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Assignment 1: THE BOAT RACE

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This is our first assignment for this CTS module (Creative Thinking Skills), and we are required to make our very own boat out of a one-litre plastic bottle!

For our group, we decided to make use the ice cream soda bottle, because it is blue in colour so it would be perfect for our blue and green Dracock (dragon+peacock) idea.

There are 5 people in our group, and each of us are responsible for different individual parts that make up the whole Dracock. First there is the Dracock head, which is made from cardboard and coloured with crayons. The dracock idea originated from the Chinese Dragon Boat combined with a graceful peacock, but for the head we decided to use the western dragon head as we will add a pair of wings on the boat body as support, and Chinese dragons do not have wings.

For the tail part of the Dracock, our idea is to make a peacock tail out of plastic as well, as plastic is semi-transparent, just as our boat body. We used different colours of sharpie to colour the tail, but not paint or other colouring methods because by using sharpie the plastic peacock tail could maintain its semi-transparent characteristic, and we wanted that effect.

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The peacock tail is made from plastic cut out from plastic trays, commonly used for containing biscuits or seaweed. We used thin wires to hold the pieces together to form the long tail feathers of a peacock.

And then, the wings of the Dracock. We decided to add a pair of wings for the boat to be its support. The wings are made from styrofoam so that its light enough and can help the boat to float and keep its balance, so that it won't flip easily. The frame of the wings is made from thin wires, and to bind the styrofoam to the thin wires we used the twist ties as it is light and firm. The feathers of the wings is also made with glueing layers of twist ties on the surface of the wings.

After completing all these parts, we put it all together on the boat and added the keel (made with perspex board), motor, the battery and the propeller. The propeller is connected to the motor by a satay stick, enveloped by a straw to allow rotation and also to prevent water from flowing to the motor.

Test runs :

Test run one: The boat keep running in circles. Our guess is its too heavy and perhaps unbalanced. So we did some modifying and decrease the number of batteries used, from two to one.

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Test run two: The boat is too heavy and it can't move. We had to take off the pair of wings because of the layers of feathers that put up too much weight. We replaced the wings with two blocks of styrofoam.

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Test run three: This time the boat ran perfectly. The only problem is the battery drainsup too fast, so we did used alot of batteries in these tests, and of course it costs alot of money. Excluding the motor, propeller and other stuffs, we spent around 80 ringgit just for the motor.

Idea Journal

We are required to record down our ideation proccess in an Idea Journal, to showcase and explain our ideas and the worksmanship.

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Originally i had the idea of a pirate ship, being greatly inspired by the pirate ships, especially the Flying Dutchman ship and and Queen Anne's Revenge. I loved it so much, but this is a group work and i really need to consider other's opinion. Plus, I knew this would be very very hard to make, so I didn't insist on this idea at all.

The other idea that i brought out during my group's discussion is a fairy boat. I created this idea myself, imagining the boat to have long and wavy feathers, and at the same time being colourful and be full of grace. But this idea doesn't seem to convince my fellow group mates, so we went off to search for a better idea.

Then another idea came in. It came from the chinese Dragon Boat, which sails annually around June, to commemorate the famous minister and poet in ancient China, QuYuan, that suicided in the Chang Jiang River due to reasons out of patriotism. 

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We loved this idea so we gladly chose it and even came out with an idea to merge the dragon boat with another animal. After further discussion, we decided to give it peacock tails to add gentle and swiftness to it. Our boat is then named Dracock. (Actually Peagon sounds nice too but Dracock is funny...haha.)

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We also decided to add a pair of wings for the dragon, to provide balance and support to the boat.

Reflection

I had a lot of fun making this boat. I love my groupmates, they are great! Though we did not get high marks for this, I am still happy with the boat, except that the wings had to be taken off...That is my favourite part of the boat. But still, our boat worked well. out of our expectations. The moment when our boat went pass the 4-pillars distance, we felt so happy and relieved! I worked on test runs, but who knew? It may break during presentation day. Gladly our Dracock did not let us down. though not fast, it swam accross the distance easily like a real Dracock! 

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I had a lot of fun doing the idea journal. I used 1 day for each of the boats I draw, and I especially love the pirate ship Queen Anne's Revenge, though I used the longest time there. I know its not very good, but its a masterpiece in my eyes, and even stop the urge to share it to my friends and family. I used a lot of time on the dragon too, though I knew it was not important in this idea journal, most of them are not, or maybe they shouldn't even be there at all. But I still like it, I enjoyed painting all of them.

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Thanks to my dear groupmates, I hope we can group up again someday.

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This assignment taught me the TGC 5.1, to understand team dynamics and work together as a team. In a team, everyone is equally important and they should be given a chance to express their ideas. Everyone's idea should be listened out to make sure they don't miss a golden opportunity of a big idea. Working together is equally as important, byworking together, the load will be divided to smaller parts and everyone will be more relaxed. By doing stuffs together can also make sure that the product being created is measured to everyone's expectations. For something to be perfect, it has to be loved by everyone. In this also shows TGC 7.1, to be aware and form opinions from diverse perspectives. Brainstorming will always have the higher chance tocreate something more powerful, more creative, and more perfect.

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Last but not least, the TGC 3.1 and 3.2, to think creatively and critically, and find effective solutions for problems arised. We have to be creative in our design and even materials of our boat, in order to let it shine and be unique from others. We should also be critical in analysing problems and mistakes, and by working together, find out the cause of the problem and conjure solutions to correct them. Like when the boat keeps running in circles, we have to eventually find out that its inbalanced, and might be too heavy, then find ways to rebalance it or decrease its weight.

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