5. Group dynamics and final project#
Table of Contents
This module was split in 2 very distinct parts. The first part, project analysis and design, was an assignment done after the very first class while the second one,group formation and brainstorming on societal issues, was done during the teambuilding session right before the kickoff of the final project.
Project analysis and design#
During the first class, Denis made a pitch about the class objectives and he took some time to explain some key concepts such as Frugal Science or a few FabLab projects. Among the projects that he showed us were some really intriguing and exciting ones such as PaperFuge (watch this TEDTalk by Manu Prakash about Frugal Science projects).
After class, we had to choose one of the projects that Denis showed us and make a problem and a solution tree. For a detailed example of the concept, watch this video from the European Commission. I chose to present the OpenPCR project, which is basically an open source and frugal PCR machine which comes in a kit to assemble (IKEA style). The project was created about 10 years ago with the purpose of making PCR reactions cheap and accessible to a broader audience in order to make science more open.
Anyway, here are my trees :
I made them at the very beginning of the course so they look absolutely awful😬.
Group formation and brainstorming on societal issues#
After finishing module 3 on 3D printing and before starting module 4, 2 classes were dedicated to group formation, project kickoff and to an introduction of La boutique des Sciences.
First of all, Etienne from the Boutique des Sciences came to explain us the concept and the idea behind the project with some examples. The main goal of this institution is to connect the normal people and their daily issues with the scientific community so that progress and change can be made. An example is the Slow Heat movement (the slogan heat humans, not walls is pretty self-explaining, the purpose is to reduce heating costs while keeping the people warm and cozy).
Before the next class, everyone had to think about an object which represents an issue that is meaningful to them and bring that item to class the next day. I personnaly chose to take a one-euro-coin to represent the fact that money gives humans way too much power and influence in today’s world. Let’s just think about the fact that 1% of the World’s population owns 50% of it’s resources. That’s seems crazy to me…
But, let’s put my philosophical thoughts aside and talk about what we actually did during that class. We had to form groups based on which objects intrigued us the most and then talk about the idea behind the item we brought.
Sidenote for the prof : Maybe next time it’d be better to first present our objects before making our groups to avoid any misunderstandings😅. Also, I think that it would have been better to already have an idea of which kinds of problematics to focus on, last year for example, the students had to choose one of the 17 SDG’s while this years theme was much more vague.
I ended up in a group together with Ana, Diane and Juanito. Once we made the groups, everyone talked a bit about their objects and then we sat down to identify some possible issues around which we could build our final project. This years leitmotiv is making the invisible visible This process felt very out-of-the-box and it really boosted our creativity ; we came up with a lot of different ideas which we wrote down on a paper. After, we went to exchange with other groups about things we could improve and other issues we didnt think of. Overall it was a very enrichening and interesting process because we had to leave our comfort zone and enhance our creativity.
We then voted which ideas were the best. Here is an image of the paper we used to write down our ideas and to vote the problematics that interest us the most.
The most popular problematics were :
- How to raise awareness on electricity consumption and
- How to analyze your blood at home ;
Followed by : - How to improve compost quality and
- How to purify water
Team dynamics tools#
Together with my group, we chose a few group dynamics tools with the purpose of allowing us to work as efficient as possible. Here are 3 of those rules.
Weather#
Before each weekly meeting, every member says how his week went and how he/she is feeling today.
This will relax the atmosphere and allow us to work more efficiently afterwards.
Roles#
We chose to give every member a fixed role that he/she’ll keep during the whole length of the project. Of course, if we encounter any problems, we can discuss and change the roles.
The 4 roles are :
- Jean : Atmosphere (Jean keeps our meetings funny and not boring)
- Ana : Time Manager
- Diane : Secretary
- Me : Host
We chose to keep fixed roles because we thought that this way our respective strengths would be used in the best way.
Voting#
To take decisions, we use the consensus method, which says that if noone is opposed to a certain idea, we do that idea.
This will greatly improve our efficiency compared to an unanimous vote method (everyone has to agree for an idea to be chosen) while still keeping the conflicts low.