This week was less of a group week and more individual work. We did not meet during class, as there were interactive analysis presentations. We did not meet outside of class this week, either, as it wasn’t necessary for our prepared schedule. We are currently preparing for the 8 week midterm presentations for our project. However, since we were unable to find a class to take together, or at least a couple members, we have since modified the project. As I said last week, a few member will be getting baking lessons from friends who are familiar with baking, a few will be watching youtube tutorials. Meanwhile, I, and possibly one more person, will not be “preparing” for the competition but instead be doing it blind.

Doing nothing, though, does not lend itself well to being filmed, unlike the other two activities. Instead, to give the project a bit of a humorous edge, I will film, or likely be filmed by someone else, eating frosting on the couch, potentially taking a nap, anything to show how little effort I am putting forwards towards preparing for the project. The next step we will be pursuing as a team is our practice session. This will likely be in the next week and will involve practicing the layout of the competition in the setting we plan to be in.

This week we continued to work out the details of the project we chose. We have officially decided to do the cake bake off for our project. This week we had to figure out the timeline of our project and, in this way, we figured out the semantics of our next few weeks. There were a couple different levels that we chose to approach for the assignment this week. The first necessary step of the assignment is to determine which of us is planning on taking a baking class and which baking class to take. Therein lay a difficult problem in preparation for the assignment. A lot of time this week was devoted to trying to find a cake decorating class, however, most of these seem to be only available in other cities. We tried finding courses in Michales, Joann’s and Hyvee’s, which all claimed to have the course on their sites, but did not have any available in Lincoln.

To compensate for this lack of available classes, we had to modify our project a bit. Instead of taking a “professional” class, we decided a member of the group would then take a class from a friend who is often baking and is knowledgeable about the content. For the rest of us, we were broken down into groups of those who would watch Youtube tutorials and those who would do nothing in preparation. From here, we decided to emulate the show “Nailed It” on Netflix and all attempt to create the same cake with our various levels of experience. As well, we planned out a set time to practice this experience so we know what the setting will be like ahead of time.

In our class this week we presented our ideas for the project from the powerpoint we had made the previous week. The three ideas we ended up presenting were as follows: an escape room, a cake off, or “Inside the Ross.” While we discussed a couple of other ideas, these were the main three we enjoyed the most, or had the most potential. In the presentation, however, we determined that “Inside the Ross” wasn’t going to work as it wasn’t interactive enough. Unfortunately, my favorite idea was the Escape Room idea and that one didn’t make the final cut either. I thought it would have been really interesting to see behind the scenes of an escape room, although there was a possibility that would not have been allowed. While we moved beyond that idea, I did find the notion of building our own alternative escape room very interesting. I have worked as a camp counselor for a few years and have had to make way more scavenger hunts for children than I would care to admit, so I think that aspect of it would have been interesting.

The idea we are deciding to go with is the cake off. This sound like it could potentially be an exciting project, as well. The only setback being space available to make the cakes. I like both the ideas of taking a class but for only half the group, as well as adding in a notion of “Nailed It” and trying to recreate/ failing to recreate difficult cakes. Now we have to start looking for possible classes to take and cake styles to recreate.

This week we met our final group member and discussed with him the details of the project and the ideas we had been discussing the previous week. We finished our Team Contract, as well, and turned that into Canvas. Within the contract, we added the concept of ensuring that anything we have due as a group for class, we complete the day before in order to make sure it is done on time. For example, if something is due by Wednesday at midnight we have it completed by Tuesday instead to ensure there is time for another member to aid with the assignment if the original person is unable to do so. I think this is an important rule to add in, as I’m sure we’ve all had group projects where difficulties arise due to other participant’s inactivity.

This week, we also went over our ideas for the project again. We were able to rule out a few improbably ideas, such as a baseball game, and add a few more, my favorite of these being “Inside the Ross” and learning how movies are shown there. However, I am still very excited by one of our original ideas of doing an escape room and perhaps learning the semantics behind it, i.e. how it is set up and what it looks like behind the scenes.

This week our group was initially formed. From here we first became acquainted with each other and determined what some of our strengths and weaknesses are. There are some in the group that are better with photography, specifically, and video or audio, for example. These will be helpful qualities in the future when we are working on the project itself.

Aside from introductions, we spent some time looking at example projects and deciding what we liked from those and could, in part, emulate in our own. As well, we began to think of our own potential ideas for the project. Some of our ideas ranged from taking a class of some kind, having a picnic in the park, doing an escape room, or having a bake off. The major problem we were encountering is time allotted to do the activity, as we all have similar yet busy schedules, and the expense of the activity. While some of the ideas we came up with would be enjoyable, they were too expensive to really pursue.

Lastly, we started working on the contract for our group and found that our ideas on a group project mostly align with each other. For next week, we will continue to think of further ideas for potential activities and finish the contract for the group.