Over this past week, I focused on catching up on my assignments. There was not an assessment due at the end of the week which was greatly timed because I knew I would not be able to complete it with my best effort if there was one. I updated my portfolios and reprinted my divider labels so they were not smeared. Since I finished updating them, I gave my mentor my binder during my mentor visit so he had some time to complete the portfolio evaluation. For my mentor visit this past week, I sketched out my water treatment blueprint so I would be able to scan in the sheet to add to my deck. While working on my deck, I got the idea to make more panels to clearly elaborate on each module such as the water catchment section on the blueprint to show how each is separate from each other and can adapt to the end user’s need. This will also be beneficial for me during my Final Presentation because it will be easier to show my audience the blueprint while explaining the entire process. Additionally, I remembered that my in-class final presentation is coming up in a few days. Since I have been busy this past week, I decided to make a mini schedule to keep me on track and be prepared for my presentation. In all, I think this week was beneficial for me because I was able to complete a few tasks to make me more organized for the upcoming busy weeks.
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At the start of the week, I planned out all my goals for the week. Mentor visit and Assessment 21.
I recently made the decision to further extend my Final Product and create a marketing presentation which is commonly called a deck. With this deck, I will be able to explain my Final Product in great detail as well as show my audience why my water treatment design is advantageous over the current method. My main objective with this deck presentation is to reach out to the UN so my design can be implemented in Nepal. I want to create this deck because it would help explain my project to anyone who wants to learn more about it without me actually being there. I got the opportunity to start my Water Treatment Deck during my mentor visit with Dr. Ballengee, and it seemed as if I was planning out the rest of my journey in developing my Final Product. Along with my Final Product, I continued to upload some weekly reports on to my digital portfolio. I think I am up to date on my website, however, I am still adding things to improve it. My binder, on the other hand, was updated and ready to go. However, the labels on my dividers smeared because my hands were sweaty so I have to go back and fix it so it is neat again. While doing my mentor visit assessment this past week, I started to lo0k forward into my Final Product Presentation (in class). Since I am almost done with my water filter design, I am planning on building it for my presentation in class. I began to make a list of supplies I may need to by so I will have it ready by April 27th. Overall, I am glad my Final Product has turned out how I wanted it to. I was able to learn so much about chemical engineering as well as the process of designing a water filter which taught me many useful skills. Since the start of my Final Product journey, each week I typically spend most of my time focusing on the tasks listed out on my Final Product Calendar. However, this past week was not crowded with numerous assignments. It allowed me to give my Final Product my undivided attention. As I progressed in this journey, I realized that 3D Printing will probably not be necessary for me to construct a model for my water filter design because I am using recycled materials. This realization prompted me to edit my Final Product Calendar.
The highlight of this past week was my mentor visit. During my mentor visit, Dr. Ballengee and I picked two designs from some potential designs I had. With those designs, we created a slide in PowerPoint to clearly compare the concerns and improvements for each design. This exercise was very beneficial to me because I was able to see which improvements were mandatory and which were preferred for each design. With these designs in mind, we sketched out the filtration method in the geographical context of Nepal. Considering the fact that the designs each have their own positive and negative aspects, I decided to market each of these designs in a way Chemical Engineers would. My initial plan was to create a manual/website to explain how the filter works, but my end users do not have an internet connection which would not help them. The next stage in my Final Product shifts to another aspect of chemical engineering. I have completed the research portion of my Final Product and now it is time to proceed with building the water filter and marketing it. The start of last week was busier but more productive than usual. I tend to procrastinate on assignments that are due at the end of the week, but I accidentally read the due date of the FPN Invitation rough draft incorrectly and did it early. By doing it beforehand, I was able to focus on my Final Product research during the week.
