Post #4
When I was in high school I was in an organization called E.P.I.C.S this stands for engineering projects in community service. This organization was a program that was adopted in from Purdue university. This organization was for us as students to help people in our community and engineer products for specific people and their needs. We were assigned a man named Jim and he had a problem with the motor function on his hands, he could grip very well and couldn't give his dog dog treats, so he asked us to make a dog treat dispenser for his needs. This was a year and a half process. This was going on for almost 2 years from the beginning of junior year to the middle of the senior year. I would say this was the best structured organization because of the freedom me and my group had, but we also had to report from time to time to our team leader who was also another student who would over see all the groups. Then the team leader would report to the teacher to make sure everyone was moving at a good pace. So there was good checks and balances on the groups. Also the teacher would come in our group sessions to see what we were working on and the teacher would spend about an hour per week on each group. Along side that our own group which was comprised of 6 friends would also keep each-other in check and make sure that we were going in during meeting hours and that everyone was accountable for a task for the week.
I think we were successful in this group and were able to deliver a final project was because of all the checks and balances. It felt like a well run company in terms that you are given a task and you have a certain time to finish it. The only difference here I think is that because we had students and the main teacher checking in on us and making sure that we were running at a good pace and also helping us when we were confused or seemed like we weren't working at a good pace. This power structure might not be for everyone but it seemed to work for my group. At the end of the year and half we delivered the project and Purdue university recognized me and my group with an award and they came down to my high school, so our work was didn't go unnoticed.
That's an interesting story and sounds like a project that would engage the students who participated in it.
ReplyDeleteThere are several bits of background information I would have like to see in this post, so I could better understand what was going on. Here are a set of questions that you might still answer in your response to my comment.
(1) Did you take Engineering classes in high school? How did you get the skills needed to be able to work on this project?
(2) Did you volunteer for this work or did somebody else ask you to join. In the first case, how to you find out about the group? In the second case, who was it to recruit you for the team?
(3) You talked about the group work, but you didn't say whether the teammates were physically proximate and/or whether they needed to work on this at the same time to make the teamwork effective.
(4) You said this project took a year and a half. But you didn't say how much time was put into it each week. Could it have been done faster if you spent more time on it?
All of the above is to give some context to what you wrote about. This next question is about lessons learned from the work. Have you done anything like this at the U of I or engaged in community service some other way? I think the consequences of an experience like this on your own development is worthwhile including in the post.