STEM Senior

Engineering
Final Report
.
By Mateo Eusebio,
Ethan Fonarev,
Diego Gutierrez,
Daniel Bazikian

Table of Contents
List of Individual Contributions to the Report 2

Problem Definition 3

Design Requirements 4

Conceptual Design 5
- Alternative Concepts
- Evaluation of Alternatives
- Selection of Concept

Detailed Design
- Main Features and How They Work
- Results of Analysis, Experiments, and Models
- Manufacturing Details

Performance Evaluation

Lessons Learned

Bibliography

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List of Individual Contributions to the
Report

Mateo Eusebio
- Alternative Concepts
- Evaluation of Alternatives
- Selection of Concept
- Mateo’s Reflection

Ethan Fonarev
- List of Individual Contributions to the Report
- Problem Definition
- Design Requirements
- Ethan’s Reflection

Diego Gutierrez
- Performance Evaluation
- Group Reflection
- Bibliography
- Diego’s Reflection

Daniel Bazikian
- Main Features and How They Work
- Results of Analysis, Experiments, and Models
- Manufacturing Details
- Daniel’s Reflection

Problem Definition

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Current Problems

Current problems to music production climate include music being intimidating to

those who are not greatly musically inclined, but have some sort of interest in a musical
hobby or appreciate music as an art, whether it be an instrument or making simple
beats. There also aren’t many places where you can get desired sounds to create music
all in one place, which would be the aim of our digital kit. But we see one of the biggest
problems being the decline in quality of life without a musical hobby (or any hobby) to
balance out work and fun and the lack of good beginner sound kits out there.

Current Solutions

Current solutions to music production are the distribution of digital sound packs,
built-in stock sounds on popular music programs, and video-to-mp3 websites. These
solutions, although widespread, are not up to snuff. The aforementioned sound packs
often range from $30 to $160, prices that are often daunting for many beginners. Built-in
stock sounds, although cheap, are of a much lower quality, and are so commonly used
that producers would be incapable of refining their own sound. Lastly, video-to-mp3
websites only provide an uncut, incomplete sample, that the producer would have to
edit.

Appeal of our Product

Many of the current problems are fixed through our product by being easy to use,
easy to apply, very cheap, very good quality, and safe for beginners. Although our
product works great for beginners, it can be used by people of all ages. The ease of
access is the biggest highlight, making our product very user friendly. We will be
creating a simple interface to draw in more people who wouldn’t normally be as inclined
to make music. We are ultimately attempting to provide opportunities for others to
venture into the field of music production whether as a hobby or intro for a potential
career.

Design Requirements

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The Design Strategy

The design strategy is a method in which a firm or company undergoes the

conceptualization, design, testing, and creation of a product. The design strategy of our
group was an arduous process, involving a rigorous conceptualization phase, a test
plan setup, tests, and prototyping before the final product was considered ready.

Design Goals

Looking back at the problem, sound engineering is something that is inaccessible

for many people. Many people are also interested in creating music. The two core pillars
of our work are accessibility, so that we can actually fix the problem, and marketability,
so that people actually know that the problem has been solved.

During our product evaluation phase, a list of requirements was made and
weighted. That list was then put on a spreadsheet and the spreadsheet was coded to
allow us to easily and reliably calculate the values of conceptual designs. Below are the
list of qualities that we value in a design:

Accessibility - 33%

Affordability - 13%

Uniqueness - 16.3%

Utility - 5.4%

Market - 8.3%

Market Appeal - 17%

Simplicity - 7%

Conceptual Design

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Alternative Concepts
In order to select the best possible concept, we came up with ideas for a
production related product that fit the basic role of making music production more
accessible. We took into consideration the weight of each requirement from our
product evaluation (the higher the weight, the more we value that aspect of our
product design. This left us with 3 main concepts: a music maker app/DAW for
mobile phones, digital pre made sound packs, and physical sound kits.
Music Maker App: An app for mobile devices which would serve
as an easy to use digital audio workspace. It would come with digital
instruments/sounds.

