… was meant to present our current project stage to the other groups of the SGT studio course, but mainly it gave us the chance to take stock of our project and receive the opinions of outside parties. We got some guidelines trough the course instructions questions that should be answered in the presentation, but we tried to use it also as an opportunity to ask and answer some questions for ourselves.
What happen during the field trip?
Where are we now with the project and also as a group?
How do we survive the trip and the time after?
What did we learn?
And the biggest question for us
HOW DO WE WANT TO CONTINUE and wrap up all those adventures in one report?
A lot of the questions, which had to be packed in a 6 min and 40 seconds Pecha Kucha presentation. About almost all the questions out of this pile I didn’t think even once about since we have been back from the field trip. Because after two weeks abroad there was a mountain of work waiting, which we all first had to handle and the exam week was waiting for us as well. That’s why the main thoughts and energy had to go into that and ALM had to step back a bit. So the most difficulties have been to think about it, wrap it up to communicate the information in 20 pictures and as few words as possible in a small amount of time. But again we worked as a team and shared the task between the group members. That means Christine has done the fine-tuning of my roughly made presentation, so that Phillip, Roy and I could train our speech. First task solved and one question answered:
WHERE WE ARE AS A GROUP?
There is still a strong connection and we still pull together in one direction in spite that we have shared 15 days nearly everything with each other. But obviously it brought us closer together, rather than turning us apart.
Parallel to our presentation preparation we had also to get familiar with the work of one of the other course projects and prepare questions and feedback for them. Our “opponent” was the UniWASH Uganda Project (http://uniwashuganda.blogspot.fi).
After a long Sunday packed with preparation work we finally had our presentation on Monday the 4th of April 2016. First we could relax a bit and follow the presentations about the progress of the other two course projects. Then the stage was ours, we started the presentation with the video from Antti and after it we continued with our Pecha Kucha presentation.
We managed it well! The presentation was followed by a question and answer round, which was started by our opponents the Refugee Project group (http://liftlesvos.wix.com/blog). We got a lot of good feedback on our project plan, blog, Facebook page and about how we appear as a team outwards. But also through other participants we got some suggestions to answer our questions as a team and for ourselves. Overall it was helpful for us to see how we stand behind our project as a close team and also transport this feeling to the audience.
But where are NOW and HOW DO WE CONTINUE FROM HERE?????
Now that we are back in Finland, I think we are kind of back on our personal track with life, work and school, even if a lot of our thoughts are still in Mexico as well as the stories we share with family, friends and each other. But now there will come the biggest challenge after the field trip for us. We have to sort our thoughts, memories, and material.
First we have some appointments on our way. In the beginning of May we will have a meeting with the Mexican ambassador in Helsinki to bring also her up to date about our experiences in Mexico, the other projects from Tec, UNAM, CEDIM and the current project status. Then in the middle of May, there will be our final presentation for the SGT course and 2 days after, our presentation at the Aalto festival. And then of course we have to write the manual and our report. The manual is already in progress, as we started working on it already back in Mexico. This week (week 15) we will spend with the evaluation of our school activities, so that we can start with the writing of the report. Our big goal is to have the report ready as exhibition material for the Aalto Festival in the middle of May. On our way we will benefit from corrections and feedback, support by friends and family, especially with the design of the report (remember our team consist basically just out of engineers, no talent for that). So fingers crossed that we can manage that next to everything else. But the current sunshine, our good spirit for the project and the upcoming spring in Helsinki helps a lot to be motivated to reach the next goal. For me it is an opportunity to beam me back in my head to EL20 and work outside in the sun with some Mexican spirit and recharge the energy batteries for the upcoming weeks.
PODEMOS HACERLO
– WE CAN DO IT –
Action Lab Mexico 