Spin It
Team:
João Vitor Léste
jvleste@hotmail.com
Pedro Henrique Villar
pedro.villar@dbsoft.com.br
Social Group:
Alexandre Ramalho
edfisicarj@hotmail.com
CIEP Agostinho Neto
Visconde de Silva Street, S/n – Humaitá, Rio de Janeiro – RJ, 22271-044
Our project was realized together with Alexandre Ramanho, a teacher who works at CIEP Agostinho Neto, at Humaitá. Alexandre teaches gymnastics to many classes at the school, adapting the activities that will be presented to the students depending on the specifical needs of each class. Regardless of that, the class starts with the students stretching and following a routine they know by heart. After that, the class is divided in groups of boys and groups of girls, which normally play together in the beginning of the class, but are separated afterwards.
After attending series of classes, we managed to be in touch with Alexandre’s Lexicon, from which we recognized as the theme of our project the following sentence: “Hitting the Obstacles with Rules and Hugging Kindness and the Collective Smile” To illustrate the sentence, we can take as an example one of the many activities that happen during class, named “Pac-man”, which consists in a number of catchers trying to tag the other students. But, unlikely most other games, the students may only walk over the painted lines on the gym, can’t run and can’t pass through a tagged player. So, in order for this game to work, students have to pay attention to a series of rules, which are constantly reminded by Alexandre, if they want everyone to have fun. That way, all of them can learn how to follow instructions, pay attention and end up the day very happy.
After many experimentations, we concluded that our project would revolve over building a volley net that could be used by all Alexandre’s classes, regardless of the size and age of the students. In order to accomplish that, we had to build something that could change heights as well as being light and easy to carry around. So, we built to pyramid bodies, made of PVC and a big, round elastic that would pass through all the tubes, making them stick together and stay firm. Beings so, our two towers could maintain 3 different positions: one fully erect, one that was similar to a hourglass (which we achieved by twisting the up base of the pyramid body) and the third, which we achieved by bending the hourglass, being the smallest one, used by the younger children. Also, by using a very light material and dividing some of the tubes in half, we managed to make our object very contractible, turning into a 1m sided triangle that can be easily carried around in a bag we made for Alexandre.
Finally, out project is being used by Alexandre with eager and enthusiasm, and by changing the tower to their different positions, all of the students are being able to enjoy the games and learn new rules and how to respect them.
João Léste:
Now that we have reached the very end of this project, I believe that I have learned a lot about being a Designer, but I’ve also learned a lot about myself. During many of the stages of the process, I found myself wanting to do something in a specific way only because I thought that it would be the right way. But, now, I see that an extremely important part of the Designer’s task is to let go of those thoughts, as we rarely know what’s really the best option, and try to embrace a different context, experiment new things, make mistakes and learn from them.
Many times, I had little patience with certain parts of the process, principally the parts during which we had to try out new and multiple options that didn’t seem like they would work, but I believe that this was a very important probation for me, as it was from this step that I really managed to understand the importance of trying out, regardless of what you think is right.
It was a very difficult task for us to conclude this project, as our prototype was the biggest and most complex one of our class, which had to fulfill many different characteristics that were very difficult to accomplish. During the process of building it, we had many frustrations and had to fix many mistakes, and this is exactly why I believe that concluding this was one of the best experiences I could’ve had so far.
Because of all this, I’d like to thank firstly my team mate, Pedro. He was a very good companion and an even better friend to me. I’d like to thank the monitors of our class, Israel Silva and Mariana Castro, who helped us many times during all this semester, as well as the employees of the Campus’ labs.
I’d like to thank my colleagues, who went through so many different experiences that didn’t even seem like ours, but, in the end came to the same very end. I’d like to thank Alexandre, our partner, who gave us this wonderful opportunity of working and learning from him all about respect, kindness and growing up. I’d like to thank my parents, who supported me during all of the stressful moments of this project, specially my father, who helped us finding a solution for one of the biggest problems we had to overcome.
And, finally, I’d like to thank our teachers, Ana Branco and Vicente Barros, for being the excellent mentors they were during all of this experience. They provided us many moments of questioning, which were absolutely necessary for the outgoing of this step of our learning.
Pedro Villar:
All the experience of Project 2 made me learn, besides everything that Alexandre and our teachers taught us, that the planning and the humanitarian parts of the Designer’s work are the most important ones, and can’t be ignored. During the four months that we attended to Alexandre’s classes, we built something really useful for all of the uses we wanted to cover, but it only happened thanks to our teachers, Ana and Vicente, who told us to build different structures with straws and little elastics, which permitted us testing innumerous possibilities before reaching the one that suited our project the most, and starting building the real one.
This made me realize that we must have patience and dedication, because if we rush things we are subjected to more chances of things going wrong and if something goes wrong, we may not be able to fix it.
So, I’d like to thank João Léste, my team mate, for being beside me during this process, as we always managed to complete all the tasks. His effort and dedication taught me that keeping calm is one of the biggest virtues of the human being and without it peace may turn to chaos in a blink of an eye.
I’d like to thank Alexandre for inspiring us to continue pursuing the best result in the end of our project. Without his optimism and will, we certainly would have lost motivation and wouldn’t be able to reach the result we did. His perseverance taught me that in spite of everything, we can never give up, as if you try hard enough, you’ll eventually reach all your goals.
INTERCESSOR:
I found it very interesting to participate in this project made in CIEP Aogstinho Neto, during gym classes, and it made me happy to be a part of this, always exchanging information during the outcome of the events and proposed activities.
New things, in the sense of buiding new options of material to be used in the development of the students, are always welcome, regarding the rash reality that the teachers working on public schools have to face in a daily basis.
So, I’d like to congratulate to both João and Pedro for the development and dedication that they put into this project and couldn’t thank enough for the kindness they showed to out studends.
Disciplina: DSG 1002
Turma: 1AC
Professores: Ana Branco e Luis Vicente