Interesting things we have learnt throughout this journey.

Julianna

To be frank, this is the blog page which I dread the most, not because I do not have anything to write, but because I learnt so many things that I do not know how to organise this page at all. I even spent a fair bit of time stalking other blogs so that I can gain some inspiration (but it looks like they are procrastinating too). Luckily for me, the due date for this blog is drawing near so I can finally face my fears head on.

For starters, I learnt not to judge a problem by its appearance. During the first week, when we were discussing which project we should do, all the ideas seem so difficult. After we settled on the VR chair and created the first prototype, it seemed so much easier. In fact, our group leader even asked Dr Ho if this project was too easy and if we should do something harder! Needless to say, he soon ate up his words and after a few weeks, we finally realised the full extent of our project. I realised that I am a natural pessimist and that I do tend to overly focus on the major problems and setbacks, such as the issue on motion sickness. Because of that, it was easy for me to feel overwhelmed and discouraged at our project. If I was doing the project alone and did not have group members to think about, I would have changed projects a long time ago. However, after this project, I learnt that I should just take the next step and tackle problems as they come along, instead of just worrying about potential problems down the road. A problem is almost always never as easy/difficult as it seems so we may as well just get it over and done with as soon as possible without doubting our abilities at every setback.

I also prefer to depend on what I researched online and theoretical data, which proved to be a major issue for our project as we have very little information for us to work on. This also proved to be a huge problem for the issue on VR sickness, as VirZoom and Cybershoes (VR threadmills where you use a bike/sit while walking) had a lot of complains regarding VR sickness and simulation sickness. I understood that VR sickness decreases as you are exposed to it and that different people had different susceptibility, but I chose to stick with the data and frequently doubted our project. It did not help that our VR headset arrived late, so I had no power to do any hands on research on my own. Also, no one has done anything remotely similar to what we were trying to do, which made me feel very insecure and at a loss of what to do. After this project, I learnt that it is okay to not trust everything online, even credible customer reviews as we do not know the full picture at times. Also, it is okay to just explore and tinker about without theory backing every single move we do.

Speaking of tinkering, I do tend to err towards the overly cautious side, which causes me to waste precious time not doing anything. For instance, I felt extremely uncomfortable when Marcus came up with a prototype on the spot and chopped up the pipes we had without even knowing/testing if the prototype works ( one of the pipes was part of the Snille chair so we will have to buy another chair if we wanted the pipe back ). I was also afraid to touch our chair at times as I was afraid of ruining it (I have lost count of the number of times I was screamed at for potentially breaking something). I understood that the prototype cost is different from the final product cost, and that failure is the mother of success. However, it does not change my fear that a wrong move will cause my group members’ efforts to go in vain, and waste precious time which we do not have. However, after watching the results of our project and that of others, I realised that by living in constant fear of my actions, I am simply prohibiting myself from learning more and preventing those mistakes in the future. I kept reminding myself that just like exams, no one cares about the hardships you face, they only care about the final results, thus anything which potentially causes the chair to fail is actively avoided. But I forgot that Thomas Edison had to fail 2000 times before he invented the lightbulb, and that every failure brings us one step closer to success. Sometimes, success is only a few steps away, but our fear of failing stops us from reaching our full potential. In the future, I will be more willing to take risks and not be too wary of failing.

Jason

Coming from a non-science background, everything is new to me! This was a wonderful experience and journey, and I think I benefited a lot from the discoveries and also from my peers/project mates.

I can summarise my learnings to 3 points:
1. Entrepreneurial business/project management
2. Problem-solving skills
3. Determination and never say die attitude

Entrepreneurial business/project management

As much as it is an important project for me, it is equally important for my project mates too. We don’t work on this alone and communication is essential to the success of any team. Sometimes we may have tunnel vision and only see things from our side of the world and failed to care for what is happening around us, or what is our teammate doing. Plus if communication is absent, the team can break down. I think I had my share of tunnel vision sometimes when things get a bit out of hand.

To resolve this, it is essential that each of the team members are very clear on what each needs to do, but also has the understanding that we need to help each other whenever possible. Being in a very small team of just 3 of us, this is even more essential. Each of us needs to step up whenever we think our skills fit so that we can give our best to the project.

Problem-solving skills

With little knowledge on actually building a chair, our preliminary designs are simplified and all less than ideal. This results in us having to troubleshoot more than we expected (or at least for me!)

We are frequently posed with design issues that we didnt think much about previously. To tackle them, we have to come up with creative solutions to solve the underlying issue. Due to time constraints before each mini-presentations, we had to last minute do surface level changes to just make it work for the presentation. But I’m glad that we managed to solve them after the mini-presentations, before the final presentation. Our problem-solving skills are constantly put to the test to resolve the design issues we faced.

Determination and never say die attitude

Given the lack of manpower with the small team we have, a lot of times we don’t have the luxury of trying something together. We may have to work on our own for extended periods without help from others. Usually, we would rely on others’ support but during this project that became rarer as there is just so much to do.

Despite the darker moments we had, I’m glad that each of us overcame our own boundaries, taking on tasks that we thought we couldn’t do but managed to do in the end. For me quite a few times I relied on my mental strength and never-say-die value to keep me going, despite the mountain challenges that we faced.

I have learnt all these from the professors/tutors, peers, or on my own. I feel these are extremely valuable skills that I can bring along, be it future projects or other aspects in my life.

Marcus

I wanted to keep this short and to-the-point.

One of the most imporant things that is crucial to any project is group dynamics. Having group members who are individually assigned (or are already proficient at) their tasks definitely allows for streamlined development. Without Julianna’s dedication to the blog, and Jason’s focus on the poster design. (Amongst other tasks they took up) I would not have been able to direct most of my attention to the handiwork of the chair. Of course, there are some activities where we work at the same time on the same task, however in general I think it is very important for there to be distinctions between the exact jobs group members take up. This helps speed up the project in the long-run.

Secondly, as it seems to me, having difference of opinions matters greatly. This encourages discussion and promises a large variation of ideas (given no prior discussion on potential ideas). Another example was when “Tilted” was in the “ideas” stage, when we were still open to the exact prototype designs and methods of working. In short, each of us came up with 3 unique designs each, then met up to discuss them further. Eventually this leads to the selection and combination of a couple different ideas, leading us in a direction that was very different from the original impression we had. The independent generation if ideas matter greatly, and this differences in methodology should be embraced, not put down.

Lastly, and most importantly, is striking the fine balance between the stubbornness of not wanting to change, and the audacity to change design aspects on-the-fly. This ties a little bit into scope definition, the clear and concise goals you aim to fulfill.

You will need to defend your project, alot, against the suggestions and heavy persuasions of advisors or others. Defend it heavily, it is your project to own, and dont let others change the project so much that it no longer bears and semblance to the original intent. As for the audacity, do not be afraid to make changes suddenly, and keep doing so until no more improvements are seen. If i had to note any precautions, the only thing I would consider is that the changes should be reversible. Own your project, yet do not fear to change things radically. As long as you stay within scope, and you are confident you can deliver, keep at it.

Many thanks to both Julianna and Jason for their dedication to the project, initiative, new perspectives, time spent, and above all the willingness to leap outside their comfort zone. It was legit fun working on this project.