Week 5: Contemplation

I'm not going to waste your time. There isn't much to be said.

Pratik and I received a couple parts in the mail, which we soldered together.

With these parts, we now have a complete flight control board, which is essentially the brains of the quadcopter. It contains the gyroscope, accelerometer, and processor.

It was fun to assemble. Fun meaning painful, since the pins were sharp and soldering irons are very hot.

Isn't she beautiful? Yes, the flight control board is a she.

Unfortunately, the actual parts of the quadcopter (meaning the parts that fly and whatnot) are... somewhere. To be honest, we have no idea where they are. 

Other than that, no progress. We still know how to build it and all of that jazz, but we can't.

There isn't much more we can learn. Which is how we arrive at the boring part.

This week, I've been thinking more about the project as a whole. About what I've learned from it.

What I've realized is that a lot of lessons can be taken from all of the frustrations we've had, and that these lessons aren't just relevant to quadcopters. They're relevant to everything.

This week, I've been reading about setbacks.

I'm going to go through the advice given by each of the resources that I've read, and see how I can apply it to my own project.

First, from Buzzle (nice name)

1) Focus on yourself.                  Yeah... check. No explanation needed there

2) Keep a Good Company.         The writer warns not to stay around people who constantly complain. In this case that'd be me. All I've done for the past few weeks is complain, so I guess that's something that I should change.

3) Visualize Positive factors:      I tried so so so hard to see the positives behind not having and of the resources I needed for my project. It was hard. But I guess I learned a few life lessons. More on those later.

4) Stop Procrastinating.               Let's NOT get into that... lots of issues there. But at least for this project, I didn't really procrastinate that much. I had nothing to procrastinate, except for these blog posts.

5) Share your feelings.                 I guess I have shared my feelings, to the 5 people a week who actually read this blog. Thanks for that. And I guess it makes me feel a little better to be able to see that what I'm thinking actually makes sense.

Next comes SparkPeople (sparknotes for people?)

1) Be objective                      Ok, I blame shipping/customs/the company for most of my trouble. But looking back, maybe if I had ordered the parts a day or two earlier, maybe there wouldn't have been a paperwork error and I wouldn't have all of these issues. And I suppose in the grand scheme of things, this isn't that big of a deal. In fact, even if the parts don't get here until well after this project ends --SPOILERS WHOOPS that will be covered in the end.

2) Bounce back                       Looking at the goals that I set at the beginning of this project, I realize that a lot of them should be edited. My original plan was to CAD and have all design done far before the start of construction, but in hindsight, I can't CAD something that doesn't yet exist. Additionally, I was naive to believe that I could completely program something as complex as a quadcopter. That honestly didn't belong in my goals. Finally, I probably shouldn't have picked this project in the first place; it was far too short of a time frame for me to realistically expect to finish the entire quadcopter. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess.

3) Don't live with regrets       This is the hardest for me. I've always been a person to hold grudges: against other people, against myself, or just against life. But I guess it's true that I have to let go at some point. 

Finally, the producers of the ACT actually produced a guide for recovering from setbacks. (remind me not to take that test...)

1) Reframe the failure        I quote "Instead of a 'failure,' call it a life-learning experience" And I guess that's exactly what I'm trying to do. Without a product, this is also what my TED talk is going to be about for the most part.      As I've said twice now (if anyone's actually reading this :/ ) more on that later.

2) De-catastrophize           Interesting wording. Essentially, they recommend breaking down the catastrophe to see how bad it actually is. I'd say mine is decently bad in the context of this project. I kinda don't have a project...

3) Accept responsibility    This one is pretty similar to Be objective. I guess that to some extent, this could be my fault.

4) Acquire knowledge       What have I learned? Always be ready for unexpected setbacks. Order things WAY ahead of time. Don't trust US Customs.

5) Persevere                       I won't give up. This is only the beginning, you'll see

6) Join forces                     #Pratik

So after thinking it through, analyzing it, consulting experts (the internet), and just thinking about my quadcopter issues, this is what I truly can take away from this project.

Sometimes s*** happens. That's something I learned from Forrest Gump.

One of the best movies ever. And so true.

And it's so true. Unfortunate things happen in all parts of life. Nothing is perfect. But what truly defines us is how we respond. 

For me, I know what I'm going to do. I don't care when those parts get here, it could be next week, it could be next year. But when they do, I sure as hell will be working on my quadcopter.

Someday, I WILL watch as our quadcopter flies. Maybe it'll crash the first time. Maybe it'll explode and go down in flames. 

But that won't stop me. 

As John F Kennedy once said: "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

I don't have such an amazing goal, I'm not going to the moon. But for me, this is every bit as important.

Because building a quadcopter isn't just a project for a gifted class for me. Its something that I truly want to do. 

If it has done no other good, not getting my parts has made me more dedicated that I'll build that quadcopter someday.

Resources

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/

http://www.sparkpeople.com/

http://www.act.org/

Other blogs
http://sundrew.blogspot.com/
http://heylookiwroteabook.blogspot.com/
http://designsbyjennyd.blogspot.com/