Pros: Easy to use, everything required to produce is in one place

Cons: Difficult to create, not very marketable since so many exist,

would not be cost efficient.

Digital Sound Packs: Sound packs created by us using various

instruments. These sounds would be downloadable from our website
and in a format which is able to be used on any DAW. These sounds
would come with tutorials on our website as to how to use them and
what specific use they could have in ones music. Would be sold very
cheap.

Pros: Easily accessible idea, easy to purchase, easy to use, cheap

both for the customer and producer.

Cons: Download can be unreliable.

Physical Sound Kits: A physical starter kit, which would include

tools to make sounds with.

Pros: Very hands on for the user

Cons: Does not truly capture music production, would be expensive

to acquire specific tools, no demand for such a product.

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 Evaluation of Alternatives
In order to vote on what we would like to make as a product and to find
what would best meet the ideas we value, we used a google spreadsheet. The
weights of each requirement that we decided upon earlier were entered into this
spreadsheet calculator. Under each of the concepts, we gave each of the
requirements a value based on what we think would make the best product,
similar to the weighing of the requirements. The value we gave would be
multiplied by the weight and a total score was given for each concept.

Selection of Concept

The scores calculated for each of the concepts exhibited to us that the digital
sound kits were our best bet for a product. It fits our primary values of
affordability and accessibility. Not only can they be downloaded directly from a
website, but they also provide the freedom of being able to use them on any
DAW. This fills that niche of being an accessible yet affordable production related
product.

Detailed Design
Main Features and How They Work

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 Results of Analysis, Experiments, and Models

The purpose of the experiments we have conducted is to test the general functionality of
our website and our product. We conducted 3 experiments in total; 2 having to do with our
website and software engineering, and 1 being more geared towards sound engineering and
our actual product. The first experiment was testing the transaction function/code of our website.
This helps us to know how efficient our transactional system is, and to allow users to buy
products from us. The second experiment tested our websites downloads. This ensures that
conversion and downloading from our website will not reduce the actual quality of our product.
The final experiment was sound related, and had us test different levels of volume, gain, and
other aspects of the mixing process. This helps us determine the settings necessary to make
our product sound good.

Transactional coding

Analysis:

In order to actually yield profit from our product, we must first figure out
how monetary transactions would occur, involving an exchange of money for
digital information. This aspect is crucial to our project because this is not only
how we make a profit, but also how we distribute our product safely.

Hypothesis

All methods of payment will be successful.

Once again, we are not testing for a calculable quantity. We are testing
for a condition. This condition will be the confirmation of payment through VISA
and Paypal, our two principal forms of transactional functions on the website.

Independent Variable: The transaction service used.

Dependent Variable: The success of the transaction.

Control: This experiment will not have a control because we are trying to confirm
a condition. Without an ideal example in our own code, we have to create and
test for this condition on our own.

Materials Required:

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 -Computer
-Stable Internet Connection
-Standard Python Console
-Paypal Account
-VISA Account
-$25.00

Procedure:

1. Create a mock product on the shop page.

2. Encode a link to the button on the product that transfers information to the
shopping cart page
3. Encode a link to the checkout page on the checkout button
4. Add item to cart
5. Analyze checkout page and see if:
a. Price is listed
b. Price is calculated
c. Checkout is available
6. Checkout the item
7. Check checkout page for VISA and Paypal options
8. Checkout the product through either method
9. Repeat steps 1-8 for alternative method

Detailed Drawings:

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Results:

Below are the table results for our tests on specific functions that we wanted to have on our
website.

Add-To Cart Function Remove From Cart Function

$1.00 Mock (Sound_1) Success Success

$5.00 Mock (Sound_2) Success Success

$20.00 Mock (Sound_3) Success Success

Below are the results for the transactions of varying amounts through use of VISA and Paypal in
our store.

