Friday, March 6, 2009
it was worth a shot
wow! even though the planning process was introduced to us after this assignment, i feel this systematic procedure stumbled upon my group intuitively. commencing this assignment, my group had a bit of an advantage as we entered the class with sketches of our contraption; beginnig the planning phase in advance. though our contraption was a failure i believe my group carried out the planning steps quite successfully. our goals and objectives were pretty evident; building an egg protection device that would keep the egg from cracking after being dropped from 10 feet in the air. we were conscious about the time that was given and we met the deadlines of deliberating our plan as well as constructing our contraction. we were informed of the limited material that will be allowed to construct such a contraption. off the bat, i think out group leader emerged naturally. he took charge and clearly explained his opinion. though he sketches were already made, he was completely opened for constructive feedback; everyone in the group contributed their two cents and as a result, we all were getting along and seemed quite compatible. then we began to alter the sketches already made as we began to realize we needed a more efficient cushion to offset the impact. however, i don't think anyone realized that dropping the egg from 10 feet above doesn't guarantee that it will fall strait down without flopping from side to side. this i believe was our main flaw that hindered our plan. not aware of this, we began our tactical plan. it was then when we started dividing up the tasks; one person measured the straws and marked a specific cut off point as the next person would cut the straw and tape them together. the next person would then begin to build the base/ foundation of this protection device. my task was mainly to guard the egg with my life as we were told if it were to break at any point, we can no longer participate (i did a fantastic job!). to make a long story short, our egg was one of the many that cracked (though it wasn't as severe as others). again, i think our flaw was not addressing the possibilities of the egg flopping from side to side not assuring that the egg will land on its purposeful contraction, instead, landing on the other, non-protected side. we did a hell of a job though! it was worth a shot.
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nate you did do an exceptional job at guarding the egg. without you it could have been a disaster for our egg. I must also agree with you that one of the biggest issues we had was the lack of foresight. Due to the lack of experience in egg dropping, we did not take into consideration how the egg would fall untill the very last moment. Boo-hoo. Guess we'll have to wait for the next experiment to earn extra points!
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ReplyDeleteIt's nice to see that you and your group kind of had an assembly line theme going on where one person was in charge of cutting the straws and the next person was in charge of building the base and so on. In my group, everyone just jumped straight in. We all tried to help with connecting the straws and taping everything together. I have to say that I was a bit skeptical at first about the design of our contraption but it came through.In the end, we did a good job because our egg was one of the few that didn't crack.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you guys were unable to complete the task, being so prepared prior to class. I guess without a test run it's hard to figure out possible blips in your planning. The planning done by your group sounds great, and results don't always come out as one expects.
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