On September 24th 2019 my science class had a Skype chat with Tim Mepham and his daughter Nicola Andersen at the Nicola Lodge. During this discussion we learnt that Tim suffers from Huntington’s disease and we also learnt some of the difficulties that Tim suffers from everyday due to his disease. From this discussion we were assigned an assignment in which we were suppose to create a device or thing that we think could help Tim based on one of the effects of his disease that he told us about. My group decided to create a simplified TV remote because Tim described that he couldn’t easily use his TV remote because it had to many buttons, that were to small. From this my group designed a simplified TV remote model on a 3D app called tinkercad. We then printed the model as a prototype to see what it would look like in real life. About a week or two after we printed it out our teacher took it to Tim to see what he thought. Apparently Tim quite enjoyed it and thought we had done a very job job designing it based off of his comments. A few of the things he wanted us to fix or add was and input button, switch the volume buttons around and add a TV choice button. Once we received this information we would have been able to start to make a finished product. A few of the obstacles we would have had to finish the remote would have been cutting the remote in half which would have been quite difficult because we would have had to cut an almost solid piece of plastic. Then we would have had to find a more flexible and bendable plastic that could be used in a 3D printer as the buttons for the remote. Finally the biggest problem we would have had to make a real remote that works would have been learning how to use wires, how to install wires, which wires to use, how to make them work, how to make the buttons work, how to connect them together and how to connect the TV and the remote together. Because of these obstacles we would were not able to make a real remote that works because the skills that are required are not in our abilities. After reflecting on this experience with my group, we decided that it would be to difficult to make a real remote but we did concluded that it would make more sense buying a similar product that is already made online. We then went on Amazon and searched up senior TV remotes and got lots of different types options that are already assembled and ready to use. We then decided that we would buy one of the remotes because we felt bad if no one gave anything to Tim. We then decided on a remote that we thought suited Tim’s requests and needs the best. I really enjoyed this experience because I got to learn a lot of new skills, I got to meet new people, learn new things and expand my knowledge on Huntington’s disease and how it affects people.

During this experience I connected with a few new new people such as Tim Mepham, his daughter Nicola and the school librarian. I also connected with an organisation called Makers Making Change where I learnt about 3D printed objects that have already been designed and can help people with Huntington’s disease.

For this experience I learnt a lot of new things such as the affects of Huntington’s disease, what Huntington’s disease is, how you get Huntington’s disease and how it can really affect the life of a totally normal person. Some of the skills I developed during this experience are learning how to use Tinkercad, how to use a 3D printer, how to creatively push myself and use my imagination and how to communicate better with my group. Some examples of the skills I learnt in action would be me creating a 3D model on Tinkercad that worked, printing my 3D model out so that it looked like the real thing just smaller, using my imagination in order to design the 3D model remote and being in a group were we all expressed our opinions, making sure we were all on the same page and creating a final product that we are proud of. I feel that I met my learning goals by completing my share of the work, communicating with my group, leaning new skills such as learning how to use a 3D printer and showing leadership skills by helping to make sure our teams work was completed on time and by ordering our final product.

I think our team collaborated well together we got along when we met as a group, everyone got to talk and share their ideas. We all understood the different assignments and the criteria including all of us needing to post our completed work on our blog. To improve communication in our group, we also created an iPhone group chat where we discussed important issues for the assignments. Some of the things I did well for this assignment included communicating with my group, getting my work done on time, contributing ideas to complete our simplified TV remote and finding a similar product on Amazon to buy for Tim. Some of the things I can improve on include expanding my knowledge and skills on 3D printing, asking more questions to experts like Tim and learning electrically wire a remote. I had many feelings about the connections-based learning experience including feeling sad for Tim because he now has a really difficult life, I also can empathize with Tim because I too have a serious disease although type 1 diabetes is not fatal unless it is managed wrong. I find it exiting to learn about 3D printing and I am certain that this technology will play a big role in future inventions.

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