Week 3

So this is my first blog post, which is appropriate given that this weeks the week (and some of the previous week) we've done the most work on our project, the previous few weeks were more getting our group together and working out what we actually needed to do with this assignment.  With that out of the way we were able to work on our idea.

We started by having a group discussion on what topic we'd like to focus on for our final work.  We did this by writing down the topics in a list and going through them one by one, each stating our own opinions on them and crossing off the ones which were unanimously voted against.  We went through this process several times until we had narrowed it down our topic to demographics and narrowed that down further to the aging population problem in Australia.

This topic, through constant back and forth between the team members, morphed further into the wider health issue affecting the Australian population and it's implications on the health system and the impact on Australia as a whole.  We discussed several ideas, Max and Kyle particularly coming up with a few ideas, particularly the idea of having a tool which users could assess their own health easily and find simple solutions to the problem.  All team members helped flesh out these ideas, their unique experiences helping shape them into more interesting and sophisticated products than they were initially.

After this point we started discussing which roles each group member would have, we had originally designed the group with four members in order to have a good balance of skills, without much doubling up or wasted talents.  Because of this the task of assigning particular roles was a relatively simple one.  Kyle, being the strongest and most passionate technical member will be responsible for the bulk of the coding.  Max, with his strong artistic skills and flair for all things aesthetic will be responsible for the visuals of the final design.   Hamish, with his experience with the Sydney Uni racing team and his nimble fingers, will be responsible for the physical side of the project.  My role in the group is more of an organisational one, making sure the other members of the group know what they are doing and are on track, keeping them motivated and giving feedback on their work.

We’ve decided for the next few days that we’d like to focus on researching the issue and possible solutions to it, so we can having a solid grounding for our project.  Ideally I’d like to have the group finished with presentation by the end of next weekend in order to ensure that we have some time to practice the presentation and iron out any kinks that may present themselves.  In order to facilitate this I’ve broken down the material we’ve been given related to it in order to simplify it and allow all group members to know exactly what we needed to do.

I’ve also requested that all group members make weekly blog posts, making sure we keep an accurate and detailed record of the whole project.  I think this project will turn out well, it’s certainly off to a promising start.  Plus they let me be bossy.  I’m into that.