Account Purchase VISA Paypal

$1.00 (Sound_1) Success Success

$5.00 (Sound_2) Success Success

$20.00 (Sound_3) Success Success

Code:

class Item:
def __init__(self, name, price):
self.name = name
self.price = price

def getPrice(self):
return self.price

def getName(self):
return self.name

class Cart:
def __init__(self, list):
self.list = []

def addItem(self, item):

self.list.append(self.list)

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 def getTotal(self):
total = 0
for item in self.list:
name, price = item # or price = item[1]
total = total + price

def getNumItems(self):
count = 0 for c in range(self.list): count = self.list + 1 return count

def removeItem(self, item) #removes the item from the cart's item list

def main():
item1 = Item("Sound1", .69)
item2 = Item("Sound2", 2.39)
item3 = Item("Sound3", .99)
c = Cart() c.addItem(item1)
c.addItem(item2)
c.addItem(item3)
print "You have %i items in your cart for a total of $%.02f" %(c.getNumItems(),
c.getTotal())
c.removeItem(item3)
print "You have %i items in your cart for a total of $%.02f" % (c.getNumItems(), c.getTotal())
main()

-Courtesy of Pymbook.com

Conclusion:

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 If we use the redux platform on Python to facilitate our transactions, then we will be able
to receive payments from customers. During our experiment, we created substitute products
with which to complete various transactions. We used the above code to add these items to the
cart and relied on preset VISA and Paypal transactional systems to complete these purchases.
Across the board, we saw successful transactions and cart functionality procedures. In the case
of a customer, they will be able to take advantage of the system we have set up to complete
purchases. Therefore, the redux platform on Python that we have used will allow us to receive
monetary payments for our product from customers.

Download tests

Analysis:

We will download sounds in different versions of file formats such as MP3, WAV, and AIFF
Audio with both compressed and uncompressed data consisting of sounds we are selling. This
aspect is necessary to reach as large of an audience as possible.

The above graph shows the total shipment of computers throughout the world based on
operating systems. As shown, Windows operating systems dominate the market with
Apple (OS X) far behind in its second place spot.
However, despite Windows’ sale supremacy, many people have said that they actually
prefer OS X to Windows. In a study by jamf.com, researchers asked thousands of
students across five countries which kind of computer they preferred. 71% of students
said that they’d rather use a Mac. This is significant because our target demographic is
primarily students who want to make music.
Despite the overwhelming majority of Windows shipments, a statistical error must be
understood. The above graph shows a total shipment of computers across the world.

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The above statistics don’t take into account the reasons for shipment which might
involve miscellaneous reasons such as military, federal, business, IT, or other kinds of
uses. This means that our current demographic may very well be much more various in
the operating systems that customers have (OS X and Windows being the two leaders).

In conclusion, it means that making sure that our product is compatible with all kinds of
operating systems is crucial to extend ourselves to as large an audience as possible,
aligning with our 33% weighted goal of accessibility in our product.

Hypothesis:

All audio files will retain the same file size (bytes) after file conversion.

We will calculate and document the file size because we want all files across every
system to be a similar size to one another while retaining the quality. The same kind of
file size and quality reflects a proper conversion.

Independent Variable: The file’s format.

Dependent Variable: The size of the file.

Control: The starting file that we will convert.

Materials Required:

-Mac Computer
-Windows Computer
-Chromebook
-Stable Internet Connection
-Audio Recording Device
-Audio File Format Converter: This will allow us to convert audio files into different
formats that are compatible with different operating systems such as Mac/Windows/Linux.

Procedure:

1. Record a set of basic audio clips

2. Upload the Django redux program to the website (function explained in experiment 1)
3. Upload the audio clips to the website
4. From a Mac Computer, download the audio file and see if the file is compatible with the
system
5. Repeat steps 1-4 with the Chromebook and Windows computers

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 6. For the incompatible computers, convert the downloaded files to a compatible format
and upload them to the website.
7. Clear all systems of those files and download them again
8. Integrate each file into each OS’s respective music production program and document
the quality of the sound.
9. Document the file sizes of each sound.

