Group 4 project is a whole new and exciting experience for me since I am not a science student and these pure lab days are precious. Group 4 project is an opportunity for our art student to enjoy the joy and sorrow of science experiments.

Part 1: self-motivation and perseverance

As all science experiments, things deviate hugely from what we have planned and I get frustrated from time to time. On action day 1, I changed the design of the paper boat three times in total. We wanted to use the foam board since it is water proof and easy to cut on planning day. However, after we cut several model paper boats, we found out it didn’t work when putting the paper boat in actual water. Then Bryan and I quickly thought about using tapes to cover printed paper in order to reduce the weight of the boat and make it water-resistant. We spent one or two hours to design the boat electronically, print them out, and cut them in certain sizes. Unfortunately, it still didn’t work and sank in the water. Paper ships were core material in our experiment and we cannot begin the experimenting stage unless we found the right material for the boat. We didn’t know how to deal with this for a moment and our mind got stuck somehow. However, we didn’t give up. We found a MIT lab video online and watched it carefully: in the video those university students simply used milk box to make a water proof boat. Our team encouraged each other and we would keep trying no matter the boat three fail or not. Luckily, the third boat floated well on water and showed the phenomenon we expected. From this event, our team successfully show the importance of self-motivation and perseverance in a team setting for the following reasons.    

Above all, we didn’t give up and kept designing and trying new shapes and materials for the boat. It’s worth mentioning that we didn’t plan to give up if the boat three could not work as well. We four were fully determined and decided to achieve our goals by all means. Secondly, we encouraged each other when one method didn’t work. Bryan and I worked together and inspired each other in boat designing by sharing our ideas unreservedly. Lilian and Jenny measured surface tension of different solutions and our two sub-divisions exchanged our ideas hourly. Lilian and Jenny gave Bryan and I full trust and they believed that we could make the floating boat. Our successful designing was a combination of we never-say-die spirits and encouragements from each other.

Part 2: teamwork and collaboration

Team spirits are always shown in small details. For example, when we carried the heavy water tank from washroom to biology classroom, Lillian, Bryan, and I take turns and encourage each other along the way. One main reason that our team worked really efficiency in these 3 days is the division of labor. Lilian and Jenny are “science” student and Bryan and I are more art students, which lead to different tasks. For example, Lilian and Jenny were responsible for measuring the surface tension and Bryan and I were doing the boat design in the preparation stage. It’s worth mentioning that in the main experiment part we four worked together to conduct the experiment and record data. In the data analysis part, Jenny and I were physics specialists so we analyzed data using Logger pro and Lillian did this as well. Bryan and I also made posters and videos.

Part 3: reflecting

We learned from our failures in these experiments and reflected ourselves timely instead of reflecting ourselves only in the blogpost. For example, when we design the boat, Bryan and I concluded that we need light material from boat 1 and water-proof material from boat 2 —-thus we made boat 3 successfully. In the data analysis part, we noticed that our results were different from our expectations, revealing inaccuracy when conducting the experiment. For example, the size of the hand cut boat were not controlled correctly; the soap water was not ensured saturated; the scale on the foam board were too blur to read accurately; the video we record was not in a good shooting angle and caused trouble in analysis; and so on.  

Overall, the group 4 project is an opportunity for me to develop my ability to self-motivation, perseverance, collaboration, and reflecting.

Action Day 2 is considered as smooth and placid as planned: everyone stuck to his or her own schedule and we didn’t experience much pressure. My plan for today is to learn video analysis method and I learned that from Jenny. Using Loggerpro to analyze data was a lengthy work and we had to repeat the same procedure over and over again with different videos. However, the only problem is boringness and everything else went on great. There was also one thing to improve in our experiment: yesterday when we record the video, the hand-written scale was blurry, which added to the inaccuracy of our data. Thanks to yesterday’s trials, our analysis part was good. Our whole team was in a pleasant and placid mood throughout the day. We understand that the most difficult part, data collection, was over, which kind of motivated us. Data analysis was difficult, though, since we had to ensure the accuracy of our work and those data and graphs were dizzy. As a team, we encouraged each other by performing each one’s part well and holding a serious attitude.

Look back to the past two days, there were literally no conflicts in our group. It was surprising that our cooperation was really efficient and natural: everyone can find the part they were good at and contributed to the group in their particular ways. We spontaneous divided into two sub-groups, focused on different tasks in the morning and exchanged our ideas in the afternoon. For example, Jenny and Lilian were Physics HL and Biology HL students, also FM students, so they were good at numbers. Thus, they were mainly in charge of measuring surface tension and data analysis. Bryan and I were more artistic students (he had CS background knowledge and I had Physics knowledge), so we mainly focused on the ship design and material selection on the first day and also did 4 or 5 trials of the real experiment. On the second day, we create video and posters and I did a fraction of data analysis. The clear division of labor makes the cooperation efficient.  

There were only one thing left in the preparation stage of our group 4 project: the video recording. We planned to record separately during weekend and add them into our final video.

The beauty and excitement of science is that experiments will always deviate from what you have planned and you are almost forced to solve problems in the most efficient and innovative ways. In Action Day 1, Bryan and I were in charge of the “techniques”. We planned to use cystosepiment to find the right shape of our “ship” in order to explore the relationship between the difference in surface tension and speed of the ship. Based on intuition, we agreed that the streamline shape will minimize the friction force of water and ensure the accuracy of our results. That’s the first thing I did today: to design the shape and make ships using foam board. The first shape (Ⅰ) was pretty much like the rain drop, which had a width as 4cm and a length as 6 cm. However, it failed when we did the first trial since the foam board was too heavy and the difference in surface tension cannot actually propel the boat. Though we were disappointed somehow, we immediately came up with a new idea. Bryan and I decided to print out the shape and cover the paper with tape to make it light and water-resistant simultaneously. That was how we came to the shipⅡas shown in the photo. Unfortunately, it didn’t work as well since water flowed into the paper and the ship actually sank. The situation was intense but we didn’t have the choice or the time to feel depressed and give up. We watched a video produced by a MIT lab and decided to use the most achievable water-proof material, the milk box. This time, it was worked well and I was assigned to produce dozens of the shipⅢ in the same size and weight for variable control.

After the successful production of the ship, I was hugely motivated and all things went out smoothly in the afternoon. Though the morning is pretty frustrated when we design the ship, since we have kept failing and at one point we doubt ourselves that whether we would fail the whole Group four project, it’s still the most inspiring part: we didn’t give up and we are urged to do be creative and do better things. For sure we learned a lot and at the moment when the tiny paper ship successfully marched on the water surface, we know we were going to complete the whole experiment. At certain point today, I was a little frustrated, but for the majority of time I was energetic and actively tried all things to solve the problem.

When I was low, my teammates’ spirits inspired me a lot. Jenny didn’t even had the thought of giving up for a second: she had the scientists’ spirit to achieve a thing. When we saw the ship Ⅰ and Ⅱ didn’t work, she just calmly said, “Well, then we seek for another way.” Her calmness did help a lot. We changed the water tank several times today and the whole experimenting process was long and tiring. Lilian and I took and heavy water tank all the way from the washroom to the biology classroom and we encouraged each other mutually. Bryan and I worked together to design different ships and we made a really good sub-team! We four inspired and encouraged each other all day and at the end of today we finished all experiments and got into the data analysis part.

For tomorrow, I am going to learn how to use Logger pro to analyze data since I almost forget how to use it. We may need to do some trials again since some phenomenon are just not accurate or clear enough. I am confident we will achieve more tomorrow, as a team; and I am going to learn more from others and our Group 4 project as well.