I was an avid participant in the shelter group of the group IV project; my contributions

ranged from devising defense plans from zombies, animals and poor weather conditions to

presenting our presentation. I also advised the group on the specifics of the location. But my

largest technical contributions were devising nails for the shelter (physics), contriving a system

to collect glue from the gumbo limbo tree (chemistry) and housing plans. My non-technical

contributions involved spending numerous hours on the presentation and presenting it to the

teachers. I suggested to the group that we pick a specific location (a latitude, longitude and

island name) but, the group suggested that we keep the location generic.

To reflect upon the project candidly, I am now cognizant that working with many extroverts

is challenging, nonetheless it is an experience from which I gained some knowledge. Also, some

candidates in our group were very involved and we worked on the presentation for about 3

hours every night this week; others simply chose not to participate. This was a large problem

that we encountered – a work load for 8 people was distributed among 4 people. This increased

the burden on those who did choose to help. We all managed to research on a specific aspect

of the shelter – the task was divided into choosing location, devising defenses, preparing the

temporary shelter and contriving the permanent settlement. The research we carried was fairly

thorough. The work distribution, though, was uneven. I have worked about 12 hours on this

project along with Le, Yasmin, Alyssa, Zakia and Leslie. We met every night for the past week on

Google plus, during lunch and face to face.

I am satisfied with the final product; we included chemistry, biology and physics

components. Additionally we worked together to diplomatically decide between two different

housing types that we argued about. We were able to explain procedures for building the

shelters; the research that we conducted was very specific but the presentation was concise

due to time limits. I believe that I have worked the hardest I could. I admire the work my

colleagues put forth – our group leader forced everyone to contribute, however minimal the

contribution was. I enjoyed the effort we put forth and if we were to be stranded on an island,

my group’s research is in depth enough that we could withstand many circumstances and

survive for many months.