End of Project!

Well now that project is officially over I thought I would post one last blog to just conclude on it. These past two days Anna and I have had time to finish the project report and presentation, and we also took a few classes just because it was fun and to stay with our normal format of classes in the morning and working on the written parts in the afternoon. Making the presentation allowed me to reflect a little bit on my experiences and I realized that I am so glad that I chose this project.  Ultimately, thinking back on all the other things I had considered doing, I could not imagine doing anything besides my project.  I had fun and interesting days every day, while still learning important aspects of health and wellness, which I had not known before. Our booklets turned out very well, and they look just like we wanted them to, bright and fun with bursts of color. Although because we only had 16 pages we could not do everything we had envisioned, but still covers a lot of topics and is rather informative. I had so much fun on project, and hope all of you did as well.  See all of you tomorrow at senior breakfast!   

Lantern Court

Over the last three and a half weeks I have been working at Lantern Court in the Holden Arboretum. Lantern court is an extension of the arboretum that includes a mansion and several gardens. During this time I worked with Julia, the horticulturist in charge of Lantern Court. This week I weeded in several flower beds. The most difficult part of weeding is making sure that you get the entire root system out, otherwise it will grow back in a short amount of time. After that I cut back some flower bulbs that were finished blooming. This cleaned up the beds and made the flowers go dormant so they did not die before blooming again. I weed-whacked around the edge of the beds, then put mulch down to finish it off. When mulching, it is best to put down a layer an inch or two thick, and it is important that the mulch does not come up against the base or cover any part of the plants. This will cause the plant rot away and can eventually kill it. The next day we planted lavender and shasta daisies in the sundial beds. When planting small things such as these, you need to dig a hole that is slightly larger than the pot that the plant is in. After you put the plant in the hole, you fill in any spaces with the soil you dug up, and pack it loosely but firmly. Any excess soil can be distributed around the bed until it looks neat and even.

Snow

ok so last thursday i was asked to groom a dog named snow in holding. So i went to get her and when i get there i am surprised to find a huskey with a lot of white fur. The name fit perfectly. I felt bad for her because thursday was really hot and theres nothing anyone can do to help her. I groomed her for two hours and even after that she looked the same as before. This lady that works there said something about polar bear fur and how it doesn't dry for weeks after it gets wet...we'll see about that! Polar bears don't live in ohio with hot humid weather. And plus she probably enjoyed the cool water. I brushed her outside so all of her fur could be used by the birds. (that might sound weird but i used to do it with my dog and they do use it for their nests.) The fur was everywhere. It literally looked like a cotton field. But after a while i got tired and went inside and another lady that works there gave me a cool brush that some how gets the dogs undercoat. It had a button that pushed the fur out into the garbage can too. They only use that brush on certain dogs that have a lot of fur so it was in a special place. But apart from that the office people havent had anything for me to help them with this week so i was mainly playing with animals.

post 12

Jim has been working on redoing the manual fort the Nexsim program. One of the issues is that the simulated pilots give varied responses to the same instructions. There is a dialogue box at the ground pseudo pilot position that gives the response that the pilot would give after receiving instructions from ground control. To keep things interesting, the dialogue box may say “okay, pushback at our discretion SWA123” or “SWA123 push at our discretion.” The fact that there are different responses is an issue because the manual only gives one example, so it could be seen as confusing because it could seem like you are getting the wrong response. Although there are other issues with the manual, this is the main thing that Jim is trying to resolve by making the manual clearer.

post 11

This past week, Pat and I have been testing the newest version of the Nexsim software, 1.60.4. This involves testing all of the functions on the academy airport scenario in order to make sure that the updated code didn’t change something that it shouldn’t have. In 1.60.4 there still seem to be issues with the “follow” command and with bringing air craft out of an “all stop,” but these issues will be corrected in a later version of the software. We have also been testing a scenario in which there are crash trucks located in a garage at the airport. The trucks can be put on alert and directed to a specific runway, as well as to a specific airplane. The trucks can follow a plane that is taxiing to a runway or a plane that is taxiing to a ramp. For example, if one wanted to simulate an emergency landing, ground control could call for an all stop and then send the trucks out to the runway on which the distressed plane will land. Once the plane lands, the trucks can follow the plane all the way back to the ramp in order to make sure the situation is under control.

Last Friday of Project

Yesterday, Anna and I officially finished the booklet! The cover is complete and looks pretty much how we wanted it and the pages are being printed.  We actually had a misunderstanding with our sponsor and it turned out that the way we had arranged the pages was not right and everything was shifted a page over.  However, while it seems like a simple solution it was quite the opposite. It involved having to re-lay it out to figure out which pages should be printed together and so forth. Eventually we were able to lay the pages out correctly.  Unfortunately, in the morning we had layed out the pages in what we thought was the right order, we put fun page numbers at the bottom of the page (which was a huge pain to line them all up), and ended up having to redo everything. It was kind of frustrating but at least the booklet will look better.  Also due to all of the moving of the pages, the fun page numbers we had made became way to hard to deal with so now they are just normal at the bottom, but it is all good. Thankfully when we printed the pages to see how it looked color-wise it was just what we had wanted! I can’t believe projects are almost over though.  Hope everyone has a great last 2 days of project!

Shadowing Another Product Manager

Yesterday, I spent my day shadowing Rebekah who is the product manager for accessories (bags, belts, filters and tool accessory kits). I really enjoyed my day with her. It was very informative and I think I am leaning more towards product marketing than brand marketing. We started off down in the Home Depot plannagram room setting up for a pitch to the Home Depot rep that is coming on Tuesday. She explained to me the line of products she was pitching and the different steps and phases she went through to get the line of products ready to go. This certain line of products is already in Canadian Tire stores (Canada's version of Costco) and they are now pitching it to Home Depot and hopefully Target soon.
She then took me on a tour of the labs on the first floor of the building. These were very cool to see. They had air quality testing, product quality testing, sound testing, motor testing, and a few other labs. They also had workshops where non-working prototypes were made. The sales team uses these as a real 3D models that they pitch to buyers to see if they are interested in carrying this new product. They also have workshops that make working models. They make a few working models of each design without molds for testing purposes. The working model then goes to the testing labs and they make sure that its up to spec. Then the model is ready for mass production and steel molds are made and mass production begins in China. It was very cool to see the inner workings of product conception and development.
In the afternoon she gave me the task of some research while she got ready for her pitch to the Home Depot reps. I researched the different tool accessory kits (attachments that connect to the vacuum hose) competing brands were offering and made a PowerPoint slide of them. I included pictures of the kits, their price, a description of what was in them, and their negatives and positives. Rebekah will use this information in the pitch to the company about why launching tool accessory kits will be a profitable idea. They already have one line ready to launch this August but in order to get more funding she must make a presentation including information about the market segment, the margin for growth in the market, and the competing products currently in the market. The company will review her presentation and report and decide whether or not to put a lot of money into launching a line of tool accessory kits.
Overall I had a very interesting and exciting day with Rebekah, probably one of the most enjoyable days I've had while on project. I really wish I had gotten to spend more of my project working with Rebekah and the other product managers because I think that's something that I might want to do after college.