6. Team Dynamics and Final Project#

Goal:

• Take inspiration from fablab projects and frugal science projects presented in class this week and choose a project that you care about.
• Analyze the project and construct a problem tree and an objective tree. Post the diagrams (ideally in vectorial images SVG) on module 5 of your website and describe it briefly.
• Introspect and describe your experience (and feelings) about the process you went through to move from your object to a group, as well as a series of issues in the form of questions related to possible projects. There is no right or wrong here !
• Describe the object you’ve chosen and list the series of problems in the form of questions you’ve identified as a group.
• Develop and document 3 tools for group dynamics you have learned and explain and how you could use them in the future.

Project Analysis and Design#

I chose to work on the project from Arié Nabet, “Asian hornet selective trap” because I found it very interesting (the link to his project is “404 error”). Vespa velutina, also known as “The Asian Hornet”, is an invasive in Belgium. It destroys the nests of the Apis mellifera that produces honey and pollinates most of the flowers.

Problem Tree#

Solution Tree#

Group Creation#

To create our group, everybody needed to bring something that represents a theme or a societal problem that we care about.

I chose a faucet because I wanted to represent the water consommation. We use potable water to shower ourselves and to water our plants while one billion of people lack access to water. First we discovered all the objects, some that intrigued me a lot. Then we needed to put ourselves in group with the objects which intrigues us the most.

Objects in our group#

Person	Object	Problematic
Sif	Paper Waste	Waste
Louis	Bicycle Helmet	Cities Congestion/ Transport difficulties in the countryside (long distances)
Alishba	Lamp	Electric Consumption
Moïra	Faucet	Water Consumption/Pollution

Theme#

We had:
- mobility
- electricity
- pollution
- water
- waste
- wildlife
- nature
- plastic
- sustainability
- environment
- agriculture
- ecology
- oceans
- ressources
- consumption

After, the professor asked to write down the problematics that came to our minds with the theme “Make the invisible visible”.

Problematics#

Our ideas:
- How to fight against air pollution ?
- How to replace sand ?
- How to manage noise pollution?
- How to manage space pollution?
- How to sensibilise to invisible diseases?
- How to sensibilise to microplastics?
- How to sensibilise to waste?

The theme was great, some problematics were evident with the theme like “How to show air pollution” or “how to show water pollution”. I was a little bit less sure about some ideas, like “How to replace sand” and I found some ideas were very interesting like “How to get rid of noise pollution”.

Tools for group dynamics#

To function better in groups, we learned to use multiples tools.

Roles#

They are four roles:
- secretary: writes everything down and sends email
- time management: manages the time
- animator: leader of the group
- atmosphere: checks if the atmosphere is good and if everyone feels included

I think it’s important to change roles every week to vary.

Planification of a meeting#

We saw how to plan a meeting with a “Ordre du jour”. The “Ordre du jour” is a list that contains all the subjects/To-do we need to talk about in the meeting. I find it very interesting because we tend to forget the subjects we wanted to talk about, and this avoids getting dispersed.

Methods to take a decision#

Type	signification
Consensus	Everybody must agree, it goes well but it’s extremely slow
Majority	Most of the members must agree, quicker as consensus
Alone	You take the decision alone, can lead to conflicts

In our group we chose majority, I think it’s the best to advance and to make sure everybody feel included in the group.