After watching the biomimicry and architecture videos I know that it is incredibly important to utilize mother nature and how the nature can mentor and lead us in our project. For example, we can mimic nature by looking at the surrounding animals and how they are surviving with just as little nutrients. Also, we can see if any plants or bacteria can help when we want to preserve our muffins for the most lasting they can be. And lastly, we can use the natural growth of children to see if our products are at all useful. For example, if the product are helping the kids grow taller and gain weight, then we know they are absorbing most, if not all, of the nutrients.
The life principle that I chose to indulge in was “Optimize not Maximize”. Why I like this one so much is that it is so crucial in life; whether it’s personal or academic related. Time is a finite resource so if we can figure out how to optimize it rather than using a lot of it and not really getting anything accomplished, it is much better. For example, if there was a competing group that was also doing a muffin product for children and my group realized that it would become too cost ineffective to have all four of the nutrients in the muffins, so instead we just add three of them but the other team tries to find a way to add all four, at the end of the term my group will still have a working product that the families can afford. It may only provide 75% of the nutrients, but 75% is better than none. While the other team took too long trying to establish the four nutrients they will either have no product or one that the families won’t buy because it is too expensive and they cannot afford it.
Cradle to Cradle is really important and I think it provides valuable lessons for a business, project, or just in personal life. For example, when examining the inside health of something; you have to take into account what’s going inside a product and the effects it has on the environment it’s going in. For example, in our muffin project we are adding micronutrients and we need to make sure that there are no terrible and unknown long term side effects for these children. We know that it’s a fine solution for short term, but long term we need to research more. If we don’t and kids are having these terrible diseases and side effects, that would not only defeat the purpose of the product, it would also be absolutely horrendous.
I think that there is a lot to learn from people; especially those around us. Something we think we know everything and we don’t necessarily think that those around us can teach us anything but that is intact very wrong. My friend, for example, she has always wanted to go into cardiovascular surgery and ever since she was a little girl, she would come back to my house and show me and my family videos and articles of things she’s learned about. Whether it was a new surgery technique or a doctor that popped pimples for a living, she was always so excited about it. This really got me excited because of the passion she shared for this topic that was once so disgusting to me and now I’m premed too. Another example is my friend who shared with me a chemistry technique for solving problems with finding the amount of moles or partial pressures; ICE. Before she taught it to me, I had absolutely no idea how to solve them and now it’s become almost second nature to me to use the ICE table. And lastly, my boyfriend has gotten me interested and able to appreciate the beauty and values of cars. It may sound silly, but I used to not care about what car someone drove, the tires, the rim, or the RMP, etc. Now, I still don’t really care, but I don’t roll my eyes anymore when boys are gawking at the fancy new car that drove down the street.
I think that it’s so important to stop holding one’s ego and pride so high that they don’t even consider that other people have amazing insight to offer that can make your life easier, or in case of the business, the product even more successful.