I have grown in many ways through the projects and assignments that I've participated in this school year. Persistence is a very important skill that I have to have for an IT job in the future, and I feel that the OSLN Design Challenge (see below) was the most effective in building that crucial skill.
The Ohio STEM Learning Network (OSLN) have a design challenge every year , where there is a problem that
must be solved with certain criteria and constraints.
This year, the issue was how to reduce waste and be
more sustainable. Our product functioned to remove dust from the atmosphere during mining operations. The
goal was to reduce air and water pollution around mining sites.
As part of the class I took this year, I am in the process of earning a CompTIA A+
Computer Hardware certification.
This certification is widely recognized as a high-level
of competance in the field of IT, and many IT professionals earn this certification as
part of their job or as a prerequisite.
I am currently still working on
this certification, and am taking the final exam on April 30, 2025.
The instructions project was a group project involving Technical Reading & Writing
in parity with Chemistry, and the goal was the develop a chemical experiment that
was easy for middle school kids to follow.
First, we had to design an experiment
and an outcome, and then write instructions for how to complete the experiment.
There was then a usability test with the 6th Grade class of DRSS, where they came
in to the chemistry lab and were handed to materials and instructions.
Our instructions
were easy enough to understand and they didn't need our help to complete the experiment
and see results.
Our experiment revolved around crushing candy to see how sugars can
react and make sparks.
