Artifacts

Final Advanced Energy Vehicle Design.

The visual artifact that I have included is the final SolidWorks model of my team’s Advanced Energy Vehicle.  This project took place during the spring semester of 2016 and was completed in my Engineering 1182 class.  My team was tasked with designing, constructing, and coding an AEV that was able to complete the required mission while consuming the least amount of energy and staying within the time limits.  The mission consisted of having the AEV travel from a starting location to the sensor gate, wait for seven seconds, continue forward once the gate opened in order to retrieve the R2D2 caboose, and then after caboose pick-up to wait there for 5 seconds.  The AEV was then tasked with repeating what it had just done, so therefore it had to return to the sensor gate, wait for seven seconds, and then continue forward to its original starting location while traveling with the R2D2 caboose.  It may seem to some as an easy task, however multiple hours were spent coding, running, testing, and improving the AEV so that the most complete AEV could be submitted for final testing.  I included this artifact because it is quite significant in my life, for my team and I put tremendous amounts of hard work into this project, and after many failures and mistakes we were able to successfully complete the mission in the final testing period.  There is nothing more rewarding in life than to see one’s hard work pay off, and that is exactly what occurred at the conclusion of the AEV project in engineering class.

I grew from this experience because it challenged me to continue to maintain perseverance, patience, and leadership.  All three of these qualities are needed in any group project, however in this specific project I was often tested because I had the role of team leader.  This quality of perseverance has very much become a part of who I am because throughout this AEV project when times got challenging and things did not turn out as planned, perseverance is what challenged me to stay determined and focused on the project at hand.  There were multiple failed codes and incorrect runs, however I grew from this experience by staying persistent even when difficulties arose.  Throughout the AEV experience I also gained greater patience, specifically in regards to how I interacted with my group members, for not all of them contributed as much as they should have in the various reports and presentations that we had to complete.  Being the team leader I did my best to encourage and remind my team members to complete their parts while still trying to remain patient and on good terms with them.  Finally, another aspect in which I developed from this experience was in regards to my leadership skills, for since I was the team leader I had to maintain multiple roles during the AEV project.  To be an effective leader I had to be respectful of my team members, a good communicator, proactive in making sure that assignments were completed well and on time, as well as a variety of other roles.  In conclusion, I greatly developed and grew throughout the AEV project, and even though it was a lot a hard work in the end I am proud of my accomplishment, and this is why I chose the final AEV SolidWorks model as my significant artifact.