Task description: This term we are studying TECHNOLOGY. We’re asking the question,  ‘What can we design, build, create or change to improve school life at Pt England School?’. Working with a group of people we had to present a movie. Using the question given to us to create something we can use at school that could be for fun or to benefit our school. This term for our DLO team 5 had to make a project that would improve team 5/school.  This is because our theme for this Term is ‘Make it work’. Our theme was “Make It Work”. Everyone in team 5 had to get into groups of 5-6 people. Each group had to make one project each. What we basically had to do was find a project that we wanted to create, research about it, and then create it. Our group was called “The 5 Musketeers”. Our group included: Me (Zaria), Swaimah, Vika, Eleni, Lynette.

For this task we had to create a video documenting the process of our group’s ‘Make it Work’ project. The video should:

• Be 3 minutes or longer
• Include dialogue and music. 
• Move in a logical series of events, for example – identifying a problem,  planning your project, creating your project, then the final product. It does not matter if your final product doesn’t work like you thought it would. This is all part of it. 
• Include a reflection about what you learnt and how you found the process – easy, difficult etc and why
• Shared on our blog along with a detailed description about our video

My journey of creating our shoe rack project:

Week 1:

• Explain what you contributed towards that week’s achievements. 

In our first session I contributed ideas of what design we could do towards this week’s achievements and ways to improve our ideas as well. Me and swaimah did measurements for our design making sure the shoes would fit while Vika, Eleni and Lynette wrote down more ideas on how we could improve the design to make it work for us. It was a really good time and our group did a lot of work. We didn’t waste time and we worked together really well which we were really proud of. At the end we all talked about our ideas and all decided on doing a shoe rack/holder. 

• Note any problems you or your group are experiencing. 

Our group worked together really well and personally I don’t think we had any problems doing our work or any miscommunication between our group.

• What did you learn this week?

I learnt that we work really well together and when you break the group up to do different things and do a big group discussion at the end you get more things done and learn more things while getting ideas.

Week 2:

• Explain what you contributed towards that week’s achievements. 

In our first and second session of week 2 we looked at different types of shoe racks and found 2 types we really liked; but before we move on I’ll explain more about these 2 top shoe rack ideas.

Our first shoe rack idea was just normal cubbies (but shoe size) which we wanted to do like 3 rows of 5 cubbies in a stack. We also wanted to add tires so you were able to move the shoe rack around easily. Altogether we wanted to make 30 cubbies as there would be 15 for one side and make another 15 of the same kind for the other sides. So it would be girls and boys separated because the bags we separate already as the girls had the cubbies and the boys had the hooks.

Our second shoe rack idea was to do circle looking cubby type things where we would just need to buy a big pipe that can fit shoes of all sizes in it and cut them all into the same sized pieces then use glue to stack and secure the pipes on top of each other in a row or to make a shape of our choice.

Both of these are really good but now we’re just thinking about space and which one would be more practical and multi use. As we saw that the shoe rack made out of pipes took more space and wasn’t multi purpose but it was much easier to make, but on the other hand the cubbies would take a little bit more work but it’s multi use. This is because the students in our class have been asking for somewhere to put their water bottles. I was thinking of having the cubbies for shoes and we could put out water bottles on top of the cubby or we could make the cubbies a bit bigger so we could put shoes but also our water bottles, jackets, and jumpers. 

What I meant when I thought of this was that usually people just shover there jackets, shoes, jumpers, and water bottles all with their bags and it always ends up falling out as the cubbies are alone made for bags not anything else which leaves a big mess outside our classes so if kids had separate cubbies for their shoes and jacket’s it would solve multiple problems. Whenever we have our third session I wanna tell my group about this idea I have and see what they think and how we would improve it if needed.

• Note any problems you or your group are experiencing. 

Our group worked together really well and personally I don’t think we had any problems doing our work or any miscommunication between our group. But something we got a bit confused and stuck on is trying to figure out how tall the shoe rack was gonna be in length but also the width and thickness. We also had to decide how much space there would be in each shoe rack. We’re still not sure about the measurements for the selves with the height and width.

• What did you learn this week?

I learnt that we work much better when we take turns and when we use everyone’s strengths to our advantage it helps give us a more beneficial possibility for us to have a chance in succeeding in our mission to create a shoe rack from scratch that has to be not only durable but also strong, and long lasting like most advertisements say their items are even though they don’t usually reach the mark they are said to and hoped to but this time we wanna make our shoe rack so well that it doesn’t have a chance to be anything but perfect and long lasting for the next years to come.

Week 3:

• Explain what you contributed towards that week’s achievements. 

In our first and second session of week 3 I contributed many ideas on how we could make our design for the shoe rack strong and long-established. We looked at the materials we would need and the price for it. We found the perfect would for our project but the price made us have to pick another type of wood. We gave ourself a limit of how much money we were willing to spend on wood for our shoe rack project.

Me and swaimah did measurements for our design making sure the shoes would fit while Vika, Eleni and Lynette wrote down more ideas on how we could improve the design to make it work for us. It was a really good time and our group did a lot of work. We didn’t waste time and we worked together really well which we were really proud of. At the end we all talked about our ideas and all decided on doing a shoe rack/holder. 

