When we started this project, I was fortunate enought to be allowed to join an already existing group to help them complete their project. We knew we wanted to make a map but 'how' was the quesion. As reasearch gathering, we went out and surveyed new students, teachers, and parents about whether they had gotten lost at SAS before and what they think could improve navigation around SAS. Out of our collective data we were able to create four different potentia prototypes that could solve navigation at SAS: an app, a stationary map, a sign post, and an interactive mall map. For all of those we made simple prototypes out of card board and split into two groups to survey people, I made the sign post prototype. We surveyed 44 people, ranging from teachers and parents, to visitors and parents. All of them had either a neutral, or the majority, poitive reaction to our questions and different prototypes. The one that had the most votes was an app, but due to our limited time frame and limited coding capabilities, that building an app would take too much time and was not worth the cost. So we decided to make the next best idea within the reasonable time and cost frame: the stationary map. The map is built from a large 70x108cm sheet of clear tempered glass and a simple outlined map of all four levels of the High School. The glass we got so graciously from Mr. Bright. As an added feature, we installed push buttons that when pressed, light up the desired department on the map. To achieve this we needed to use four Arduinos and 24 buttons and lights (24 each). To build the stand which the glass will be placed on, we came together to design a stand made out of 12 card board boxes taped together. We measured it and determined the angle of elevation the glass will be placed on together as a team, as well as executing and putting together this product. The maps were designed from the blueprints of the High School building, but were simplified and had the lables removed to make it cleaner. 

This unit was something that was very new to me. I had tried coding before in middle school but it was only learning about coding, for the first part of this unit I had to actually code something that would function; that is something that I've never done before and I'm quite proud of what I was able to code. The design thinking was also new to me; in fact, I have never even heard about it before this unit. The process of design thinking is something that was not what I usually do when coming up with an idea. I consider myself to be a pretty empathetic person and someone who is able to understand what people are feeling, so when we where need finding, it was a bit difficult for me to put aside my assumptions of what people wanted when I was interviewing people. On that point, I have never interviewed people that much before. It was really weird for me at first; I'm shy and introverted so approaching people I don't even know was kind of scary, but after a while I kind of got used to it and I got better at my interviewing skills (not complete reflection).

For our group, the empathizing process was very different from the other groups as we already had our project in mind. So, rather than trying to empathize with a large group of people in any general way, we were empathizing specifically with people who had a tendency to get lost. It was a lot harder to experience the empathy process this way, because rather than trying to find a problem, we were just trying to establish a problem we already had. 

Again, with the problem defining stage, since we already had a problem, it wasn't easy to come up with another one. However, we were open to adjusting and finding a new problem if we had found that our problem wasn't present. We did, however find a huge need for assistance with navigation at SAS. This caused our how might we statement to be: "how might we simplify the use of navigation at SAS?" I think our team did a great job of gathering data in this unit.

I do kinda wish that I had more of a chance to actually do some empathizing and defining, because I didn't get a chance to really experience that part of the process. 

After we got past those two parts, we really got to work on the ideating process. For us, that was the first part of the process we really got to do. We threw out our original idea of the app, and started from scratch trying to solve the problem of navigation. We came up with a ton of new ideas, which I think can sometimes be hard to do when you're set on a certain idea. But I think we did well at that. We came up with a ton of ideas. 

For the prototyping part, we did well also. We got a lot of data from some people we had talked to in terms of our short-cycle project, and some that we hadn't. We found that our most successful product was the app, however, after talking with Simon, we came to terms with a more simple product, which was the stationary map. Keeping in mind our goal, we changed it from something that would have been a lot of hard work which we wouldn't have been able to finish a working prototype of, to a different goal. I think our flexibility there was really good. 

Our prototyping unit was great. We had so many prototypes. We had a phone with an app, a little stationary map, and a few other things. We ended up sticking with the stationary map. We did a really good job testing our prototypes and getting data once we narrowed it down to the stationary map. 

Testing also worked well. Once we decided on the stationary map, we moved forward with making our final prototype. It was a lot of hard work, but I think our group did a really good job making it on time. We had a little bit of crunch time near the end with an error in coding which pushed us right up to the deadline, but I think we dealt with it well. 

All in all, I think the proccess taught me a lot about business models, design thinking, building and coding. I think this unit was very successful and I really enjoyed it.