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Every winter and spring for my last 3 years in PLP we always do an exhibition. This can mean a lot of things, this past December we interviews the public, a couple years ago the now grade 12s made a play/interactive experience about WWI. No matter what though, at least once a year we do a blue sky project. We use a thing called the Launch Cycle. This is a 7 step process, this process guides us all the way from thinking of ideas, all the way to launching to the community.
In this post, I am going to guide you through my whole launch cycle, through all 7 steps, what I did, and what I thought of my overall project. So, to help us focus our ideas more, we were put into groups, and chose a UN Sustainable Goal to help us narrow our projects. I was put in a group with Spencer, Simon, Ethan, and Isobel. We we’re assigned the 11th goal, Sustainable Development. We then split up into smaller groups of 2, me and Spencer, and Ethan and Simon, and then Isobel worked by herself because she didn’t want to deal with our BS.
So, the groups of Simon and Ethan, and me and Spencer all decided to make one huge project. We would divide up the work into two smaller projects to make one big one, all about busses and translink.
We all take the bus now, and we are all also getting to the age when we can get our own liscences and cars, so we stop taking the bus. The problem with that is that when we get our own cars this increases road congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. So, we need to keep teens wanting to drive, and people who are hesitant to on the bus. To do that our two groups worked on two different solutions. Simon and Ethan made a chair for a luxury bus, and me and Spencer made two new bus routes, The A Line.
But, here’s how we did it. Explained through the launch cycle, launch cycle is a 7 step process. This process was emphasized for this project, and we were leaned on to make sure that we constantly were following it.
L- Look, Listen and Learn. This stage has happened for us over the past couple years. When we have been taking the bus all around the north shore, with various routes and destinations, we have seen it all. We sat down and talked about all of the bus routes, and thought about our problems. We realized that our little problems can only go so far, that we are trying to help the community. So for a couple weeks whenever we rode the bus we payed attention to the routes, stops, where people get on and off, and general vibe of the bus.
A- Ask a ton of questions. Because this idea is based around teenagers, what they feel the problem is, and what they want to happen, we asked teenagers. We walked around our maker classroom and asked everyone in our class their opinions, about what they didn’t like and what they wanted to see. We got a lot of repeating answers, which is good. It showed us what we need to do. This was just the start, we combined this formal questionnaire with the ideas we had gained from riding the bus and stopping.
From this we mad eyes our first rough map draft. This map had a route on it that did some of the most popular ideas that our classmates had, even though it was a rough draft it wasn’t good to get something down on paper. Looking forward this made it easier to make our other maps.
U- Understand the Problem. We realized at around this point that there was no way were were going to make 1-2 new bus routes, we can’t pay or tell people to pay for 2 busses for a random reason. We realized that we were going to have to change what was already there. We tried to find 2 routes heavily traveled in our area that needed improvement. We chose the 211 and 215 (formally c15). The problem with the 211 route is it’s lack of purpose, what it should be is an express bus. The problem that it has too many stops, and one odd cut into a neighborhood. And the problem with the 215 is that it doesn’t go all the way to the cove on it’s residential route.
N- Navigate Ideas. This is where we started to make an actual project, this is where we started to look at what we could actually do about our problem. We needed to start to make goals and start to achieve them. We took an old map of an ‘ideal’ bus route and added to it in red. The red shows where off of the express route a residential bus should go.
C- Create a Prototype. After looking at our route, calculating the time it would take to travel our residential route as too long, so we cut out the deep cove loop. This is our final two map plan. We wanted to have two different busses because we had two different purposes. One of our busses is meant to get out of deep cove and North Vancouver as quickly as possible with as few stops as possible. That’s the A1. The other bus route is focused on getting people as close as they can to their destinations, houses and schools. This is the A2.
H- Highlight and Fix. This stage was probably the most interesting part of our project, we actually did a pitch. We got a contact from our friend Robbie, last year he had done a project to do with transit as well and he had a TransLink contact. When we emailed her she said this to us.
See that link? That’s the Innovation Link, it takes you to a page where you are given the rules and resources needed to change the face of translink. Opened on June 6, 2018, it is an open request for information where anyone can share their ideas directly with TransLink with the possibility of that coming to life. On July 18, 2018, the contest closes and the winner receives a grant from $1,000-10,000,000. This made us realize that we were actually pitching a full business plan now. So, we adjusted our pitch, video and presentation to make our pitch to TransLink come to life every time we explained our project
Finally, LAUNCH! This is where we share the whole circle with the public. For us this came to life at the exhibition. We were put with some grade 8s and 9s into a group labeled ‘Sustainability Cities and Communities.’ Our driving idea was making cities and other human settlements as well, as their communities be more inclusive, safe, and enjoyable. To start making our area interesting what had become to be known as the “Transit Boys,” made a mural of the skyline of Vancouver.
That was a start so we made 2 more big aesthetic things, we used tape to make a road to guide guests, and a huge banner that showed what we were doing. This tied everyone’s project together, and to the ‘younge generations contribution to the city,’ with a lemonade stand.
That’s how we got ready to launch, but let’s look how we actually launched. We formulated a process. When a guest arrived at our project they started with Ethan. Ethan convinced them why driving is actually bad for your wallet and the environment. After that sadness, they would move onto me and Spencer, we pitched the idea of two new bus routes to help your wallet and the environment. Behind us was our video playing on repeat.
After our real business pitch, and the explanation of the grant, they moved onto Simon. Simon sat them down in his ‘Luxury Bus Chair,’ and explained to them about how their commute could be more productive and comfortable.
This blue sky felt like the right way to end our career of maker time. This was not just a little school project, this was a full blow business plan, pitch, and process. This was a project that grownups usually do, and it’s part of their profession. This project let us step into their shoes and show me that a career in business is absolutely not the right fit for me. Even though I understand the reward and idea behind being ‘businesslike,’ it isn’t me. I would much rather be dynamically working with a person or a group of people to personally benefit their lives in my desired career as a personal trainer. But, I still like the idea of a plan, pitch, present format. In the end, I liked stepping out of my comfort zone and into some dress clothes.
