In college, we will be required to complete tasks that require lots of equiped skills. I believe that this project really helped us, skill-wise, because it taught us the important process. From brainstorming to reflecting, this project taught us patience and built our character. In college, we will be asked to complete lots of projects. By having patience and the strength to carry on after a mistake, will be beneficial for us.
If I were to give advice to a group of students that were doing the same project, I would suggest that they keep in mind the time constraints. It’s important to remain on track with time because many times we found ourselves rushing to complete our tasks. I would also suggest that the group of students focus on what they want their end product to really be. It’s important to keep in mind that the end product may not look like what you expected. It’s also important to keep your end product realistic. The budget is sometimes what restrained us so being able to work with the money you have is important.
If I were to give this product a grade, I would give it a 90. We worked hard to construct a prototype and really take into consideration what our final product would look like. Though we didn’t get the opportunity to completely finish our design, we really put a lot of effort into what we wanted our final product to look like. We did what we had originally planned for ourselves to do.
Many reactions to our display were surprised. Due to our original pieces being stolen, we had to recut them with the laser cutter in the Maker Space. Our pieces for our model came out smaller than expected since there was a lack of wood. So when it was time for people to come see our display all they saw were miniature scaled down pieces of our original and pictures of our prototype. After explaining to the viewers what we were trying to accomplish they thought it was a good idea and had lots of positive feedback.
Our product was different from our original since it was a lot smaller than we had originally wanted due to the small amount of wood left. The other way it came out differently was that our original idea was that we would be using acrylic for the model, but there wasn’t enough of that either. If we could go back and do something differently, we would of gotten our pieces cut a long time ago allowing us to have what we wanted as an end product which was the acrylic instead of wood and not having a scaled down model due to the lack of materials at hand.
As far as how this prepared us for capstone, my partner and I felt differently. Andrea explains that something she gained out of this was learning how to budget helped her with Capstone considering that she was on the marketing team. As for myself, I didn’t really take anything away from this project that helped me with my capstone project. I definitely did not mind designing and working with wood and cutting it, but I felt that the majority of this project was just “busy” work for us to do in order to put something in the grade book. Like I previously stated I did not mind doing the “design” aspect only because I enjoy hands on work, I just didn’t enjoy doing the extra stuff such as proposals and the other paperwork we had to turn in.
I think as a group it is clear that we have decided to leave the project where it’s at and to not continue it. I feel like another group next year would do a much better job creating something a lot better than we did.
StarPathDesign 
I like the advice you gave to other students, it was clear and concise, and would definitely help other students. I think it’s cool that you connected what you learned in this project to your capstone project, and how it helped you. There was discussion of another group picking up the project next year. Have you talked to the makerspace teachers about making an instrucable that students could follow?
All in all it sounds like a good project, but it was never explicitly stated what you were making. Is it a birdhouse?
You can really tell you guys came a long way and really put time and effort into your product. I agree that time constraints were a really big problem and definitely a learning experience for future projects. I agree with your advice to future students that they need to keep their final product in mind and be prepared for changes and revisions to your original idea. It can be difficult constantly changing your idea but in the end your final product is always worth the effort. I think your original idea was really great because it was something that could improve a current and local issue, despite your unfortunate obstacles I think you guys did great!
-Daisy H