Designing my FPN invitation was quite difficult for me at first but I managed to alter templates on Canva to match my color scheme and my personality. I made a note to myself that in the future, I should add all my information first before I change the background and layout. For the rest of the week, I began to evaluate solutions that could potentially be used in Nepal. This exercise gave me a deep insight into the pros and cons of each method. During my mentor visit, my mentor and I created a Weighted Decision Table for each water filtration method. This exercise was beneficial for me because I was able to score each method based on their pros and cons and see which method would help with Nepal's water issue. Normally, I weigh out the pros and cons out in my head but by using the Weighted Decision Table I was able to visually see what I was thinking. Overall, this past week was an influential stage in my ISM journey of chemical engineering. There are not many days left until the end, however, I will push myself to make the most out of it. This past week was somewhat an eventful week but not too busy. I mainly focused on my Final Product Progress Assessment. While doing this assessment, I was able to look back at the progress I have made so far and look forward to what is left to do. So far, for my Final Product, I have done intensive research for four countries. The water filter I want to create is going to be designed for a specific village within Nepal, the country I chose. I have bit more researching to do before I can begin my blueprint. However, after this stage, I am going to enter the second half of my Final Product journey.
In addition to my Final Product work this past week, I also had an interview with Dr. Edna Prieto-Ballengee at Abbott. Compared to my mentor, the field chemical engineering she works with is closer to biochemical engineering. It was interesting to get a different perspective regarding this field. Some of my other interviews were with chemistry professors who were not really my field of interest but talking to them earlier helped me understand what Dr. Ballengee was saying more clearly. After my interview, I was able to tour the laboratory and see how people work together in groups. This was the first interview that portrayed chemical engineering as I imagined it to be. There was never a full laboratory with lab coats and safety goggles on other interview visits I have been on. By the end of my interview visit, I was able to compare various branches of chemical engineering together. For the majority of the past two weeks, I gave my full attention to the progression of my Final Product. While continuing my study, I aimed to be more specific and detail-oriented so I can have all the possible information I might need while designing my water filter for a developing country.
During my mentor visit, I was finally able to choose a village in a country out of the initial four countries I had picked out. My top two choices were Nepal and Haiti. Nepal's situation intrigued me however, I had more valuable information for Haiti. I knew both countries were great choices so, in the end, I decided on Nepal. My initial plan is to redesign some techniques commonly used in Haiti to fit with Nepal's environment. To take a step further in our analysis, my mentor and I developed a problem statement, a new research chart and listed out potential solutions. I prefer the idea of creating a chart to organize information. It ensures you will get all the information down that you wanted to research. Normally, I get ideas sporadically and I aspire to investigate it, but by the time I get a chance, I forget it or misplace it. Having a chart makes sure you do not forget anything. Overall, I have made great advancement in my journey of developing a water filter. The actions I took these prior two weeks will give me a solid foundation and get me to my goal. Most of this past week involved me editing my Final Product Proposal Final Draft. This stage in my Final Product Journey is crucial to the ladder steps coming up. Without a solid plan, there will be many questions on what step to take to achieve the goal. This proposal includes key information such as materials and procedures involved in this journey. On top of that, I explained the major issue I am trying to solve. If this section was excluded, I knew I will not be able to keep track of my main intention of creating my Final Product. When I work on any major project, I always have ideas flowing in my head I can never keep track of the good ones. Having this proposal will keep this problem from taking place. This proposal is in simpler terms, an agenda designed to help drive me to keep up with my plans and ideas. This assignment is turning out to help me in the best way possible. The organization of the key elements in my proposal and calendar has been keeping me up to date.
To keep up with my calendar, I have been researching the countries on my Final Product Proposal. So far, I have only touched the surface on my research but got a ton of useful information. However, I had a few questions which drove me to research deeper. It is a bit difficult to find information easily regarding statistics or specific information regarding my topic of study: water filtration. To overcome this issue, I started to research how to research information more effectively as well as use video to find data. By doing this, I am already starting to achieve a goal on my Product Proposal. By already getting a head start, it has motivated me to work harder and find ways to improve. So far in my path to creating a water filter to help with the UN’s Sustainability Goals, I have made some progress and aim to do much more in the upcoming weeks. This past week, I did not have much to turn in so I decided to take this opportunity to work ahead. During my mentor visit, I got constructive feedback on Product Proposal Rough Draft. With all feedback taken into consideration, I edited my rough draft of my final product proposal rough draft. I mainly focused on the writing aspect and made it more direct and formal. This will help me improve my professional writing skills and explain my idea clearly. Also, I mentioned the UN’s Sustainability Goals to show how my product can really make a huge impact. This encouraged me to research more about the current issue with water filtration. After making my changes, my mentor and I developed a few question I should target my proposal towards that will help me upgrade my writing to make it sound higher level as well as professional.
