Making Good Life Choices

PT.1 : Problem Definition

One of the reasons that we were unable to fully complete all the tests, as we failed the terrain test, was because we did not have a clear definition statement and didn’t focus on trying to solve a specific problem. Instead, we only thought about completing the rover. That lack of direction contributed to our project being unable to traverse terrain.

PT.2: Establishing Norms

One of the good things that went well in this project was that we had well planned out organizational norms, as I did the CAD, Felix did the electronics and coding, and Joshua did the planning for the tests. We all knew our prospective parts, and thus had a very efficient organizational structure.

We also established communication norms, as we knew that we will communicate via google chats when we are unavailable to talk personally. We also communicated with teachers, as we communicated our progress and talked about the parts we needed for both the car and the tests.

PT.3: The Plan

One of the major reasons why we partially failed was that we lacked a clear plan, and the making of the prototype followed a more arbitrary than clear path. This caused a lack of time that ultimately lead to the inability to produce a working suspension system that would have helped with traversing terrain. The little plans we had were also too ideal, as we expected the model to work immediately without fault the moment fusion starts after winter break, which proved to not happen as numerous misfortunes happened after winter break, such as malfunctions in the electronics components and miscalculated prints.

PT.4: Time Managment

Tied to part three, we faced difficulties regarding managing out time, as we didn’t have a clear plan to follow and lacked the use of proper time management skills such as calendars and agendas. This resulted in a rushed one week following the end of winter break, as we had to finish the project within a short time frame that made it impossible for a great project quality.

PT.5: Things Going Sideways

In our project, many things went sideways, as the suspension and electronics both failed right before the deadline of the project. However, when we were faced with these problems we chose to value completion over perfection, and modified the malfunctioning suspension to accommodate the motors and removed the complicated electronics control system and wired the motors directly into the positive and negative ends of the control board. This resulted in a more simple but still functioning prototype, which saved us a lot of time and allowed us to finish testing before too long. The reason why a lot of things went sideways was that a lot of the parts were not tested beforehand which resulted in the operational state of them being unknown when winter break ended. That resulted in malfunctions in many places of the prototype and the delay of our project testing.