I’m the ipad person in our group. This means I have to get the ipad and put it back and the reason I have this job is because I’m able to keep my hand very steady so being the ipad person would be perfect for our group as I will be able to take really good footage for our movie, which I am also editing. After that I’m going to help everyone record a voice over and put it all together and present our final project and DLO.

• Note any problems you or your group are experiencing. 

Our group worked together really well and personally I don’t think we had any problems doing our work or any miscommunication between our group again this week. Yet something we got a bit confused and stuck on is trying to figure out how tall the shoe rack was gonna be in length but also the width and thickness from last week but our teacher helped us a bit and we got it all worked out. We also had to decide how much space there would be in each shoe rack, but after this week’s session we have figured out the measurements for the selves with the height and width.

• What did you learn this week?

I learnt that we had to work efficiently because we didn’t have a lot of time and knew if we wanted to get our movie/DLO and woodwork meaning our project was done by week 9 we would have to work really hard and fast making sure no one is just sitting around. This ment while 1 person was drawing, one could do the movie (aka me), 2 people could do the slides and measurements, etc etc. We had to break up all the jobs and decide who is best for each one using all our strengths to our advantage, but we also had to keep in mind everyone should have the same amount of work to do making sure no one is stuck or needs help.

Week 4:

• Explain what you contributed towards that week’s achievements. 

In our first and second session of week 4 I contributed many ideas mainly for our movie because I’m the one putting our whole movie together. I also helped a lot with planning and coping with all the changes our group came along. Week 4 was a really messy week so our group didn’t accomplish much but we did settle on a main idea. Personally I was really proud of our group even though we didn’t get much done because I think settling on a main idea would be the only way we would move on to the actual building or we were gonna keep going back and forward on a design and we’d never get to the real making of our project. We might not have gotten a lot done but if you really look at it we did move a little closer to building our projects which is better than nothing so I still am proud of our group.

• Note any problems you or your group are experiencing. 

At the beginning, our group didn’t experience any problems just like the earlier weeks as we made sure to hear each other’s ideas and make sure no one was left out. We worked really hard the past couple of weeks but I think so far this was the hardest week because we got all our materials and started building. We were really excited for this part but also worried as we were 100% sure if our measurements would work but this was the moment of truth. We were stressed a bit because of the fact that if the measurements weren’t corrent and we cut the wood it would be a waste of money and we wouldn’t be able to complete our project. But the next day everything took a turn for the worse.

We saw our supplies on monday but only me and Lynette were at school, so we were the only ones who knew everything going on and how our plan/design got changed. The next day when our whole group was at school, everyone was in complete disbelief and heartbreak when we told them. Swaimah and Eleni had the hardest time dealing with this, but after talking to them, letting them grieve, tell us about their emotions and how they felt, they came to the new idea. We’re hoping to start building it on Friday (aka tomorrow) but plans changed and we didn’t get time to.

• What did you learn this week?

I learnt that we had to work with all the challenges and problems we faced. We had a really hard time in the beginning because we started the day thinking we were gonna be done in the first 15 minutes but as the day went on we saw it was as easy as we thought. We had to re-measure our project more than 4 times and we were honestly about to give up, half of our group had already given up. We worked through all our problems and at the end of the first day of week 4 we got to a point where we just needed a fresh start.

To get the new start we decided we should just stop working and just talk for the rest of that day which we did and then we went home and came back the very next day with a new mindset. We tried being more optimistic. We just forgot about everything we had been working on from the weeks before and started again. We took a little break and decided it would be best if for the rest of the week during our session we just talked and heard each other’s ideas, instead of repeating what we’re trying to stop. The break we took helped us a lot, that was all my group needed. We needed a break and a fresh start.

Week 5:

• Explain what you contributed towards that week’s achievements. 

I contributed for our group by measuring the wood by how the shoes fit. And I also helped make our videos and parts of our video to add on to our DLO. I did all the recording for our group and all the editing as well. I’m good at editing and things like this so I don’t mind doing all of this stuff. My group tries their best to help me out and take some of the pressure off me, but they know I can do it faster when I’m alone and time is really valuable and knowing that I usually collect all the recordings I need done from that day and use the last 20 minutes before the end of day pack up to put it all together, add music, transitions, voice overs, ect… And the rest of the group does their workbook diaries (aka the doc you’re reading right now) making sure to get it filled in and completed each week.

• Note any problems you or your group are experiencing. 

Week 5 was our fresh start and the problems my group was experiencing was having to drill in the screws as it was hard trying to put pressure onto the planks of wood, because if we didn’t then the wood comes up from the bottom platform making us have to reverse the screw with the drill and put it back in. We also couldn’t put the screw too close to the edge, otherwise the ends of the wood split, which it nearly did at one point, but we got really lucky and it didn’t.

• What did you learn this week?

I learnt that even if our planning and timing is perfect we’re always gonna have problems and issues that can get in the way. What I mean by this is, not everything goes the way you plan, but sometimes you just have to work with the changes and roll with it. My group and I faced a lot of challenges, and I mean A LOT. We went on a roller coaster of feeling throughout the process of creating this shoe rack. At times we had the feeling of accomplishment, bringing a big bright smile, bringing joy to us all. Yet at times we were feeling disappointment, but we helped each other working through our problems

I hope you enjoyed seeing things you can do to stay healthy, mentally and physically. I try my best to do most of this on a daily basis.  I enjoyed this task very much, and I hope to do more like this soon. Hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a comment; thank you for visiting my blog.