Results

Byte Size MP3 WAV AIFF

Sound Clip 1 715 KB 5.11 MB 5.11 MB

(https://www.yout
ube.com/watch?
v=ApjngIHXPFI)

Sound Clip 2 162 KB 1.14 MB 588.05 KB

(https://www.yout
ube.com/watch?
v=k3Sc0XKJUpw)

Conclusion:
MP3s are smaller than WAV and AIF files because they are compressed using
lossy compression. Lossy compression means that some information is lost when the
files are made smaller. High-quality MP3s are less compressed; therefore, they discard
less data, but they are usually larger in size than lower-quality MP3s. We converted our
youtube audio clip to a lossless MP3(meaning it didn’t decrease in quality), and then
converted the MP3’s to the WAV and AIFF which among MP3 are the most popular file
formats for audio in the music production industry. Our website will allow access for one
to convert the audio to the format of their choice but we will indicate the one that takes
the least data while still being lossless. Our MP3 conversion will be of higher quality
than most but if audio quality is the biggest priority users can go with other forms of file
formats which take up more bytes.
Volume and Tone Management Test

Analysis - In this test we will study the effects of volume and gain increase on audio tracks. To
do this we will take multiple sounds (guitar,keyboards,FX,etc.) and manipulate track and amp

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volume/gain. Using the data collected from this test, we will best determine standard volume
output and mixing necessary for our final product.
Hypothesis - When audio undergoes gain and volume increase, sound quality will diminish.
Independent Variables
● Gain increase/decrease
● Volume increase/decrease
● Headspace change under single track volume increase/decrease
● Headspace change under master/stereo-out volume increase/decrease
Dependent Variables
● Audio overloading
● Sound purity diminishing
● Audio corruption
Control
● Microphone used
● Distance between mic and instrument
● Input selection
Materials Required
● Microphone
● Various instruments
● DAW
Procedure
1. We start by creating multiple tracks (about 6-8) which will house the audio that will be
tested later
2. Run pre-test analysis of workstation to make sure there aren’t any discrepancies in
baseline volume+EQ
a. Once volume+EQ equality is confirmed between all tracks, testing can begin
3. Start by increasing the gain to about “5” on the amplifiers of each track
4. Play the length of all audio in tracks and analyze peak levels (document any overloading
of headspace or volume neutrality)
5. Bring gain to “10” and repeat step 4
6. Finally, open Master EQ and play the length of audio in tracks. Note peaking and
placement of sound waves to determine tonal purity.
Results
● Upon completion of Step 3 peak level went to -3.7
○ No notable overloading - volume neutrality undisturbed
● After completing Step 5 there was a noticeable difference when gain was put to max.
Peak level reached 1.3, surpassing the level 5 gain test. After analysis in the Master EQ,
large peaks were seen from 75 - 100Hz.

Gain 0 Gain 5 Gain 10

Trial 1 (Peak Level) -21.5dBFS -7.3dBFS 1.3dBFS

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 Trial 2 (Peak Level) -20.2dBFS -5.4dBFS 1.03dBFS

Trial 3 (Peak Level) -23.07dBFS -6.74dBFS 1.14dBFS

*dBFS = a unit of measurement for amplitude levels in digital systems

*Gain = how loud the INPUT of the channel or amp is. It controls tone, not loudness.

Conclusion
When audio undergoes gain and volume increase, sound will diminish. By this, I mean
that the actual quality of the audio will worsen to a distorted form. This happens when a track’s
output is turned up so loud that the audio-out overloads. For this experiment, we created tracks
to house audio for the trials. We then adjusted to gain to 5 and 10 in multiple trials to see if this
hypothesis proved true. After setting gain to 0 the trial began, and the results showed there to
be no notable overloading and the volume neutrality was undisturbed. The peak level went to
about -3.7. When the gain was turned up to 10, the peak level increased noticeably, to around
1.3. This means that our hypothesis proved to be true. From these results, we gathered that
gain should probably remain around 5 or lower, as to not lower the sound quality more than it
needs to be.

