sure that it still got done in a timely manner, and created a product we were happy with (of course, there’s always room for improvement!). Our group continues to communicate with one another whenever it comes to making sure all thoughts, ideas, and suggestions are made clear and shared with the rest of the team. JIA Seats has great ideas and we understand conflicts can be easily avoided as long as everyone is willing to listen to each other and be open to new ways and views when it comes to working on a large and ongoing project such as this one, which is why JIA Seats has been very successful when it comes to new ideas, working and building off of one another and putting three imaginative minds to something we all have a value in. With each project and especially this design proposal, the members of JIA Seats continue to learn and grow with new skills when working in a small group, making sure nothing gets in the way of a great final project in the future, since that’s what we’re all here for.

Later in the week, the class had an opportunity to begin online training for OSHA, or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. What OSHA does is ensures that all workplaces are equal and safe environments for all employees to work in, in terms of pay, and making sure there are no potential injuries while on the job. OSHA plays a major role in all companies, especially those with a lot of physical labor, since that tends to be their focus. The 10-hour training students are completing online includes information about laws associated with OSHA, regulations, ways of going about work safety and properly, and sharing this information learned with others. This OSHA training is extremely helpful because of the fact we are going to start building prototypes of our car seats soon, so we need to know safety guidelines and rules before we go about that in case of anything that could happen. OSHA is also good for general information about safety as well, and is something that will serve as useful at all times.