Tuesday, September 29, 2015

29.9. The 4-hour ICED-workshop!

Hello internet, today was the culmination day of our September Challenge (of teaching the ICED-method to "strangers" however they ended up being our acquaintances). So we hosted, shared knowledge, learned in the process, and (kind of) succeeded!

Many of our own team members were unavailable to attend, which was kind of sad, but also good for the participants of the workshop, to not feel that pressured with a thousand eyes looking at them all the time.

 1. First of all, our team told briefly what the ICED is, what phases it contains, and how the actual problem solving should happen with the method.

 2. The participants started working. They searched the internet for existing solutions, and inspiration for their problem, which was called "The Paper Bridge -challenge". The participants had to come up with a way to connect two tables, that were approximately 1 meter away from each other, by using only paper and a small amount of tape etc. They also had to design the bridge to hold as much weight as possible.
3. They soon started to experiment on how they can fold paper, make the structures strong, and what are papers actual limitations as a material. The team really came up with surprising solutions, which was great!


4. Of course the team could ask us for additional information and tips. The team couldn't actually try their bridge out before the last test, just make small-scale models of it. Their smaller models were efficient and so they went for glory with the best idea.




5. The results were working, and were made according to our requirements. Of course we had to put the structure to the ultimate test, of how much weight it could actually hold!




THANK YOU everyone for attending the workshop, great job!
Now our BioMars-team will rest for a day or two, and then….. Focus on our own Challenge of growing food on Mars!

28.9. Check, check... wait what?

Tonight five of our team members met for a final run through for the ICED workshop, that is going to take place tomorrow!
We are nicely prepared, but also noticed some final corrections that needed to happen, like actually having participants for the workshop! This time the participants will be someones acquaintances from our team, but we need to test our teachings efficiency, before approaching potential sponsors or corporations.

Facing practical difficulties, like "how do we get the sound to come out of this computer?", or "when will we have the coffee break?", will put different difficulties nicely into perspective, like we also had to figure out "how do we teach this ICED-method to strangers in 4 hours?"

BUT more on that workshop and the outcome of it tomorrow, let's hope the workshop works, like we did work for it to work!

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

22.9. Hard work (thankfully with coffee)

Hello! 
Today our group went from all talk, to all action! We tested out our own workshop, that other people are going to try out next week while they learn the ICED-method. We also prepared a nice prezi-presentation for them, to make our goal clear and to help them understand what the ICED is. 


We had lots of fun, even though it's hard work, because the whole workshop and this warm-up September Challenge (of teaching ICED to others, because we ourselves are going to need it) is going to go great! 

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

16.9. Decisions, decisions… !

Hello!
Today has been a huge day for our September challenge of teaching ICED for strangers. We settled on a specific challenge for them to solve (but we're not telling the subject yet, so there's no cheating) :)

It's strange how much has to be taken into account when making something like this happen; the participants, the location, the materials for the workshop, and what is perhaps the most valuable thing; to make it fun and understandable for everyone!

Our team had a short ~3-hour meeting regarding all those things, and we had a blast even organising this, so the outcome is going to be super!

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

9.9. Focusing our energy



Hello! Today after hearing a lecture about the ICED, we had our group talk about what two workshops we will be focusing on from now on. Exciting things await those who enter our ICED workshops!
We have visited the NASA Engineering and Safety Center to get information. Maybe you should too? 

Also we took some photos about us, because if there isn't a picture, it never happened? Well this is happening (we got pictures to prove).

Sunday, September 6, 2015

4.9. Working on a workshop


Today we came up with a bunch of ideas for the ICED workshop. Let us explain what it is:

Although our main goal as a team is to figure out plant (food)-growing on Mars by the end of May 2016, we started with getting familiar with problem-solving-method developed by NASA, called ICED (aka. Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design), and we have to be able to teach it to others by the end of September. We will also use the ICED-process in the challenge "How can we grow food on Mars?", but first learning how to teach it to others is very a great way to make sure we understand it ourselves.

However, we also have to decide what type of a challenge the group to which we'll be teaching ICED, will solve. They have four hours to learn the whole thing, so we can't actually make them grow food on Mars, now can we! We came up with eleven fun challenges, from which three were selected. Here we go!

2.9. Starting ICED


ICED (Developed by NASA) stands for "Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design", and it basically is a 4-step way to solve problems, such as "How can I boil an egg without electricity?"
First off we have to learn the ICED-methodology ourselves. We have had very informative lectures from Dr. Charles Camarda about the subject, and how to apply it. Now we have to fully embrace the study and teach it (at the end of September) to others.

As our group is still "young", this kind of warm-up-challenge is great. Many ideas occurred on our first meeting, and we are highly motivated to take on this September Challenge of ICED, after which we'll be starting our Epic Mars Challenge of coming up with a way to grow food on Mars.