Discussion Section:

Overall, we can confidently conclude that our product is viable and fits the necessary
specifications that we demand from it. After an arduous series of tests and test plan setups, we
have achieved the results necessary to consider this product viable. Before we began the
evaluation of our ideas, we have deduced that the two core aspects of interest for us are the
accessibility of the product and its marketability.

Accessibility pertains primarily to the ability for an inexperienced consumer to properly and
reliably engage with our product without trouble or fail. It also pertains to the customer’s ability
to acquire this product monetarily without much financial risk or strain. Overall, accessibility
relates to the product’s ease of use and a reasonable price.

Marketability pertains primarily to the uniqueness, interest, and direct catering to our market.
Without it, we cannot sell our product and turn a profit. Marketability involves aspects such as
how unique the product is. If it isn’t unique, we can’t set ourselves apart from our competitors. If
it isn’t interesting, no one will look into it. If it doesn’t cater to our market, no one will buy it. In
reviewing much of what we have already completed with our tests, it is clear that our product
can hit these two pillars of interest.

Overall, our final product will be a digital service that sells sound online through our website.
The website will contain an online store page through which customers can purchase the
sounds they want. They can purchase these sounds either in complete packs or in individual
files. The sounds will be quite cheap and involve a VISA or PayPal method of transaction with
which our customers can make the final purchase.

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This aspect pertains directly to the first experiment that we performed; that experiment of
interest being the Transactional Coding experiment. The Transactional Coding Experiment was
completed and tested above, and it details our process of coding using the Django Python redux
coding program that has allowed us to create a tangible connection between our website and
transactional service providers such as VISA and PayPal. The success of this experiment
indicates that transactions can be made, therefore, enabling us to set a reasonable and
accessible price for our product. This fits into our pillar of accessibility.

The next experiment had to do with Download Tests experiments. This experiment of focus
involved the downloading of different audio formatted files on different operating systems. The
success of our downloads and the maintaining of similar-sized audio files in bytes, kilobytes,
and megabytes allowed us to prove that we are able to easily and reliably provide our service
through a digital medium with no cost or drawback in product quality. This also fits into our pillar
of accessibility.

The final experiment affirmed the reliability of our product and its marketability because the final
experiment involved testing sound quality. The sound quality of our sounds produced is strong
and of high quality, making it comparable to other competitors on the market that we are
against. This is important because this allows us to provide a high quality product that is
comparable to our competitors, meaning that many people will go ahead and buy it.

Furthermore, taking into consideration the other experiments, we have a product that is
accessible because it is sold on a digital market space (95% of our sample size from the survey
said they own computers meaning that a majority of people can buy our product) and also our
product is of high quality and good price. This is also affirmed by our ability to set prices and sell
our product via PayPal and VISA and also by the easy downloads from our other test.

In conclusion, our product is more than viable and a strong competitor in the market.

Manufacturing Details

Introduction

The overall process of production for our project will be to take instruments,
record their myriad sounds, manipulate them in a sound engineering software,
compress and convert these sounds into files, upload them to our website, and sell them
there. Below are the in-depth descriptions of each step of the process and the materials,
aspects of production, and factors that we are taking into account.

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Raw Materials
Since we aren’t creating a physical product, our raw materials will mostly consist of the
instruments we are using to create our sounds, and our means of recording them.
- Drum Kit
- Electric Guitars (2)
- Classical Guitar
- Electric Bass Guitar
- Keyboard
- Alto Sax
- Bongo Drums
- Acoustic Guitar
- Logic Pro X Program
- Macbook Pro
- Blue Snowball Microphone
We have chosen the above instruments because those are what we currently have at our
disposal. Furthermore, the above instruments have a considerable variety of sounds,
frequencies, and pitches that they can produce to where we don’t need additional
instruments.
Purchase of additional instruments would be wasteful and unnecessary.

