Hi, my name is Aiden and welcome to how my group and I made questionable choices in our Planet Exploration Project.

Our entire project was quite problematic and our group faced many challenges, but I think we learnt a lot in the process, and if I were go back in time and redo the project again, I would have a lot of improvements.

Problem Definition

One of the first things was the problem definition. Even though we were clear on what we wanted to do, our problem was too ambitious as we wanted to build a drone for our problem, which was hard as we would need to 3D-print a custom frame and involve soldering and circuitry, which we weren’t very good in. The frame ended up not fitting and the circuitry proved to be more complex than we thought it would be. My group should’ve assessed the complexity of the entire project and made a better plan.

Establishing Norms

Our group didn’t establish norms when we started the project. We just assumed that we would find stuff to do and finish it. However, the reality was that it got hard to split workloads and we didn’t set due dates for the stuff we were doing, which made us really delayed. We should have set clear roles for people for what portion of the project they were in charge in, and made deadlines so that we can plan out the entire project.

The Plan

As I said earlier, our original plan was far too ambitious and idealistic. We hadn’t given deep thought into the whole pipeline of the project, and just expected that we would move on from one step to the next, in the order of whatever felt natural. In hindsight, we should have made the circuit boards first as we could have used it to estimate the size of the frame and have more time just in case the solders or parts were faulty, which was what happened.

Failure

We also didn’t plan for failure and that was also a key part that contributed to our blunder of a project. We were lucky that there was a drone for us to borrow to test. Formulating a Plan B or backup plan just in case things go off the tracks would have saved essential time. There were many times during the project that could have been avoided if there was a Plan B on hand.

Final Thoughts

Our project was the furthest away from perfect as it could have possibly been. We didn’t achieve any of our goals and ended by borrowing another’s person drone, but the lessons I learnt were far more valuable than success. We may lost the battle, but we won the war.

Aiden