Critical Reflection

Reflection of Module Learning and Project Learning

Through the few weeks of the module, I was able to come closer to my goal of communicating with others using proper conversations that I had set at the beginning of the module. Compared to how I conversed with others on the first week, I believe that I am better at conveying my thoughts to others now. There were countless mediums that helped me to develop good conversational skills, bringing me closer to achieving my goal Previously, in junior college, as part of my A’ Levels Project Work examination, I was required to present our work to a panel of examiners. At that point in time, I was too shy and nervous to converse. However, from the start of this module, I was able to gain confidence in conversing and this was clear to me when I was doing an elevator pitch. During the three-minute pitch, I felt more confident than I thought I would be. I understood that this was mainly because I was interested in the topic that I was learning and had critically evaluated as much detail of the topic as possible such as understanding the design context of the robot that I was pitching to the rest. I believe that I was closer to achieving my goal as I was pulled out of my comfort zone and was forced to communicate with other classmates or even present short ideas in front of the class. Using the skills I had developed from this module, I aim to use it future presentations and when I coordinate with my team members. Moreover, through continuous conversations with team members or doing proper presentations, I think I would be able to develop my skills further as this would increase my experience of speaking in front of people to whom I need to convey my idea to such that they would be able to accept my ideas.

 

In the process of achieving my goal, one learning aspect I have gained from my project would be the writing skills. For the project work that I had done for my A’ Levels, the style of writing a report was different. Through this module, I was able to learn the different types of reports that we might experience and mainly touched on the technical report writing skills. My team took it upon ourselves to suggest a modification for the Thermite RS3 developed by Howe and Howe Technologies. Through the process of identifying the area of improvement it required, I learnt that the foundation of the proposed solution lies in identifying the problem statement and purpose statement having known how the robot works and what are its specifications. This helped us to be able to create a suggestion for the modification of the robot. We were able to discover other sources and research done that involved firefighting robots and implemented similar solutions to our proposed solution. The main takeaway from this experience would be that I was able to gain the skills required to write a proper technical report by understanding the process of writing the report and identifying good resources that would help me to support my ideas and validate my content. Through this experience, for future technical reports, with my current understanding of how to write it properly, I would be able to tackle them and complete the report properly.