Geodesic Dome Project Description

 

 

1. Roll Out: When I first heard of this project, I was really excited because it was different from regular classes as well as being hands on. At the beginning of the project, I was involved and brought a lot of materials for the project in order to get our project started. I really like having hands on projects because I can choose what I do. The first part of the project was planning what we were going to do, and I started to feel like it was going to be fun. However, I knew it was going to be a challenge to get our project done.

 

1. Field Trips: I never went on any of the field trips because I was gone to the state science fair. From the guest speaker, I learned that there are more and more people becoming aware of all the problems that can be easily solved by sustainable design. For example, the guest speaker that came in made mud and straw houses. He wanted to have the materials more sustainable and less impactful for the environment. There are many more of these scenarios, such as clean energy, or reusable water systems. I think that the solutions to these problems are going to be the future of what we are doing in order to save the world.

 

1. Sustainability: Sustainability in my own words is solutions that solve more than one problem. For example, a grey water garden system takes the grey water from your house and uses it for your garden. So it solves more than one problem, it saves water and money, it waters the plants and reuses the water you already used. I learned that this method of work is really effective and that this is going to help with some of the problems we face today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Geodesic Dome Prototype Description

 

1. Empathy: The interviews we held at the beginning of the project helped our group find wants and needs. We got to see what the people that would be using the space wanted in our project (a geodesic dome). For example, a lot of the people that we interviewed said they wanted it to be warm and look like nature. So in order to meet those wants, we implemented the planter beds into our design. The interviews played a huge part in our design thinking process and final prototype, so I want to implement interviews into my future projects.

 

1. Ideation: I thought that it was going to be overwhelming, having so many opinions and ideas at the start of this project, but now I really understand the purpose and reason for the ideation process. An example of an idea that we implemented in our design that we found in our interviews. We landscaped around the geodesic dome in order to make the outside look better and more inviting. This made it a lot more aesthetically pleasing than it would have been if we didn’t take that advice. We took an idea from the people we interviewed, we then refined the idea, and last, we constructed it. I feel going through this process really paid off in the end. I have noticed that a lot of businesses have used this in there designs, and I know that I will be using it for future projects.

 

1. Prototyping: There were many tasks that we needed to complete before we were able to build the geodome structure, some of those including, gathering materials, building and painting furniture and garden beds, leveling the area where the dome is going to be built, and last, clearing out the space by the creek. We were able to complete all of the preparation that we needed to do, but once we were finished, we realized that the brackets that we order still hadn’t shown up. This was an eye opener for me, I learned that things don’t always go the way that you want them to go. So from now on, I am going to add more time to the plan in order to work through those difficulties.

 

 

 

Geodesic Dome Reflection

 

1. HOHAM or 21st Skills: The 21st century skill that I improved on this year was collaboration. I had to use a lot of collaboration in the design thinking process of our project. I also needed to communicate and interact with the other group members in order to make sure that the dimensions were correct, as well as making sure that the materials we had were right for the job. The sustainability project needed more collaboration than I thought would be needed. This pushed me to grow in this skill, and be able to use it more in the future.

 

1. HOHAM or 21st Skills: The 21st century skill that I need to improve on the most is imagination. For example, I had a hard time thinking of creative, imaginative ideas for the dome besides ways to physically build the dome. I am a very visual learner, and this makes it harder for me to envision plans in my head. When we made our physical scale model of the geodesic dome, I had a much easier time envisioning the final product and creating ideas for it that I would have never thought of without the model. This might be a problem in the future when I am doing projects like this one, but because I have recognized the problem I am able to focus on getting over it.

 

1. Problem Solving: In this project, things got hard and we had to problem solve a lot. For example, right around the time when we realized the parts that we had ordered might not come in. We had to find a solution, so we are exploring alternatives for the brackets that didn’t show up, but also making sure that they have the same angles that we need. This really tested our problem solving skills and made me think that there are ways to avoid this, like making backup plans for future projects.

 

1. Problem Solving: If I am, to be honest, there wasn’t a problem that we couldn’t get around besides the brackets. We were a very organized group that had an easy time with problems, but we did have a problem of that magnitude we would gather around in one of our morning meetings and talk about solutions. If there wasn’t a clear solution, we would think about getting around the problem in some other way. The problem that we are still trying to solve is not having our brackets. we are still not sure on how it will end up, but we are trying to get it to work out.

 

1. Success: Success at the beginning of the project looked like making this beautiful structure with decorations all around it, as well as having a place people want to be in. Now, success is just finishing the structure itself. I would be very happy if we finished building the dome, but at this point what we had planned at the beginning of the year isn’t looking like it is going to happen. This tells me that in the future, I shouldn’t bite off more than I can chew. I have had the problem of being too ambitious in the past, and I have been trying to work on that.

 

1. Advice: If I was to give advice to a student going into this project, I would say to not be too ambitious. To keep it all within their abilities, and make sure there is extra time for mistakes. We didn’t do this when we started because problems arose which we didn’t plan for and it made us fall apart. I would definitely recommend a new student to, most importantly, not be too ambitious because that leads to all sorts of problems, and that is what we are trying to avoid.