#LAPASSIONUY
Giorgina Damico
HELLO!! I'm Giorgina Damico and in the next 10 weeks I'll be writing about the activities of the LaPassion project.
Who I am ?
An architecture student from the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of the Republic of Uruguay.
I’m 31 years old, I was born and grew up in Paysandú, but I live in Montevideo for almost 10 years.
What motivates me about this project, besides the topic, is the focus that is made in the interdisciplinary and multicultural work, I believe that this type of challenges generate growth opportunities both personally and professionally.
Week 2
At the beginning of the second week, the teachers introduced us to the subject and organized us in small teams. It was very exciting to know who my colleagues were. I am very happy with my team.
As a group, our first decision was that we will focus on education. Our first assigned task was to do interviews. To know what questions we would ask and to whom, we did a brainstorm of ideas, this was extremely useful, because allowed us to choose good questions and categorize who would be the interviewees.
We meet at a public school located in a central neighborhood of the city and we interview parents, teachers and children.
Our next task will be to classify that information and see what we can achieve with it. Here we go!
The first week was as intense as it was exciting. Through different games and activities, we begin to get to know each other and focus on finding skills that helped us to achieve a good teamwork.
At the end of the week we made our first trip together, the destination was Punta del Este, one of the most beautiful and recognized cities of our country. We join very interesting and motivating talks about innovation, design and technology in the 'Campus Party' event.
Despite spending a lot of time at the event, we made ourselves a space to go around the city, enjoy good music and food. It was a great weekend!
Week 1
Week 3
During this week we did tasks together with the teaching team.
We try to find insights from the information we got from the interviews. Personally, I found it a very difficult task, since working with the design thinking dynamic is totally new for me.
On Friday we made a presentation with the possible problems that we found, but we still do not know where focus our attention. I'm anxious to know how we're going to continue working, I'll tell you soon...
Week 4
With different tasks our team was put to test. Defining what would be the possible problems on which to act was one of those tests.
Then, through brainstorming, we discussed the ideas and selecting the best three was another of those tasks that put us to the test as a team.
Finally in the trip we made to Durazno, where we participated in the Bricks and Bits, we decided to remain united as a team, take the opportunity to go through our first challenge together and consolidate as a team.
Despite the long working days, we also took time to enjoy a good barbecue with all the members of this project. It was a very fun night. A special thanks to Tacuabe who was the one who got a house where we could make this meeting.
As part of this intense week, I learned a new method, called SCAMPER, which consists of choosing one of the ideas and applying several actions such as Substitute, Change, Adapt, Maximize, other uses, Delete and Reorder. It is a very useful and interesting technique. And I also realized that we have a great team, that works equally and obtains very good results.
You'll see ...
Week 5
This week was the hardest one for me. We presented to the teachers the development of our proposal and we didn't obtain an expected return. Otherwise, we must go back a step back to rethink our problem and let new ideas emerge.
Next week we will be on vacation, but each of us has a task to solve. I am sure that this week of rest will be able to think and develop a new and improved idea.
We are a great team, we just have to rest and not stop thinking!
Week 6
While this week is a vacation for a few, I'm not one of those lucky ones. Almost all the guys in the group made a trip to different destinations in the country but as I unfortunately have to work I was left wanting to join them.
But not all are bad news for me, luckily I shortened my work schedule and I was able to enjoy the event called 'las criollas', which takes place in Montevideo. I leave some images of musical shows with national artists such as Ana Prada, Larbanois & Carrero and Emiliano y el Zurdo.
It was a nice week!
Week 7
After much effort, it was time to present our idea in front of the class. We were very excited, we believed in our project, but unfortunately our teachers didn't`. In fact, they were extremely rude with the feedback, even in a strange way they said that our idea was absurd.
Undoubtedly it was one of the worst moments of our team, luckily we are strong and I think that this will not affect our team. I'm sure we can do it!
Week 8
This week ... I think it was a strange week. The group worked separately, some did it on Monday and others on Friday, this generated a communication failure and things got a bit complicated. On one hand, I feel we lost time, while on the other hand, I feel that we were really productive. But the truth is that I believe that working together is the way to get the best results, I hope we can continue on it.
On Friday, despite the amount of hours dedicated to the project, I had a great time, one of the tasks we did was cut the fruit to design the recipes and let me tell you that we had fun as children and fruits looked so appetizing that we ate all.
I feel that today we say goodbye convinced that we have a great idea!
Week 9, undoubtedly the hardest work. At the beginning of the week we received our first 3d printing prototype of Saki. I honestly didn't believe that the printing would work, but to my surprise, it worked, we only had to adjust the parts a bit to fit them! Is my first 3d printing I'm excited!But... this enthusiasm didn't last long because I have to make all the necessary adjustments to send to print the final version of Saki with all its components and I know that this will take many hours of work.
There is a lot of work to be done in a very short time! So we spent the whole night awake, working on our project. We drank a lot of Pisco and between drinks, fun and a lot of work, the project was coming out.It was a crazy and funny night, one of those that I will not forget.
By the way, I forgot to mention that we choose Nair to do the pitch. I think she's the right one because she's nice, she's got good energy and she speaks English fluently.
During the night we divided the tasks to be more productive, but in despite of that, we were all listening Nair`s pitch for the presentation, she does it so well, I am fascinated, I think we made the right decision!