What Was This Project?
For our first project of the new semester, we were given a lot of creative freedoms. In this assignment, we had the goal of solving a problem in our modern world. Our group, consisting of Sarah Ng, Vincent Long, Henston Wilson, James Karr, and myself, decided the problem we wanted to tackle was California's lack of good public transport. We took this to the local level and worked on a plan on fixing the Bay Area's public transport. During the research part of the project, we looked at why California's transport failed and what made areas such as Asia, Europe, and other parts of the U.S's transport work. Using this data, we came to the conclusion that we needed to unite the Bay Area under a common transport system. The best candidate for this was the Bay Area Rapid Transit or BART which already spans San Francisco and parts of the East Bay. Our plan was to expand the BART into the North and South Bay (a more detailed look on what this would look like can be seen in our presentation). Some notable areas that would now be served by BART if this plan were to be introduced would include: San Rafael, all of Silicon Valley, Vallejo, and much more. Our San Rafael station would be close to the San Rafael SMART train station which would unite areas such as Novato, Santa Rosa, Larkspur, Petaluma, and more. In order to make the system work properly we will work with Caltrain so we can use their already existing infrastructure. On this web page you will find our presentation, our thought process using the Engineering Design Cycle, and my own reflection on this project.
Our Presentation:
Content- The Engineering Design Cycle
This content section is will differ from others from this year of STEM. Since this project wasn't a physics based one and didn't contain many new concepts, this content section will instead include a section about how we used the Engineering Design Cycle to create and finalize our project. The Engineering Design Cycle is a way used by people in scientific fields to lay out a clear pathway in order to get successful and fruitful results.
1. Identify Need: For this first step we started by individually listed world issues and cutting it down to one main issue we wanted to focus on. We then formed our groups based on people who had similar ideas to us.
2. Research Problem: This is one of our longest steps. For this each of us researched transport in a certain region of the world, as mentioned earlier, with me looking at California's current system and its failings. I looked at three separate sources. These included statistics on the current system, a Wikipedia article on the subject, and plans for the future. These sources are linked below.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/almanac/transportation_data/transit.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_California
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/18/us/california-high-speed-rail/index.html
3. Develop Possible Solution: During this step, we brainstormed as a group using the information we had found from our research to find a direction in which to take our project in. We made a list of solutions, some practical, some outlandish.
4. Select The Most Promising Solution: After putting all of our ideas out there, we narrowed it down to as much as we could. we decided the idea we wanted to work with was a connected train system.
5. Construct A Prototype: For this portion of the project, we started to develop the skeleton of our system. We drew a rough map of where we wanted the tracks to run and planned where we wanted to have our stations. We researched major job providers in Silicon Valley to determine where we should put stations to make commutes easier.
6. Test And Evaluate Prototype: Now that we had the skeleton of the plan, we had to flesh it out more. We also had to fill up any holes in the plan. This included working with CalTrain when we realized it would be more practical to use their already existing infrastructure as opposed to building whole new tracks and stations.
7. Communicative Design: In order to relay our design and idea we though the best method would be a slideshow. We also wanted to make it interesting with attractive visuals to enthrall the listener.
8. Redesign: After having a good foundation for the design, we went back and added improvements and changes to benefit our design. Our redesign included new stations such as the San Mateo station and Menlo Park station and the tunnel to connect to Vallejo.
9. Repeat: For this final step, we started the cycle anew and kept repeating it until we reached our final product, which can be seen in the slideshow.
2. Research Problem: This is one of our longest steps. For this each of us researched transport in a certain region of the world, as mentioned earlier, with me looking at California's current system and its failings. I looked at three separate sources. These included statistics on the current system, a Wikipedia article on the subject, and plans for the future. These sources are linked below.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/almanac/transportation_data/transit.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_California
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/18/us/california-high-speed-rail/index.html
3. Develop Possible Solution: During this step, we brainstormed as a group using the information we had found from our research to find a direction in which to take our project in. We made a list of solutions, some practical, some outlandish.
4. Select The Most Promising Solution: After putting all of our ideas out there, we narrowed it down to as much as we could. we decided the idea we wanted to work with was a connected train system.
5. Construct A Prototype: For this portion of the project, we started to develop the skeleton of our system. We drew a rough map of where we wanted the tracks to run and planned where we wanted to have our stations. We researched major job providers in Silicon Valley to determine where we should put stations to make commutes easier.
6. Test And Evaluate Prototype: Now that we had the skeleton of the plan, we had to flesh it out more. We also had to fill up any holes in the plan. This included working with CalTrain when we realized it would be more practical to use their already existing infrastructure as opposed to building whole new tracks and stations.
7. Communicative Design: In order to relay our design and idea we though the best method would be a slideshow. We also wanted to make it interesting with attractive visuals to enthrall the listener.
8. Redesign: After having a good foundation for the design, we went back and added improvements and changes to benefit our design. Our redesign included new stations such as the San Mateo station and Menlo Park station and the tunnel to connect to Vallejo.
9. Repeat: For this final step, we started the cycle anew and kept repeating it until we reached our final product, which can be seen in the slideshow.
Reflection
This project, I feel was one of my most successful yet. One factor I feel contributed to this was my leadership. I felt I did a great job leading my group and pushing our progress forward. A moment I felt particularly good about this is when I answered most of the questions asked after our presentation. Another aspect I felt like I excelled in was my presentation skills. On past presentations we did in STEM, such as the Hybrid Car project, I was nervous and forgetful of my lines. However, for this presentation, I felt way more confident in my abilities and was less forgetful of my lines. During the presenting of our action plan, I felt is where I shined the most.
While, this may have been one of my best STEM projects, I still wasn't perfect. I do feel that I did a great job in terms of leadership, but there was area in which I was lacking. This was distributing the work evenly. At times, I feel that I should have worked harder to make sure everyone had something to do at all times. This is something I’ll be sure to work on in the future. A second failing of mine would have to be that I didn’t help out enough all around. I believe the job I did on the parts I worked on, but I didn’t help out in areas that I could have easily done. This will be something to remember going into the next project.
While, this may have been one of my best STEM projects, I still wasn't perfect. I do feel that I did a great job in terms of leadership, but there was area in which I was lacking. This was distributing the work evenly. At times, I feel that I should have worked harder to make sure everyone had something to do at all times. This is something I’ll be sure to work on in the future. A second failing of mine would have to be that I didn’t help out enough all around. I believe the job I did on the parts I worked on, but I didn’t help out in areas that I could have easily done. This will be something to remember going into the next project.