On Friday we presented our Bicycle Blender to our sisters. When we first assembled everything at our station, the attention of many girls was drawn automatically towards us. First of all because we had a bicycle rolling down the hallway all the way to our station. The smell of toast was also a big factor for the attraction of students and even teachers. We had butter we made ourselves to share with our sisters while speaking to them about our project. We shared with them the challenges we had and how we overcame them, how we changed our idea of making a smoothie blender to having a butter maker, how we initially had a rowing machine to work with and ended up using a bike. The reaction everyone had was amazing! They were all extremely surprised with the fact that we made butter on our own, almost all of them said “What? You made butter? On your own? How?” , it was a great experience for us.
Skills that we all took from this project that will be beneficial for us in the future are communication, time-management, and learning how to manage new equipment. Communication is a big skill that will always be useful, as a group we communicated very well,constantly reminding each other of what we were supposed to do in a polite manner. Time-management was also a helpful skill because we all had to take some time away from our personal life to work on our project. The most appealing skill was learning how to manage new equipment because we got to experience building some of our material with tools we had never used before.
Our group will like to finish our Bicycle Blender to see if it will actually function the way we want it to. In the station, the blender did not hold up to the bike because the axis was way too long for the bike itself as well as the blender detaching from the bike due to us not being able to finish our prototype on time. We wish to finish it because we faced many challenges to just not finish and see where all our work and time went. After the Make-O-Rama we decided to look over our project and we saw what we needed to fix in order to get the bike to work so its just a matter of time before we get back on the horse to finish what we started.
Advice that we would give to another group is that to persevere through any challenges that you face in your team. We say this because when we first started all of us had different expectations for our project so we had to regroup and share our ideas so everyone was heard, this allowed us to better our communication and work together effectively. If we could do this project all over again we would change how our work was divided because at times the workload wasn’t given evenly as well as focusing more during class rather than procrastinating because in the end that ended up hurting our prototype and deadlines we had set for ourselves.
The grade that our team deserves is 86 because we did not complete our bicycle blender the way we desire too. We were prepared with questions that our sisters or teachers had when we presented our project. Also, we had our project with us during the presentation even though they weren’t attach to each other. Finally, we managed our time with all the changes we were making throughout this semester.
StarPathDesign 
Hi girls,
I thought your project was the most amusing for all the right reasons. I would have never thought of such a neat idea and you girls were able to think it through and almost complete the whole project. I was impressed with how much work and effort you put into it and I am sad to say that I wasn’t able to come see you guys and try some of that delicious butter. I did however try it when you girls were still testing it and it was good then but I’m sure it was even tastier last Friday. I hope you guys manage to finish your product because it would be a great achievement. Good luck and I wish you the best. Jessica P. Salazar
Dear the creators of Bicycle Blender I think you should finish your product! If everyone loved your product and it wasn’t even fully completed imagine what they would think when the saw it fully up and running. I think your idea was really good because it was interesting. Especially since your putting two completely different things together to make something. How did you even come up with the idea? I also think you made reasonable changes for next time (like the workload) because everyone should be happy in the group and not have to pick up others slack! GOOD WORK LADIES!
-Amanda C
I absolutely loved your project idea/plan and at the Make-O- Rama I actually got to see it up close. Even tough you were not able to finish your product the way you desired I liked it a lot! At the Make-O-Rama you booth was an attention grabber, and i am glad you have decided to continue what you started. I would personally love to have the option of making my own butter at home, and with your product I can. Keep up the good work , and I hope as you continue this your final product will be what you desired.
-Stephanie P
Hi there girls, reading through your post your project sounded really cool. I wish I could have seen it in action, it seems great. You are not the only group who went through challenges, my group as well didn’t get to finish what we wanted which was disappointing because we put so much work and passion to what we were creating. I glad that your not giving up on your project and plan to perfect in, I feel the same way, especially because our younger sisters need to be safe in the maker space. Good job on all of your work!
-Savannah Ojeda
I really love the fact that you guys realized that communication is an important skill to learn in a group, since it tends to be often overlooked and ignored. I can also relate to the fact you all struggled with time management since I did too in my group as well. I also like the fact that you guys want to continue fixing the project even after this project is over, since that shows just how you all care about your project and take pride in the hard work you all have done with it these last few months. Your idea was really interesting to begin with and I liked that you guys made butter, that is just so cool, I would like to try that. But good job everyone, you all should be proud! 🙂
-Alana C.
This product is by far the most intriguing to me because of the endless possibilities present with your creation. There is so many different things that could be born out of this product. It leaves me brainstorming all of the various food items that could be created from cool methods like your use of a bike. I was looking up what exists today in the world of creative inventions and I found this impressive bike blender (http://rockthebike.com/fender-blender-bike-blenders/). Not only did your product inspire creative thinking, but it seems that y’all have experienced a journey that resembles many we will all face in college. Learning communication and time management now is vital to optimizing our college experience. It’s best to face challenges and learn lessons sooner than later! I’m impressed with your work and hope that this product becomes something fully functioning and in the news in the future.
-Sara E.
I can definitely relate to this. Our group did learn that communication is really important in order to succeed and I also can relate to trying to persevere through rough situations. I really liked hearing about your project because it thought us how bio-med and engineering can go hand in hand. It was really creative, I never would have thought to do something like that. Congrats on your accomplishments.
-Lourdes Cruz