Week Two

The secret of getting ahead is getting started
Mark Twain

Here is what I worked on this week:

Part One:

The three study skills that I consider myself good at are: where to study, when to study, and how I use my time. I’m not good about having a set time to study, so whenever I do make time to study I have to make the most of it. I normally study in our spare room which we’ve turned into a game room. This is where I put on headphones, listen to some lofi beats, and start to really study. I normally study when I come home from work, typically around 6-7pm until 9, I might take a 30 min break to eat dinner, and then I’ll get back to studying almost immediately.

The study skills that I consider myself weak are: keeping notes, outlining textbooks, and taking exams. I probably have the worst handwriting out of anyone that I know — that includes my younger siblings who are in elementary school. I’m terrible at exams as well, I get test anxiety pretty bad. I will most likely try using the exam taking tips that we learned about this week such as: answering the easy questions first and surveying the exam.

Part Two:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1l5yC5ZdFiaskTi36ZpChsX627AHHJFAqBCWAsGgEHT4/edit?usp=sharing

Part Three:

Introduction to Project Management: A project is a temporary venture that has a definite beginning and end. There is different phases in order to achieve a unique output. It’s different than operations because projects are temporary, unique, and are closed after obtaining objectives. Operations are on going, repetitive, and the objective is to sustain business. A work breakdown structure is how you break down a project into goals for the team to achieve in order to complete the project and achieve the objectives. The purpose is to organize and define the total scope of the project. A Gantt Chart is a Bar Chart that shows the start/end dates of the project and the work breakdown structure.

Part 4:

PlantLogic: The Paperless Planting Card System: This project is solving a specific problem that Merrill Farms is facing. The farm has cards that keep track of the different crops, and when done by hand they can be filled out incorrectly. The project solves the issue by creating a web application that can also be ran on a mobile phone that the farm can use that will allow for easy editing and instant information transfer. I think this project was done very well and I enjoyed it a lot. I think this project could be improved by instead of a web application, it could just be a mobile application as I think a mobile application would be easier for people to use when they’re not at a computer.

Customizable Fashion Dolls: This project allows you to perform 3D rendering on a mobile platform. I think this was an interesting project because users can take picture of the texture that they want to use for their doll and the app would 3D render that picture. I feel like this project has a few limitations because not all phones would be able to handle 3D rendering.

Agricultural Robotics: This project would basically create robotic vehicles that are capable of navigating a row of crops without damaging or deviating from the row. I think the idea of this project is great, if farms were able to have robotic vehicles that could navigate rows of crops it would save farmers a lot of time.

Part 5:

Oh man, week two and I’m already scrambling to finish. I’ve hopped on the procrastination train this week and procrastinated almost everything. This week we’ve had to write a minimum 6 page paper, peer review other papers, we had a few small quizzes, forum posts, and we had to do this blog post. Unfortunately this was also a busy week at work for me, as everyone’s getting sick I had to stay late and make sure that tasks were still getting completed. Hopefully this week I can stay on track and keep a better schedule to get my coursework done so I’m not scrambling at the last minute again.

Here’s to a better week next week