I really enjoyed working on the JPL Stick Wicket Challenge. The fact that I could show up to class and just build for over an hour was amazing. Also, I believe that my group did very well. Our build team did an amazing job putting together a very effective device, and we responded well to problems that arose, as they always do. For example, the time when the entire base fell off of our device the day before the competition and we had to emergency re-fasten the lazy susan bearing to the base and re-place the rest of the device on top. It was a little less pretty than it was the first time, but it was much sturdier, and we ended up qualifying for finals, and placed 4th at finals, only loosing to one other school.
However there are definitely a few things we could have done better as a group that I would like to keep in mind when working on our Senior Capstone Project. One of these was communication between teams. I worked and communicated great with the build team that I was part of, but I really only spoke to the document team consistently, and part of that was because one of the document team members was part of the competition team that would operate the device, which I was also part of. I really wish I would have conferred more with members of the poster and commercial team so we all could have been more productive. So, in the capstone project, I want to make sure that I am maintaining proper communication with everyone in the group. I also wish that we would have spent more time practicing for the competition instead of focusing on things like painting the device, so I will remember to make sure that the invention can complete its task almost perfectly before I worry about vanity.
My advice for my Capstone Project future-self would be: "If you pour your heart into whatever project you take on, it will at least be pretty good."-Dylan Neumeyer 12/15/22