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Hands-On Projects in the Pandemic: A Mid-Semester Check-In


3D Printer at the Fab Lab | kakissel | CC BY 2.0

At half-way through the first remote semester in UC Berkeley history, our team has fully adapted to working remotely on our hands-on project.


Because we have had to work remotely, any progress that we have made has not been as quantifiable as it was in previous semesters.


In previous semesters, we were able to measure our filament produced and samples printed in order to quantify the results of our hard work. This semester, because we are researching for our project and not actually implementing our physical plans, we are unable to quantify the results.


However, our hope is that our hard work this semester will help us to achieve and surpass our goals for filament production in future semesters when we can return to working in person.


While we are all working remotely, our team is focused on researching the areas of the project that need improvement and creating plans for how to implement those improvements.


In order to keep our team engaged in the project, each week I have been giving them a new research “mini-project” in which they research an aspect of the project and then report on the best ways to improve that aspect or share why they think that aspect is working well.


These “mini-projects” are also helpful in integrating our new team members into the project and getting them more familiar with which parts of the project are working well and which parts we need to focus on.


The end goal of these “mini-projects” is for each team member to research an area of improvement for the project, identify a way to improve that aspect of the project, and create a plan of implementation. Then, when we can return to in-person research, we can begin implementing these plans, which will hopefully guide us to a higher filament production rate.


With these goals, we hope to make the most out of this remote semester as we continue to research and prepare for in-person activity once again.


This blog post was written by Brooke Chang.

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