marcelo fernandez's ePortfolio

PROBLEM: I’m part of a technical direction team tasked with figuring out the framing for the flats and provide autocad drawings, in charge of budgeting for everything from labor to acquiring necessary materials for the job. Provide a load-in calendar.

WHAT WE UNDERSTOOD: We knew this would be the hardest task due to all the work we have so we understood to best tackle this problem we would have to spread out the work. I was tasked with spear heading the autocad part of the project along with deciding the framing of each the flats.

MAIN ISSUES: My teams came across a couple of main issue was attention to detail, due to the huge amount of work it was hard for us to pinpoint all of the details. Due to us not paying attention to full detail we forgot the ground plan, instructions where to put the carpet and flooring. Our main issue we came across was tackling the problems of this assignment all at once causing us to get swamped and not completely solve the issues which ties back to us missing some details.

ANALOGY/ANALYSIS: Problem 4 taught me to handle problems one at a time, tackling to many problems at once has proved to loss of detail and proved to not be successful. Learning to spread out the work was one main key decisions my team made that we all agree was a great way to tackle the assignment.

APPLICATION: The skill of spreading out the work and the lesson of not tackling all the problems at once will come in handy when I may come across problems that have many parts to it ill learn to tackle one problem at a time and if the future holds me being a technical director these lessons and skills will come in handy.

 

PROBLEM: My teams problem was to research a method to building a curved flat and a type of molding.

WHAT WE UNDERSTOOD: My team understood that this wasn’t gonna be a easy task, we knew of the traditional way to cut a curved piece out of a piece of wood but we decided to think out of the box a experiment with a steam box for the curved piece and make our molding out of different pieces to try to cut down on the weight on the flats.

MAIN ISSUES: During our steam box tests our biggest problem was time, our 1 hour and 20 minute class wasn’t enough time for our test piece to gather enough steam to bend. There was times me and my team came in 3-4 hours earlier to get the steam box going before class to see if it would bend and still it wasn’t enough time. We concluded the reason we couldn’t get the piece to soak up enough steam was because our test piece was too thick and that our steam box a professional steam box and we had gaps and cracks some steam would escape through, we then switched out the test piece for a thinner one and repaired the cracks and gaps as best we could and tested the new piece. The thinner piece proved to be more successful and we were able to bend it

ANALOGY/ANALYSIS:  Problem 3 taught me to think outside the box and experiment with other methods to solve a problem because sometimes the traditional way inst the best. I also learned to better learn from my mistakes and adapt to them for example with the steam box, we learned what the issue was and did our best to fix it to make the test successful.

APPLICATION: The skills I learned from problem 3 I can apply to everyday life such as learning from my mistakes and to think outside the box to solve a issue, learning how to make and operate a steam box may come in handy one day when I need to make curved pieces.

PROBLEM: I’m part of a technical direction team in charge of a scenery team that is responsible for building a deck for a concert and talent show meant to take place after the haunted hotel. The haunted hotel will be striked by the end of Thursday call and 8 days later on Friday night. The talent show is the day after on Saturday and will begin rehearsals at 1 pm. The band for the concert would also like their logo painted on the deck and the talent show would like the floor to be glossy black.

WHAT WE UNDERSTOOD: Me and my team knew we had a strict 8 day deadline to assemble the deck for the concert/talent show and that we must have a plan to switch the bands logo for the glossy black floor.

MAIN ISSUES: The main issues me and my team encountered were figuring out how to do the switch with the band logo and glossy black floors, choosing between painting the band logo on one side and painting the other side glossy black and just flipping them when time comes. But the problem with that was when installing the floor the glossy black could get damaged because its facing the bottom and get scratched against the framing. The final decision was to paint 2 different pieces of Masonite with the logo and glossy black. Another problem I personally encountered was not reading the directions carefully enough, because I didn’t read the directions carefully I messed up the load-in calendar and fit too much work in too little time.

ANALOGY/ANALYSIS: Problem 2 has taught me again to read directions carefully, if I had read the directions carefully I wouldn’t have messed up on the calendar. Problem 2 also taught me to expect the unexpected and plan to spread the work out evenly, I had planned to work on the project on a certain weekend and a family issue came up and took up all my time. Because of the unexpected emergency I had no time to work on the project and was left far behind struggling to catch up with the work on my part, if i had spread the work out evenly throughout the week this set back wouldn’t have hit me as bad and I would’ve had the work caught up in no time.

APPLICATION: With the lessons I’ve learned from problem 2 I’m better prepared to read directions carefully and apply better time management in the event of a emergency whether it be in the workplace or on another project that might appear in the future.

PROBLEM: Iam a project management team at a commercial sandwich shop and we’re tasked with reproducing a specific peanut butter and jelly sandwich using images, a budget of $20 and a strict time line.

WHAT WE UNDERSTOOD: From the beginning I knew we had to be smart and keep track of the money and keep in mind to only purchase the ingredients that would match the pictures given to us by the designer.

MAIN ISSUES: The main problem that our team faced was finding ingredients to match without spending too much on a certain ingredient. Our team encountered many ingredients that were similar but weren’t exactly what the picture looked like and ingredients that looked exactly like the pictures but were pricey. ultimately the team and I concluded we have to stick as close to the pictures as possible even if it meant spending more.

ANALOGY/ANALYSIS:Problem 1 taught me the complexity of being a technical director with something as simple as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I learned to read directions more carefully and to keep an eye on the finer details such as the pictures and how the sandwich should turn out.

APPLICATION: The skills I’ve learned from problem 1 can be applied to the next problems when it comes to paying attention to detail and if there might be any budgeting involved. The same can be said if I was to get a job in the field.