Provincial reflection
Mechanica, team and instant challenge
My team: Meg(me), Anders, Anthony, Ryan, Brenton, Ally
Provincial Reflection
We had our provincial tournament at a different time and place as the regional tournament so we had time to try and fix the things that didn’t work out in the regionals. However, the time that we got was mostly occupied by spring break. This meant that the times when every member of our group was available was rare. However, we had at least 3 people at every meeting and we managed to get things done. We first looked at our raw scores which were given to us after the regionals. We then decided the main things that we needed to work on: the payload, the story, and the team choice elements. For our team choice elements we decided that we wanted to build a music rover that can help with transportation and giving a more dramatically portrayal. To do this we used some of the left over wood that one of our group members had, and turned it into a frame. Then, making sure to test it so it can hold our weight, we added cardboard to be the exterior because we didn’t have enough wood and it was easier that way. We then painted the cardboard and found a speaker we could use. All that was left was transportation.
Team Challenge
Our first challenge that we presented was, like the regionals, the team challenge, this was definitely not our best. There were a lot of things that didn’t turn out as we wanted and a lot of things failed to come through last minute. Our drone broke when we got to the gym to perform, and while we were performing, we forgot to use one of our team choice elements.
The Negatives
So, what happened that made our performance so bad? Well first of all, our drone broke. Now this, to me, is pretty ironic because in the regionals our drone worked, while the payload did not, however this time the drone didn’t but our payload did. This is a problem because we then had to break one of our set pieces so that we could get a score. We designated one person who was originally going to control the drone, to fan what we had and get payloads to drop in the designated area. However this meant that the prop that we used to fan our drone would touch the drone meaning that even though we got the payload to work, for each successful drop, if the fan touched the drone, that drop wouldn’t count to be successful.
We also didn’t use one of our team choice elements. This was simply do to stress and the fact that we were rushing. We had created this awesome rover that played music and could be ridden. However we forgot to play the music from the rover and we only used the rover for transportation once. What else didn’t work? Well because one of the people in group had to fan the done, we couldn’t get him to say his lines and that part that we had rehearsed meaning that there was a huge gap in our performance. Our walk-in talkie, that was used as a prop, turned on “backstage” and made a loud sound during the performance. The last things that went wrong was that we forgot one of our backdrop because everyone thought that someone else had brought it, YAAAY.
The Positives
What’s the bright side to all of this? Well, our second team choice element did in fact work and the audience seemed to be very impressed with it. The second team choice element was a backdrop that lit up and had coordinated lights to turn on and off at different times. This was something that i personally was very proud of because i was the one who made the lights stay in the backdrop and got it to work. We managed to get someone to buy us a huge sheet that was used as the second backdrop just to cover up what was happening backstage. Everyone remembered there lines! This isn’t something that went wrong last time, but it was something i was worried about because the script kept getting changed even up to the last minute. The performance was dragged on a bit by our narrator though, in order to give time for the payloads to finish. The appraisers, or the “judges” were nice enough to give us extra time when they realized that we had encountered a problem and thanks to that we managed to calm down a little more and get our heads in the game. To top it all off, we won 3rd place! I’m 99% sure this is because we won the instant challenge however this is still something that I can say I did. I’m not necessarily proud of the result, i think we could have done better but given our performance of our time management skills, and teamwork I’m just happy we got what we did.
Teamwork and Time Management
Speaking of which, our teamwork! I think that it was better than before the regionals, but still not great. The main reason for this was that not all of us was at every meeting this meant that with less people, it was easier to work together. It was also Spring break so using our free time it was a great opportunity to get things done, and those who couldn’t come because they were on vacation, couldn’t come. We still needed to work on our communication skills, or else we wouldn’t have forgot the backdrop and our performance would have been a lot better. Rather than the teamwork, the thing that really improved from regionals was probably our time management skills. We definitely realized how quickly the clock tick away and helped us prioritize our need more which helped be a lot more efficient. We created things called burn down chart to help show our progress.
The burn down chart help us show how much we have done and how much we still need to do for each project. We organized the burn down charts by what we needed to prioritize and then broke down those priorities making it a efficient way to organize, and reorganize who does what and how it gets done.
Conclusion
All in all we definitely made a lot of improvements from regionals but we also failed to shine in other areas. When doing DI again next year I will definitely ask for a different group to work with (or a mix with new people) and possibly a different challenge.
you can view our script here.