In addition, to looking over my Final Product Proposal, we edited the calendar I designed to plan out the journey of developing this water filter. While looking at what I have planned, Dr. Ballengee showed me a Gantt Chart which is a critical path method to organize a project. He showed me how they are used in the professional world and how I could look into creating one if applicable to my water filter. Along with my Final Product Proposal Final Draft, I started writing my Assessment 18 in advance. I knew I will not be given this much time in the future, so I spaced out the goals and took the initiative to get ahead. So far, it has been helping me stay organized and be more productive with my time. As I continue the year in ISM, I wish to maintain this and stay ahead. Previous to this past week, I put all my effort into designing my Final Product plan. Since creating a Product Proposal was my priority then and not so much my speech, this past week, I flipped everything around. My proposal and calendar were all laid out but with still a few changes pending, however, I decided to put all my effort primarily into my Original Work Presentation.
Last time, I was told that I should focus more on my experience than my research. While keeping that in mind, I went through the Prezi I created last time. Some of the information about my research was very specific so I decided to cut it down. After revising, I managed to cut down my past speech to 6 minutes. This allowed me 12 minutes to dedicate my speech to my original work and mentor experience. Since my presentation is an Original Work Presentation, I planned it so 8 minutes out of the 12 would be about my Original Work and the last 4 be for my mentor experience and conclusion. Normally, whenever I make a plan, it usually does not go the way I want it to however, I managed to stick with it throughout my presentation until the very end. Overall, I think my speech went a bit better than last time. I was a bit nervous that I would not be able to fall within the time limit. I tend to talk really fast and finish really early or add in a bunch of details and make it too long. For my actual presentation, I was close to the end when I realized 17.5 minutes already passed, so I flipped to the end and concluded my speech which made it 19 minutes and 23 seconds in total. Compared to last time, I tried to reduce my filler words a lot. This time, there were still a few but usually when I wandered off on my subject which made my transitions a bit sloppy. Hopefully, I will be able to work on this more and improve my speech for next time. For this past week, my goal was to plan out my Final Product. For my final product idea, I am planning on designing a water filter for a developing country. The main reason why I chose this idea is that drinking water is something every individual need. It is the basis of life and without it, you can not survive. Many developing countries do not have easy access to clean fresh water. Most of their water is polluted which makes it very hard for them. If I can create a model of a water filter, it will potentially increase the standard of living. With all this in mind, I created my Product Proposal and Product Calendar. Planning and organization are two things that go hand in hand and are somethings I really enjoy. By creating my calendar, I feel more stable and it makes my Final Product look more doable.
In addition to creating my Product Proposal and Calendar, I started to look into a few databases where I can annotate articles and find information to fill my Research Chart with. If I have all my research organized from the beginning, it will allow me to find information easily in the future when I want to go back and look over my notes. Before ISM, I was an individual who liked everything nice and organized. It was part of my nature to sort all my work and color code everything. Now, while being in ISM, I believe that the only thing that is allowing me to get things done is my organization skills. This program has been pushing me to look ahead and helping me grow out my skills. Looking forward, I know I will be working on multiple things. First, I have my Original Work Presentation coming up. This will take some time to prepare for. My presentation, flashcards and my portfolios all have to be updated to go with this presentation. Along with this presentation, my research chart needs to be filling up by the deadline I gave myself on my Product Calendar. If anything, I need to push myself this week to overcome that tasks ahead of me and be successful. |