#clase055

What a semester it has been! After finishing up the final project presentations, it came to me how far I have come.  Project one seemed like it was years ago but at the same time, it seemed as though it was just yesterday that it was the first day of class.  I have learned so much whether it be learning how to apply the design process, learning of the importance of prototyping, or seeing how collaboration is more effective than individual work.  I enjoyed listening to different speakers as well and all of the diverse backgrounds they have.  My group has really become close over the past months and I couldn't ask for a better team to work with on the past two projects.  I look forward to applying the things I have learned to future classes and projects and hope that all of my group members can do the same.  I found this class to be very interesting and have been reflecting on where it has brought me.  It is sad to see it end but I am thankful that I was able to be apart of it!

This week consisted of putting finishing touches on the slides and practicing our presentation.  Everyone focused on their individual slides but came together to go through a run through of our project.  Wednesday we were able to present and I felt as though it could not have gone any better.  It felt as though we were clear and our campaign of creating posters and promoting education was understood.  Reactions from the audience looked positive and I felt as though we were able to answer any questions our client group had.  I am glad to have finished project three and look forward to working on my process report.  I felt as though I have come a long way from project one and think that I have improved with each project.  I am looking forward to listening to the other groups give their presentations and share their ideas this week.

I think that our groups project is really starting to turn into a finished product after this week.  Monday was a day of planning and discussing questions to ask the person we were meeting with for Wednesday.  Specific slides were also expanded to include more information in order to get certain ideas across.  Wednesday was a day of productivity because we were able to meet with a nutrition major that had first hand experience woking with kids with poor nutrition.  I gathered a lot of information from her about nutrition and what makes something a good meal of not.  She also had a lot of good ideas that we could include in our project about improving nutrition both by school and by making it a national standard.  I have had experience with poor school lunches in K-12 and think that our project would have helped me to make better choices throughout the years.  I am confident our group can finish up the powerpoint and start rehearsing individual parts to create an effective and interesting project.

Working to tackle the school lunch and nutrition problem has been an exciting challenge and this week proved to show some of the difficulties that go with it.  I am interested to see how this project unfolds as our group has started the design process and have been working to find a possible solution.  I am glad that our group has decided to come together to produce one solution rather than try to incorporate different ideas from teams within our group.  Planning our site visit to make real world observations is something that I think will really help with the process and make coming up with ideas easier.  Deciding on a time has been a challenge but I am confident that the group can come together so that we can keep progressing forward.

I find it interesting how many student groups are at the University.  A group such as Glitch seems very interesting because of how much they have grown.  The speaker seemed very informed and I like that he asked us about things we wished we could change.  I am looking forward to start thought processes about project 3.  I am also excited to be working with my group for this project as well.  We worked well during project two and I really thought we helped compliment each others strengths and weaknesses.  As the year comes to a close, I am happy to use the skills I have gained over the semester to use on project three.

Project two felt more involved being a group effort and I thought it was interesting to see the individual contributions come together as one. Collaboration helped to make project two unique in its own way that helped establish it as a new project that was different from the first.  I also thought that project two showed more aspects of the design process because of how members within the group could refine each others ideas.  I also thought that prototyping brought ideas together in physical form and was a way to better connect to the listener.  Overall, I enjoyed this weeks presentations and thought the different ideas of project two helped to display the design process.

I thought the presentation this week was very helpful in terms of refining ideas so that they can be eco-freindly and have multiple uses.  The chart containing different categories was interesting because my group was able to see which ideas our project fit under.  This week also consisted of finalizing our project and making sure the slides covered everything we wanted to include in the presentation.  I thought working in teams could be frustrating at times but it really helped to bring multiple perspectives to the project.  Working in teams was also useful for assigning specific tasks so that people could specialize certain parts of the project.  If I have learned anything, it’s that collaboration is key to creating and producing a successful idea that can turn into a project.  I am happy to see how our project turned out and ended up coming together.

When prompted whether or not prototyping is important, I thought about how necessary it actually is to the design process.  Prototyping allows someone to make an idea a reality by bringing it to life in physical or virtual form.  If prototyping wasn't done, then there would be no way to revise and update the design or features of a product.  This may make something look unfinished or incomplete but by incorporating it into the design process, it can get that much closer to perfection.  Prototyping also allows to get an early idea about what something might actually look like.  For example, if a company wants a task done, then prototyping can show what something might look like without having to spend lots of money by jumping into production.  Our group worked to prototype solutions to our problem which helped to visualize the way we wanted to be headed.  We were also able to add features because we were inspired by the prototype and different group members generated concepts for what the final design might look like.  Without prototyping, I don't think we would be where we are now, and the audience would not get a visual for what we are looking to accomplish.