Transportation/Distribution

Transportation of our product will be entirely virtual through our website. The
website will contain a set of pre-made packs as well as a vast library of individual
sounds that users can put together into their own, custom sound packs. Before making
any decisions on what they will buy, they will have the ability to preview and interact
with these sounds on our website.
Distribution will also occur through our website and be entirely virtual.
Customers will purchase sound packs, whether it be pre-made or custom, through our

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online store. The online store will be based entirely on the Python extension “Django
redux”, which will constitute a majority of the code required for online transportation to
occur.
Products will, after purchase, be able to subsequently download these sounds and
integrate them into their music production programs immediately.
Transportation of the sounds will rely on downloads. We will present customers with
the option to download our content in a file version compatible with their system.
Compatibility with each system will be indicated by a set of icons beneath the sound file
icon for download.

As shown above, we have the principle sound icon with the Microsoft, Apple, and
Chrome icons beneath it. Whichever operating system the user has, they can click on
that icon to download their file.
Cost-wise, our method of transportation and distribution is incredibly cheap and
extraordinarily efficient in getting our product out to our customers. The only money
we would have to spend are bank fees for an official MEDD VISA account which we can
open because we have a legal adult on the team.
By ensuring that all content is sold and downloaded on our website, we centralize
the distribution and transportation of our content.

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Manufacturing Processes

Because we are selling a purely non-physical product, manufacturing will be done

entirely digitally (using internet technology in our computers). When it comes to digital
files all creation of the product is done through coding software, 3rd party applications,
or automatically in different file forms (.mp3,.jpeg,.png,etc.) Files are collections of data
stored in one unit; usually containing photos, documents, sounds, or videos.
In our case, we will be recording and converting our product in the application
LogicProX. We have chosen this software as our principal form of manufacturing
because it is free and intuitive. It also gives us the greatest freedom with sound
manipulation out of any other program out there. There we will take audio and convert
it into .mp3 files through a process called “Rendering” or “Bouncing”. Bouncing, or
rendering, is how your DAW turns your project into files on your hard drive. The term
bouncing comes from the analog era, where the track count had a hard limit on tape
machines.
Given the product comes in the form of audio files (.wav, .vst, etc) distribution
will simply be automated whenever the customer purchases and chooses to download
said files. Downloadable information is created and stored on the customer’s device
almost instantly, making our products “manufacturing” process simple and efficient.
Any other manipulation to the file is up to, and done, by the customer.

Use, Re-Use, and Maintenance

Use:

Hardware:

The listed hardware (computers, microphone, etc.) will be used to capture and
store the sounds that we record. The microphone will pick up the sounds made by the
instruments that we are going to use to make sound. The microphone will then take
what we record and upload it into our computer.

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 Instruments:

The instruments will be used to create the first iterations of our sounds. With our
instruments, we can produce authentic recordings at different frequencies and pitches
naturally. Each note that we can play will be recorded from each instrument. Once all of
their sounds have been recorded, their use will be finished.

Software:

The software that we’re going to use (Audacity, LogicProX) are going to serve as
digital workstations where we take the sounds that we recorded and alter them to fit our
needs. Raw audio will be distorted and altered to produce different kinds of sounds. The
programs will then compress and convert these sounds into downloadable files that we
will post on the website to sell.

Re-Use:

After the purchase of the product, the customer’s purchase history will be
updated. Subsequently, that purchase will appear on the customer’s account page from
which they can re-download the file if they need to.
If the file is already downloaded and the customer wants to, the downloaded file
can be used to other projects of theirs.

