Winter Park High School, Florida
ISTF Number: #14-2854
ISTF Project #2854 was developed in response to the 2014-2015 Internet Science and Technology Fair
Team Assessment
i Communication and Teaming
Team 13-2854 is truly a dream team. We have three juniors in IB SL Biology, one junior in IB SL Physics, and one Senior who has been in IB HL Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP Physics. Put together, we have at least one person who has background in all of the sciences, which is a great advantage. In addition, the senior has won the ISTF competition last year, so this team has a veteran on board. As for communication between students, it was not a problem at all. Communication with teachers was phenomenal. They always gave a response within one day’s time, which we thank them for. Communication with our first technical advisor, a bike shop owner, was a problem. He was elusive and refused to talk with us. When we went to go see him in person, he left out the back door. When we called or emailed, he didn’t respond. It was then, with only two weeks left, that we decided to get four new technical advisors, each of which were excellent in communication, which we thank them greatly for.
Word Count: 182
i Research and Innovation
During this process, my team learned a lot about research and innovation. For research, we learned that knowledge already exists, it is just a matter of finding it. The internet is a great resource, but if you don’t take the time and effort to really explore it, you are missing out on a lot. For this project, we had to do some digging and we had to send a few emails to get the information we needed. We also learned that innovation isn’t something that you can force, it needs to come to you. While doing this project, we tried to focus for hours to obtain something that counted as an “innovative idea”, but even after hours of work, we still had nothing. It was only until I relaxed, some days later, that the idea came to me out of nowhere. Innovation is a miracle that cannot be forced.
Word Count: 149
i Three Things Learned
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You need to careful about who you put your trust in. Not everybody has the same work ethics as you, and most likely they will disapoint you, so before placing your trust and your grade in their hands, make sure that you can trust them (regarding the initial bike-shop owner technical advisor)
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If something isn't working, do not try to force it, you will just be wasting your time. Instead, find a more capable, better replacement for it.
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You can not force ideas. Ideas are something that must come to you on their own. The best way to think of a innovative idea is by not worrying about it, it will come to you eventually.