PLTW Capstone #6

This post was written for the Project Lead the Way Capstone program.

What has been your biggest challenge with the engineering project so far? What are you most proud of so far?

Our biggest challenge has been adapting the PLTW capstone curriculum to our project, which is a website. Our website is also more informative and a campaign than a technical tool, which is what the PLTW capstone curriculum seems to be targeted for. We did not anticipate how the PLTW curriculum would guide us throughout the semester, but we've made some great progress so far. I'm most proud of my group and how everyone including myself is more or less pulling their weight. Considering our individual circumstances as well as the state of the world, we've done a fantastic job at keeping pace and making sure things get done.

If you could give advice to future seniors in the capstone class what advice would you give them regarding the capstone project?

You might want to immediately dive into building something. However, if it turns out that your idea isn't as great as you thought it was, that will impact the rest of your year. I strongly suggest independent spending at least a few hours among your group researching your topic thoroughly so you will feel more at ease throughout your senior year. While there are units in the capstone curriculum to do market research for your idea and redesign it a little bit, you can't start over since each assignment builds on the previous one. However, no matter what your idea is, just going through the process of research, designing, and building a solution to a problem that you care about is a valuable experience.