Welcome to what is probably one of my last blog posts of the school year! This post is about our second experience with Blue Sky, our first big Spring/Summer Exhibition. You can read about my previous Blue Sky Experience here.
Now, you may be wondering why Blue Sky is in the first place. Blue Sky is something that was started by a company called 3M. They originally called it 15 percent time because they gave their employees fifteen percent of their payed work, time to themselves and any idea they had. It was a chance for their employees to create some of their own ideas and see what they could create. It ended up being very successful, some of the newest and greatest technology came from people being given the time to create and come up with some of the best ideas.
For this Blue Sky the grade eights Inquiry question was, “How might we solve a problem a non PLP peer has?
I created a nutrition Blog fo my friend that I ski race with. I created it because she says that when she’s on trips traveling with the team. There’s never enough time or healthy food to have a good meal. That’s why I decided to create a blog that had easy to make, compatible foods she could eat before and after specific times of the day. That way she was getting the most out of her training and her day. The blog has recipes that are specific to her and her schedule so if she needs something like an after dryland snack. There’s something specific that’s easy, healthy and tastes good to exactly that.
To create our products that would help our peer, we followed the launch cycle. The launch cycle is a process you follow when creating a product, idea or anything else. It can be used in anything, it’s all about design thinking and getting the most out of the creative process.
I have created a designers journal to document each step in the launch cycle, taking you through my whole exhibition process.
Prototype #1 Reflection
I decided to do my project on nutrition because of my ski racing friend Lily. She says, “when we’re away on ski trips, we’re there for a sporting event and there is never enough time or food that is healthy.” This is when I started to think that I could somehow create something that would help Lily and fix her problem. I started to research and learn more about this issue and where I could go with it. That’s when I found that this is a real issue. Gearing towards females in multiple study’s that were done, it said that women’s bones start to slowly get weaker once you hit the age of thirty. This is completely normal, however it showed that teenage females that were highly active or athletes, were starting to get weak bones earlier. This is all due to nutrition. The athletes might be super active and eat the right foods, but the problem was when. So many teenagers don’t know when to eat and what certain foods they should be eating at that time.
That was when I decided that I would make a blog for athletes. My idea started with female teenage athletes but I wanted my blog to be easy and accessible for all.
Prototype #2 Reflection
Once my first prototype was completed I needed to start working on fixing it, making it better and critiquing the things that didn’t work. At this stage I was still navigating through ideas an possibilities. I had help from my peers and teachers to create a second prototype that was new and improved from my first. I started with writing down the things I new I had to fix or change, everything that wasn’t working or flowing properly on my blog. The first thing I wrote down was layout. I new I wanted to fix the visual aspect of my blog because that’s what catches people’s attention. From there I created prototype two.
Prototype #3 Reflection
The last step before launching my project was creating a final critiqued version of my blog. This version would then be ready to launch into the exhibition. Some of the feedback I got was that I needed to make the posts on my blog pop out more, and give more boldness. So I took what I had and changed it to fit all the text in the middle of the page, going straight down. This way it is easy to read the recipes when cooking. I also bolded the titles of the recipe names so it was easier to see what everything was. I added final posts and a page in my blog as well, one of them was about a drink recipe. It is a twist between a lemonade and a sports drink. I have samples here.
Once I critiqued my blog and It was great I had an interview over the phone with a certified nutritionist for the olympics. She helped me a ton to create the final version of my blog perfect with more great information. From here I was ready to launch my project and blog to the exhibition. I created a great resource for my friend and other people and teenagers to visit for ideas and tips. This blog isn’t just an ordinary nutrition website, it’s a specific nutrition blog to my friend Lily continue to grow strong and healthy bones with the right nutrition.
At the exibition we were separated into different groups based on the topic of our project. I was Physical Health, we create our main PLP classroom into a sports area and hospital. The idea was that the sports related projects were at the front, then we had a sign that said, oops you got hurt now your in the hospital. Then the room merged into a hospital where the medical themed projects were.
This is is my friend Izzy.
She created an awesome project! Go check out her blog.
This is also my friend Jordyn. She created an awesome product as well. Go check out her blog!
http://www.blog44.ca/jordyne/
This is my friend Fraser, he created a really cool Blue Sky Project as well! Go check out his post.
This Mimi she’s in grade 10, her Blue Sky Project was awesome too. Go check it out!