Final Post

I feel like I learned a lot about community through this project. One of the main things that I learned about community was that people really do like to interact with complete strangers, at the same time though, they don't since it isn't easy to simply start a conversation with a random person, but are willing to create community with complete strangers with little help. Some of the ways a public place creates community are sitting space, how it looks, the location of the area, the amount of open space, and many other things, just like some of the things William H. Whyte described in his film The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. At the Town Green interactions between people happen all the time; between vendors and consumers, dog walkers, and during events. Having a common interest or sharing a common feeling, strangers tend to talk to one another about it. With our product (which is a form of a "musical garden"), we were hoping that strangers came together and have something to talk about, or interact by playing with the instruments. We did get some results during an event at the Town Green, which was the parade/Earth day event.
Having roles for each of the members really helped in assigning people what to do without telling them to do it, which saved a lot of time and allowed us to work more effectively. Everyone wanted to help get it done, which was a big factor in the overall success of the project. Another reason our group was functional was because we had such great leaders. They kept us on task, and were not too over controlling,as well as trusting us to complete whatever job we were given. We had three final products overall. Each of them came out great. I worked mostly on the flower drum with Karina and Taylor, while Atreyu and Andrew worked on the leaf xylophone, and Bryant and Allegra worked on the smaller flower drum, as Grant and Christophe were team leaders, helping everyone of the team. There could have been changes made in the construction of the instruments to make them sound more "musical," but we did the best we could. Overall I feel that the prototypes worked successfully and created community.

Eighth Day

During the weekend, which was the parade, some of my partners went to test out our prototypes at a part of the Town Green. People really liked them, although our big drum flower, was a bit too tall for children. We could have fixed that problem, but we didn't have enough time We were then preparing for the presentations for the next day. We had mini blocks to prepare us for the presentations. From Vezino, we learned how to do our project cards, in Fitzgerald's was how to make an effective video, and in Jolly's was how to make an effective slides and presentations.

Sixth Day

Taylor took the wood to his home to cut it during the weekend. He brought it back today and I helped him bring the materials to Jolly's class and start building our Drum flower. We screwed in the supports for the wooden petals, and Taylor and I took the petals to Vezino so that he could cut holes in. I went back with Karina to spray paint the "stem" of the flower. I thought we were still going to use Christophe's drums, but I guess they decided to use the sheet metal to make our own drums. I cut the shape of the four drums and Karina, Allegra, Grant, and Christophe helped putting tape around the sharp edges.

Fourth Day

During first block, we had to finalize our material list and budget before getting materials from Home Depot. Allegra, Bryant, and Taylor went to Home Depot, while the rest stayed. I designed other ways that Taylor, Karina, and I could make the drum flower. They came back right before lunch, stored the materials at Jolly's class after lunch, and reviewed what we got. Allegra started to sketch out the petals for the smaller drum flower, so Karina and I helped her out.

Hello. I'm José and I am part of a project, with eight other students, to connect people (well strangers) and try to make them interact with one another. I'm a student in the Axis STEM Academy at Windsor High School, and our core teachers had given us a task to create a product that will intrigue people and have them interact. My partners an I were chosen to work at Windsor Town Green community.