Blog Entry 6: Conclusion!

This is our 6th and final blog entry! Since our last post we have finished the 3D Sketchup drawings, and completed our poster for the Presentations held last week on March 25th.

 

Summary of the Project Achievements

Originally, our client North Shore Connexions asked us to remove and replace an existing staircase in the building. Our team enthusiastically took the project head on, and we were excited for a hands-on experience. Unfortunately during the design phases we realized that to safely build a staircase for a public facility, we would require professional carpentry experience that frankly none of us possessed. Thus the scope of our project shifted to focusing on producing industry level technical drawings of the staircase, which could later be used by an experienced team to safely build the structure. From there, we produced AutoCAD drawings (see previous blog post) and 3D Sketchup Drawings. Earlier this week, we submitted our final design package to North Shore Connexions.

 

Contributions Made to the Community

After our modifications to the project scope, some of us were slightly disappointed about not being able to be involved in the construction of the new staircase. It would have been rewarding to see our designs come to life and experience it’s impact on the facility first-hand. Realistically however, we would not have been able to ensure a safe structure. As such, our contributions to the community were not as big as we had hoped. We do wish that our design aids the future construction of the staircase, and in turn benefits the facility and it’s users.

 

Conclusion

Despite our reduction in project scope, there were still many things our team was able to learn from this experience. One of the biggest things we learned was to be flexible and prepared for any changes to the original plan. After the modification to the scope, we were able to adapt and refocus on our new goals. In our case the plan change resulted in a reduced workload, however our team can still take this as a lesson for the future, where a plan change may result in an increased work load.

Additionally our team gained valuable experience in project management. The open-ended CBEL project was a stark contrast with our CIVL 201 Bridge Project, in that the bridge project had very structured assignments to help guide the team towards completion. This open-endedness in our CBEL project was mitigated by our groups efficient and structured planning in the form of frequent meetings to ensure each member was on track with their respective tasks, ensuring the project progressed smoothly.

To conclude our final blog post, we would like to thank the kind folks over at North Shore Connexions, our mentor Yu Wang, and Dr. Nesbit.

Thanks for reading!