Please Sir, May We Have Some More?

To get an A is the ultimate goal of every student. However not all of us act on it. Some pretend that all we want is to pass, and some eagerly do anything and everything to get that A. I fall in the middle, I want to do as well as I can, but not kill myself to perform it. Once we received out tests and saw what kind of grades out efforts produced, we all wanted better grades, and fortunately the professor created the opportunity to do so.

My role in the process was to support the whole class. I followed the collaborative method because there were several areas of the class that became groups and came up with some ideas. Then a few people stood up and decided to lead the class. I believe that they incorporated collaboration to get what they believed was the best way. Although I had a different approach to the situation, I agreed with what was proposed. I feel that my agreeing to give the class a 14 point bonus, the professor was nice. He could have just done the curve and not the extra credit assignment.

By the end of our time, the most important thing was to come up with one solution. Some people accommodated themselves to what was best for the class. For some reason, one person decided to say that he didn’t agree with the almost passed solution. I have no idea why he didn’t like it, but he was willing to sacrifice everyone’s happiness and points because he didn’t like or understand something about the solution.

scrambled eggs

We started the activity by thinking about what we had to do. Our goal was to construct a structure with limited resources that would protect a raw egg from cracking when dropped. The concept was simple, but how could be do it with 8 straws and 2 feet of masking tape? To do this task, we used all of our minds together. There were 3 members who lead the group and another 2 who contributed and agreed or disagreed with the ideas that were presented. The biggest thing that held us back was a more traditional approach to the task. We all thought that the only way to prevent the egg from cracking was to wrap it in the straws and tape. We used rules to guide us. Through each step of out brainstorming process, we considered if it would violate one of the rules and if yes, tried to come up with some way around it. We spent some time on how we would attach the straws to the egg. Some ways we thought of simply taping over, making a ball of tape and taping over, twisting the tape around the straw and then onto the egg. We wanted to create a sort of cushion between the egg and the floor with some tape and then the straw. We also had several ways of using the straws. We wanted to create a web with the straw so that it would be stronger.

When we got the egg, we saw how small it was. Apparently we could have handled the egg while planning. But we didn’t so we realized that we would have to adapt out plan slightly to make it work. While we were doing everything, time was running quickly, so we wound up doing a botched job or creating a cage around the egg. We didn’t even use all of our straws as we had 2 left over. This was due to the time constraint and the rules. We felt that if we used all of the straws, more than 50% of the egg would be covered in tape and thus disqualifying us before we even went up to drop the egg. Of course our egg cracked when we dropped it, but as I saw, it wasn’t a big crack and perhaps the additional straws would have been a successful buffer.

When everything was said and done, I saw that there was a very simple way of approaching the task and that one group came close but didn’t think it through all the way. If we were to rip up the tape thinly enough, we could create a string from the egg. So when we held it up, the egg would only be a few centimeters from the ground. That would have provided out group with the needed 5 extra test points.