Tuesday 4/26 (photos unavailable on device)

Today our group planned to finish the instrument Bryant and I were working on, make several additions to the xylophone, and get the stem and drum pedals built for the last instrument. We decided that since the medal flower required the least amount of time, people working on that flower would shift their attention to the newer flower. In order to finish the medal flower I was working on, we needed to mount the supports, screw in the pedals, and have everything painted.

I worked with Bryant to mount the pedals and supports to the correct part of the stem. Before this could be accomplished, the supports needed to be painted and drilled and notches needed to be made in the stem.

 I help spray paint, but left the drilling and notch making to those with more experience. In the mean time, I helped cut out sheet medal pieces for the new drum. I then helped tape these so the edges were not sharp. As part of the media and marketing team, I also documented, and created a plan for the prototype testing.

So far our team is continuing to work diligently and cohesively, aside from small miscommunication. I feel that when working in groups as large as ours with team members scattered across the campus, problem solving becomes essential.  Overall, we have managed to make effective use of our time, and help out our group mates when needed. In addition, each member has taken on some responsibility outside of school. I, for example, need to bring a couple materials to next class. In addition, our products continue to impress me as we near presentation time. It still facsinates me when a drawing is brought to reality.

Friday 4/22- First full day of building

Today was a successful and busy day. After the group put together the goals for the day, our team set off to start building two of our three projects, the third had to wait because we couldn't cut wood due to the rain. We planned to have the metal pedals for the instrument I am working on cut out and painted, along with the pieces of the support metal cut. For the xylophone, we planned to have the frame cut out and mounted to the bottom piece. For the third instrument, the goal was to get everything marked ad planned out so constuction next class will run as smoothly as possible. 

All three tasks were completed, and our group ran a little ahead of schedule.

The xylophone group started drilling holes to mount the wood pieces, and my group started making plans to mount the pedals on the stem of the plant.

As always, my role was documenting and building the metal flower instrument. I enjoyed documenting today because it gave me an excuse to watch as the xylophone leaf was constructed. In terms of construction, I completed several tasks. First, I worked with Bryant to cut out the rest of the pedals from the sheet metal, while grant filed them down. 

Then at lunch I hot glued the circumference of each pedal in attempt to transform them from circular blades to child friendly flowers. Once I realized the glue wouldn't adhere, we decided to use painter's tape, and Bryant and I taped the edges. 

While we waited for the paint to dry after Grant sprayed them, I did some math to figure out how long each support piece would need to be. After Bryant cut them, we measured to see where they should be placed so that we could cut a notch into the stem of the flower. 

Overall I am very excited about our project thus far, and very proud of my team for working so diligently. It has been amazing watching as the pictures I sketched have come to life through each step of the construction process, along with how they have been revised in order to be practical for a prototype. Today was reassuring as we were able to finish our tasks with few barriers. Now the only challenge will be time, as one of our three instruments has not been constructed yet, and we still need to test the instruments to make sure they will actually make something we can call music. 

Wednesday 4/20- Home Depot day

Today's venture has been stressful and intense. As a part of media and marketing, I went to Home Depot to record the process of buying materials. But first we needed to finalize our material list which was far more difficult than it sounds as our project changed since last class, and the list needed a great deal of editing. Once at the store, we rushed to find our materials, partly split up, partly working together. 

 

While we were at the store, the rest of the team learned about leadership and projects. Once we returned back to the school, the team split up to work on the project, cutting wood and metal. I started cutting out metal leaves for the instrument Bryant and I are making, and recruited a couple others to help speed up the process. 

Now for the stressful and intense part. Einstein said spend 50 minutes defining the problem and 10 minutes solving it. But I don't think Einstein had to design and construct instrument shaped like flowers with only a day or so of planning, and a couple hours worth of making a list of materials and schedules. I feel that with a budget as large as ours, we should've had more time to take the advice we had received from the teachers and videos, and plan out our project in a more detailed manner. Because I feel that the teachers have high hopes for this project considering the amount of money going int it, I think the groups could have benefited from more planing and revising. Not by talking in small groups, but by making a small prototype to see what needs to change. The biggest challenged for me as an engineer in this project, is that I am not familiar with the thousands of materials at Home Depot that I have to work with, so come material list time, I wasn't exactly sure what to put down. For this reason, another prototype would've been helpful. In addition, it seemed that one of the team leaders had created an instrument plan on his own and added materials to the list for it, but failed to add some materials for thing we had designed as group. This forced me to take over a bit of leadership and straighten out what we were actually about to make.

By the end of 3rd block, I was a bit more hopeful about the fate our project than at the start of the day, and excited to continue working. Hopefully now that our plan is more clear, our project will run a little more smoothly.

Monday 4/18

Monday 4/18

Today was the start of our pre-building phase. Every group rotated between the three main discussions about refining our project. The first was about telling a story, user interface, and interaction, the next was about making our projects more aesthetically pleasing and more like art, and the other was discussing the possibility of integrating technology into our project. This caused our team to simplify our project, while keeping the general idea. We originally planned to make a giant metal tree that served as a drum-sculpture, with various instruments sprouting from it. 

My role is almost always generating ideas, or refining others. After today's discussions, I came up with the idea to take the tree design that I originally created, and refine it to something more like a garden of flower instruments. This would be far less time consuming and ambitious, but would still be a fun art piece that incites community. Our group also decided that given the time frame, we would only construct three flower instruments, and leave out the light up aspect that we originally planned for. Additionally, as part f marketing and media, I took photos and documented the process. I also found myself delegating tasks to the rest of the group to make sure that everyone was working to complete the documents.

Here is an example of an idea that team member generated that we had to refine and revise

Here is a rough sketch of what our flowers will look like

As a group we decided that for our theoretical product, we would have an aspect of the flower that lights up when the instrument is played. This way if a group of people played, there would be a garden of lit up flowers. 

So far, our group is cohesive and mostly on task. Our biggest hurdle is that there are several of us who have a lot of ideas and want to add their own parts in, often getting us off track or over complicating something. Other than that, I think all the groups are struggling to solve the problem given the parameters that the teachers have set. For example, my group originally wanted to do and art piece that changes as you move, but it wouldn't really create community, so we scratched it. But later in the process, we were given examples from the teachers of art pieces that were similar concepts. I think the abstractness of the project was meant to leave it open for interpretation and creativity, but instead wasn't specific enough and so groups strayed away from art pieces thinking that they wouldn't meet project requirements.