For me blue sky has been an adventure. There were successes, down falls and a lot of lessons learned. At the end of the day I am very proud of what I had accomplished in this time frame and am very glad that I had the opportunity to have these experiences that will later help me in life. Now let me tell you about the blue sky project!
A very long time ago just at the beginning of the year the teachers had told us about blue sky briefly. Then time flew by and it was just a month before the exhibit in of blue sky. Wow! Here’s the outline. My fellow class mates and I were all asked to individually create a brand new and revolutionary product aimed toward a certain age or category group (mine being seniors). But that’s not nearly it, we also had to make an amazing designers journal where we write different entries about our journey and what was happening at that time in the project. This was important because we can always look back on these journal entries to see how we were doing and read what else needed to be done.
Now for what I did for the blue sky project. So my plan was to make a tooth paste Dispenser for seniors! This is how it worked. I built a cardboard casing out of an old shoe box that housed the toothpaste (or paint, muscle rub, etc. Basically anything in a tube). The top of the toothpaste tube is clipped onto a rolling system and attached to the rolling system is a handle. When the handle is cranked it acts as a roller to get out your desired amount of toothpaste. It also has slots down the sides of the casing so that the handle can move down the box. Also, the tube is screwed onto the bottom of the casing to ensure that the tube does not pop up when rolled. I think this product is good for seniors because many of them struggle with arthritis or other health conditions that make it hard for them to do simple tasks like squeezing and undoing a tube.
In this project my class mates and I were fuelled by a burning question. And a big one to. I believe that this strategy makes a project the most successful it can be. Here are some questions that I applied to my product.
.How can I help seniors
.how can I help seniors with arthritis/ joint problems
.how can I make getting out tooth paste easy
.How I can revolutionize tooth paste squeezers
As you can see all of my questions start with “how can I” I think that this is because in this project we aim to make a difference in the world ourselves. The goal is to help people and make a revolutionary product. I think that these kind of “how can I questions” make me more motivated to do a more personal and heartfelt project.
We also had a client/mentor to guide us along the way while publishing our product. My mentor was my dad. I chose him because he is an artist and has a very creative mind. This had really come in handy when I was stumped making my final product after the prototypes.
Now that I was done all of my prototypes it was time to publish it on exhibition night. This was a very exciting night because of all the crowds and nerves. I am very happy of how I proudly presented my product to the audience and I really believe that I did a good job.
On this evening I learned how to freely talk without a script (something very challenging if you have stage fright) and to truly improvise when I needed to. This. A lesson that I will benefit from for my future as a student. Even though there were a lot of good things about this project, there were still a few negative ones. For example, I had came up with four ideas all of which were turned down by my teachers. This threw me a curve ball because I was running out of ideas. Thankfully I hunkered down and created a great product even under the stress of the upcoming due date.
Again, I’d like to say I’m proud of myself and all my classmates for pulling off this project and presenting amazing new ideas to a large group of people