Blog 6

Q1: List ten specific ways in which your teaming approach has changed/ evolved since you started, teamwork skills you have developed, and lessons you have learned

  1. At the beginning of last spring semester, we simply had one team on the project with a focus on engineering a design to implement in the Philippines for copra farmers. Shortly after, we had more members join the copra project including a business side and a science research side investigating antioxidants and preservatives for copra. This addition has added several new perspectives to our project and has allowed me on the engineering side to really focus on developing a design with my other engineering team members while still learning about the business aspects of our venture and the potential integration of antioxidants from newer members. 
  2. Initially, the copra team was focused on creating a copra dryer. After several discussions questioning the novelty of our approach, we decided to switch our focus to creating a multi-functional coconut processing machine that would turn different parts of the coconut into several value-added products, which we continued with through our research at Mountaintop this summer. Now, as we progress through the fall semester, our approach has returned to our initial focus after realizing that drying the copra is the first step to any subsequent processes that we may add in the future. 
  3. I have learned to be a proactive thinker as a result of the addition of new members to our team. Since I now have a specific focus in engineering, I have had to learn to not only actively listen to the research of the members of the business and science research side, but also think about how each sub-team fits as whole, specifically how their research plays a role in the overall design and implementation of our developing product. This requires asking questions about research from other sides of the team and discussing areas of intersection between groups. 
  4. I have learned how to effectively communicate with my teammates and project contacts.
  5. Through our rotation of roles as leader, I have learned how to direct discussion at team meetings and create a weekly agenda to provide structure for meetings. 
  6. I have learned how to properly prepare for presentations and meetings with contacts to concisely relay what is necessary to convey. 
  7. I’ve become more comfortable sharing my thoughts and findings in a group. 
  8. Our team has learned to use multiple people to present to engage the audience. We have also learned how to translate feedback from peers to improve our presentations.
  9. Our team has learned to foster a fun and positive atmosphere during team meetings while still getting our work done.
  10. I have learned the importance of understanding indigenous knowledge in the implementation of our future product. 

Q2: Provide an updated Collaboration Plan for your team, clearly articulating your Goals (Small g and Big G), Roles, Procedures, and Relationships.

 

Team Name: COPRA                                                                          Date: 09/29/2020
Goals Personal goals:

Brianna: 

Make as much useful contribution as possible, positively influence the group, create strong relationships,Improve my group work skills, ask more critical questions. 

Then I hope to use all these personal improvements to make a social impact that matters.

Tri:

Learn more about coconuts processing and get hand-on experience on making coconuts dryers!

Build life-long friendship with peers at Lehigh and those in the Philippines

Jake:

Provide hands on help with computer aided designing, fabrication (if at all possible), and testing of our drying chambers. Provide next year’s team with the necessary information to build off of and move toward getting our venture going.

Sammy:

Gain experience in conducting meaningful research and working on an interdisciplinary team. Make valuable contributions to move the project forward and create sustainable impact. Improve my interpersonal skills and develop a new mindset 

Ami: 

Contribute to the project in a meaningful way, understanding my own strengths and weaknesses , and learning how I can efficiently and effectively work within a diverse team. Help to better enforce communications within the team and outside the team, and become a better researcher and writer. Improve my own hard and soft skill sets including communications, and better understanding design thinking, engineering design, and supply chain.

Rozhin:

Complete experiments and write results in a lab report

Publish a paper about the experiments and their relationship to the overall copra industry and how the result is an asset to copra farmers.

Michelle: 

Publish a paper about the different antioxidants we have researched on

Pinpoint one antioxidant we can use for the copra processing 

Continue with our research and see if there are other things we can improve on

Brianna C:

Help team with adding background information to paper to provide readers with a deeper framework and history of its problems and clarity on why proposed solution are innovative and helpful

Project Goal:

The project aims to improve copra processing and process streamlining for elevating the livelihoods of copra farmers by generating additional income.

Is our Project Goal scaled to our resources (dreams, materials, skills, differences, etc.) and constraints (assignment, time, skills, etc.)?

As a team, we have the given resources and knowledge needed to design and prototype a device that can better process copra. Unfortunately, due to given circumstances, our access to both each other and the tools required are constraining the timetable for which this project will operate on.  

Since COPRA is a multi-year project, we as a team will lay up a strong foundation so that we can transfer the knowledge to other teams. The hope is that future teams will be able to scale upon the ideas and designs we come up with throughout this year.

 

Metrics for Success

    • Design, energy efficiency, and sustainability of the processing technique
    • Amount of high-quality copra that can be produced using new methods
    • Amount of additional income that can be generated for copra farmers
    • Scalability and Sustainability of the business model (can we actually get people to use this)
Roles Who is responsible for which deliverables?

  • Rozhin, Michelle, and Brianna C. will be responsible for the antioxidant testing and the deliverables that come from this.
  • Jake, Tri, Brianna W, Sammy, and Ami will be responsible for the engineering components and the corresponding deliverables that arise from this.

Which deliverables that require collaboration, subgroups & individual work? Who does each person depend upon to succeed?

Deliverables 

  • Presentation – Collaboration
  • Preliminary Design Concepts – Sub group/Collaboration
  • Prototype – Sub group/Individual
  • Testing Data – Sub group/Individual
  • Final report – Collaboration

Do we need a project manager to coordinate? 

  • Yes, we do need one. However, specific to our group, we rotate our project manager once every three weeks so that everyone has a chance to step up and take responsible for the group’s success
  • We realize the importance of having a manager to help organize and coordinate group work and research, but believe that having a rotating leadership position helps alleviate the stress from one individual
Procedures Decision-making 

  • Consensus, our group has had very few disagreements
    • If consensus can’t be achieved we will default to majority rules/the advice of our project advisor

Effective meetings

  • We’ve conducting weekly meetings (along with multiple weekly sub meetings) to keep everyone on track and updated with all the key information regarding our project
    • Before each meeting we lay out an agenda to increase efficiency of meetings and help steer the conversation in the right direction
    • We write weekly briefs (in accordance with our TE 211 course work) to keep documented records on what work and research we do each week
  • We plan to continue holding these weekly meetings over Zoom at the same time and in the same fashion
  • Keep track of time during meetings
  • At the end of every meeting we make sure to assign weekly work to each group member to ensure that we can hold each other accountable

Meeting roles

  • During meetings the leader will facilitate the meeting and assign a different scribe for each meeting.
  • The leader role will be rotated every 3 weeks

Communication

  • Up until this week we had planned Zoom meetings once a week on Fridays from 2:00 – 3:00 PM
    • Bi-weekly meeting with two sub-groups, Prof. Jedlicka, and Prof. Haden
Relationships Teamwork

  • Our team has been very agreeable up to this point – we’ve had few disagreements if any
    • Our assumption is that transitioning to video chatting as our primary form of communication will not be a problem
  • For the Engineering team:
    • We have backgrounds in Materials Science Engineering, Mechanical Engineerings, Industrial Systems Engineering and Product Design
    • The team also consists of different backgrounds such as athletics, international, cultural, and greek life.
    • We have different interests outside of engineering: make-up and sports, band music, music composition, nature, and chess.
  • The Science Research and Business teams have been added to the to Copra team
    • The Science Research team have backgrounds in biology and are working on developing antioxidant research and experiments to help further the project
    • The business has background in economics and international relations which will help further the project in terms of working on the business background of the project 

Listening – As a team we enter group meetings with an open mindset and are ready listen to each other 

Team Name– Copra

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