Reflection
Looking back on this project, I feel we incorporated certain aspects of the Design Thinking Methods but not all of them and it definitely effected our final outcome. I think, as a group, we struggled most with the ideation and prototyping steps. In the beginning, we didn't take the time to work out and communicate as a group what our ideas and thoughts were. We never really had a clear image of what our catapult was going to be like even going into the building phase. Our prototype was not a very realistic representation of what we wanted to do for our final product, we simply made it because we had to. Despite not planning well in the beginning and having poor communication, I think Zoha and I did a great job testing and revising our design until it worked. We made a lot of changes in a short period of time and each one improved our product. We changed the suspension and stopping angles multiple times along with the way it released. If we had one more week, I think we could of made an even better catapult and improved it a lot more. If I was able to do this project again, I would have spent more time in the beginning planning and have a precise image of what we were going to build from the start. I also would have tried better to communicate with the group and make sure every contributed the same amount of effort and divided up the work. Our group had a lot of challenges and halfway through the project we ended up loosing a group member. Zoha and I ended up doing practically all the work. We should've planned our time a little better so once it was built Liana could've created a design and pattern for it because that is what she was really passionate and excited to do. However, with all the structural set backs we did not have time to make it look as beautiful as possible. I learned a lot from this project, and not just about catapults. I discovered the effect prototypes and planning in advance and I also learned the importance of creating beautiful, quality work. Our catapult ended up breaking on the launch day. It was very embarrassing but more so frustrating. We worked so hard on improving it and trying to make it better but it all broke on the most important day. I think it broke because we did have a solid foundation from the start so the small adjustments and tweaks we made, in the end weren't enough to compensate for the poor base. Overall, I learned an abundance of information and feel I grew a lot as a student.