Brief overview:

The Team Project involves 2 to 4 students working together to extend an empowerment effort currently underway. Teams are assigned to specific stakeholders and efforts, but students can propose alternative project placements.

The empowerment efforts selected for the initial placements are usually ongoing, starting sometime before the current DREAM semester began, and likely to continue after the semester ends. The relationships formed during the project are designed to create opportunities for students to continue working on efforts, should they so choose, with the Team Project's stakeholders after the semester concludes. Opportunities are listed below.

The structure of the Team Project will involve four quick phases:

• (Phase 1T) Expose and Explore
  • individual deliverable: verbal or written preference toward a project you have been exposed to for the purpose of assigning teams
    • initial exposure to potential team projects begins 3/28/18
    • in-class exposure concludes 4/11/18
• (Phase 2T) Collaborate and Commit
  • group deliverable: scope of a team's project described, refined, then frozen 
    • scopes drafted 4/11/18
    • scopes frozen 4/18/18 2:30PM
  • individual deliverable: commitment to the team's scope of work given, and learning goals described
    • both due by 4/18/18 2:30PM
• (Phase 3T) Review, Refine, and Reflect
  • group deliverables:
    • Team Project Review (in-class presentation) on 4/25/18
      • presentation order below
    • Reflect and project prompt answered by 5/2/18
• (Phase 4T) Conclude or Carry on
  • group deliverables due 5/10/18:
    • source files (CAD/code)
    • activity plans (how-tos)
    • collaborative report on where the project is in it's trajectory at the conclusion of the semester
  • individual team member deliverables due 5/10/18:
    • reflection on your participation in the project
    • -or- plans for continuing to engage with the topic in future endeavors
      • summer experiences, volunteering, future classes etc
      • form link

(Phase 1T) Expose and Explore

Engage with the representatives of the groups who have ongoing empowerment efforts and are willing to lightly guide DREAM projects. Do hands-on explorations of materials related to their efforts.

Spring 2018 exposure comes from:

• Olin's Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship course/capstone, Community Development track. Seniors from Olin and Babson that are part of an effort called Shifting Rhythms, working in Coahoma County, Mississippi.
  • see a link to a draft overview of what is covered in the curricula
• Dark Matter Makerspace in Brooklyn, NY entrepreneur Sean Montgomery. Work in developing systems to empower people to understand their bio-information through wearable sensors.
  • see the website that has how-to documents for getting started in this type of work

(Phase 2T) Collaborate and Commit

The two groups that have exposed the class to have different streams or threads of projects. Some are ready-to-go, others are organic.

Students will all be placed on ready-to-go projects. During the commit phase, students can propose organic team projects before the deadline for this phase ends. 

The team members use the team project deliverables form to write up a scope of project work.

The phase concludes with each student member agreeing to the project scope by electronically signing a commitment to the work. Students will also list their learning goals.

What it's worth:

• 3.5 - 6 points (max) = well-communicated scope of project. The entire team has stated learning goals.
• 1.5 - 3 points = scope of work is (a little) confusing.
• 0 - 1 points = nothing submitted or more than 1 week late.

(Phase 3T) Review, Refine, and Reflect

Each team will participate in a class-long design review. Teams will provide documents discussing how they will refine their project after hearing review feedback. Each team member will contribute to a group "reflect and project" document that uses information about how the team has worked so far to predict whether course corrections are needed to hit the projected target.

The review presentation order in AC213 will be:

• Team D -> 2:30 - 2:38 Zack, Melissa, Liz
• Team R -> 2:38 - 2:46 Niyi, Griffin, Camillo
• Team E -> 2:46 - 2:54 Sabrina, Ray, Alison
• Team A -> 2:54 - 3:02 Jane, Shy, Katie
• Team M -> 3:02 - 3:10 Emma, Alli, Athmika

What it's worth: 

• 8 - 12 (max) = a well-framed and delivered review and thoughtful report and action plan submitted.
• 4 - 7.5 points = evidence of planning for a review but a less-smooth presentation, less-thoughtful reflection and lacking appropriate adjustments to the course of the project.
• 0 - 3.5 points = nothing submitted or more than 1 week late.

(Phase 4T) Conclude or Carry on

The Team Project concludes with teams engaging with visitors to the final class session open house period. A follow-on engagement is also encouraged, for guests attending Olin's EXPO event in the morning, who come from local schools.

How-to documents, design files, and deployment plans are team deliverables.
Individual team members each submit a reflection or a "carry on" plan. The individual deliverable can either focus on how the work went though the lens of the author, or a plan for how the team member plans to take courses or opportunities moving forward that relate to the work done during this semester of DREAM.

What it's worth: 

• 8 - 12 (max) = well-documented design files and polished documents.
• 4 - 7.5 points = design files lacking sufficient documentation and rough documents.
• 0 - 3.5 points = nothing submitted or more than 1 week late.