V. Team dynamics and final project#

1. Project Analysis and Design#

After the presentations of the previous FabLab projects and the frugal science projects we had to choose one of the projects and analyse it to construct a problem tree as well as an objective tree.

I was interested in analysing the DremelFuge project, as I liked the idea of having a low cost centrifuge at home and I already have a Dremel at home.

Having a centrifuge at home might sounds fun, but the real goal behind that project was to enable medical analysis requiring centrifuges. Indeed, all cities around the world do not have the same means and some lack those machines that are critical in preventing and treating diseases.

2. Group formation and brainstorming on societal issues#

Before coming to the class, we were asked to find and bring an object that represents a theme or a societal issue that we cared about. I daily commute using my bicycle, and unfortunately I think the roads lack facilities for cyclists. The streets are overcrowded with cars. I thus chose the theme of mobility by taking my bike helmet, as I think bikes are a great solution against traffic jams in cities. However the mobility is not restrained in the cities and the big differences of easy transportation between cities and the countryside is also problematic.

During the class we all placed our objects on the ground and moved from one to another to discover them. Some were quite original. After that, we were tasked to form groups depending on the objects we liked. I did not really liked that part, because some people just stayed with their friends, some did it correctly and some were just put together as they were the last without any group. Moreover I find breaking the ice with people you do not know quite hard and I do not like to try it.

Finally I ended up teaming up with :

  • Sif EDDINE BOUGHRIS (a last year computer science civil engineer) : he brought a used plastic wrap, reflecting the waste problematic;
  • Alishba NAQI (a fellow third year bioengineer) : she brought a lamp, as she wanted to to raise awareness about electricity consumption;
  • Moïra VANDERSLAGMOLEN (a computer science third year student, and my support pair) : she brought a faucet, symbolising the water consumption.

Once the groups were formed we brainstormed about themes we (and our objects) shared. As our objects reflected mainly environmental concerns, the themes we came up with were indeed oriented to that global problematic. Here are some of those we thought about : resources, consumption, waste, plastic, electricity, mobility, pollution, ecology, water, oceans, wildlife, nature, sustainability, environment, agriculture …

Those themes have become quite mainstream during the past years concerning the habitability of our planet. Nevertheless, they stay important and the group showed quite an ecological concern and awareness, which reassured me.

Related to those topics, we identified a few issues in form of questions :

  • How to reduce air pollution ?
  • How to reduce noise pollution ?
  • How to reduce space pollution ?
  • How to replace sand ?
  • How to sensibilise to waste ?
  • How to sensibilise to microplastics ?
  • How to sensibilise to invisible diseases ?

I found the sand problematic quite interesting because it is often forgotten about (sand is a very used material in construction and is vastly pumped from the bottom of the oceans, destroying all the habitat). However I was quite skeptical and anxious about the solutions we could bring to any of those issues.

3. Group dynamics#

For a group to work, you need to assign a role to each person. Those roles can either be set in stone or you can swap them, we first assigned them for our first meeting and said we would probably choose to change from time to time. The four main roles are :

  • the animator : makes sure everyone gets to talk evenly, brings out the subject of the meeting, … -> leads the meeting and the group
  • the secretary : is in charge of taking notes of what is said during the meeting and summarising the important parts and the planned actions
  • the time manager : keeps an eye on the clock to make sure the meeting does not drag on forever on the same subject, he makes sure everything that needed to be attend to gets on the meeting, with an appropriate duration
  • the “atmosphere” : is in charge of the correct functioning of the group, at the end of each meeting he shortly debriefs how everything went, and tries to bring forward positive points and suggestions to improve the group dynamics.

A second tool to ensure a nice group dynamic is to establish an operating frame. Members of the group should find values they agree on, and engage themselves to respect those values and agreements. Establishing this frame is important in order to make sure no one feels ignored, and to avoid tensions within the group. We agreed on punctuality, mutual aid and the respect of the distribution of time.

Last but not least : taking decisions.

  • You can make them alone, a bit like a dictatorship : this is extremely time efficient, but can obviously lead to conflicts and does not bring the group together.
  • You can try to reach for a consensus : this will be the best choice to make everyone feel listened to and involved, it can be however extremely time consuming.
  • Or lastly you can vote the decisions, to reach for a majority. This is what we chose as it is an acceptable compromise between time efficiency and group dynamics.

4. Group project#

The documentation relative to our group project has been realised on another site, common to all the group members. I invite you to check it, should you want to know more about it. Here is the link to the website.