Maintenance:

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 Maintenance of the product would primarily involve updates in software to meet
program-related compatibility needs. In maintaining the relevance of our product, we
have to take into account the software’s current version, the popular program of choice,
and the operating system on which this program exists.
These updates will occur whenever a software or hardware update of significant
scale happens. Operating systems of focus will be Windows, Mac, and Linux. Software
programs of focus will be Audacity, LogicProX, REAPER, ProTools, FLStudio, Ableton,
and other DAWs, or “Digital Audio Workstations”. These file formats will be in
.mp3, .wav, and .vst formats.

Recycling

-Relating to Used Materials

Because we’re going to use physical materials to create some of the sounds, those
materials will either be household appliances whose use will go beyond just making a
sound or easily disposable, recyclable materials like metal sheets, wood, or wire.

-Relating to the Product Itself

Being that the product is entirely digital, physical recycling methods won’t be
necessary. However, digital recycling of the product must be solved because it would be
anti-consumer to have a customer purchase our sounds and be unable to reacquire them
digitally after purchase. With this in mind, we intend to allow for customers to create
accounts through our website that have their purchased sounds saved to their account
database. These sounds can then be re-downloaded by the user because the account will
contain confirmation of purchase.

Waste and Emissions

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 Since our product will be strictly a digital program there will be no direct waste
emission from our program. Our final product will strictly consist of an online program
that is only available on the internet. However, one could get technical and argue the
internet’s carbon footprint which introduces carbon emissions produced from
manufacturing, powering and cooling computers, smartphones, and data centers
producing one billion tonnes of greenhouse gases a year. So therefore, our product
indirectly will be contributing to carbon emissions due to the impact of internet usage’s
effect on the environment.

Performance Evaluation

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Lessons Learned

Group Reflection

This year was very difficult for us. Under lockdown, we had only a semester to
complete a year-long project, no access to the design lab, and a tremendous amount of
other responsibilities to keep track of. Our output in this class was hard-fought and hard-
made. Most importantly, the product we made is not simply a conceptual outline, but a
tangible creation that we are now able to monetize and distribute.
During the process, we refined our time management skills, learning how and
when to prioritize certain tasks, and how to distribute them evenly so that everyone
carries their own weight. As a result, we have become much more efficient and precise
with our work.
We also learned to stay true to our original design and interests. At the beginning
of the year, we proposed an unorthodox product and had it challenged throughout the
semester. Despite external pressure and doubt, we prevailed, putting together a product
that is inherently ours. This was done in the same vein as other great innovators and
thinkers like Galileo, Bill Gates, and Nikola Tesla who held onto their ideas and their
dreams and saw them fulfilled when society told them not to.

Mateo’s Reflection
STEM as a whole has been an interesting experience. No matter the project, I’ve
always made sure to enjoy myself, and to learn everything I can from the project. This

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project was no different, whether I was growing intellectually or as a person. In terms of
what I contributed, I was a punctual worker, getting my share of the work done on time
consistently and with care. In terms of leadership, it really grew this year. In the
beginning of my STEM experience freshman year, I was not really much of a leader. But
I consistently improved my communication with each project, and with this project I was
able to make sure my group was always on the same page and had something to work
on. Other than growth, the best part of this project was the open ended nature. We were
able to do a project based on something I (and all of my group) love; music.

With such a big project however came challenges. Completing work with quality
was more difficult than I wish it were, as the whole course online was so fast paced.
Since the whole curriculum was condensed into one semester, it was difficult to deliver
quality while also being punctual. In the end we created a quality product, but it was a
challenge nevertheless. We also were limited when it came to meeting in person, due to
the COVID-19 pandemic. With this, it was difficult to not lose motivation, and we had to
push through.

In conclusion, this project was difficult but I did learn a few things that will help
me in the long run.

Ethan’s Reflection

Throughout my time in STEM I’ve always gravitated towards the leader position.
It’s an instinct that I have because I feel like that position enables me to facilitate and
encourage progress. Throughout this project, my role was no different, as I would
proactively encourage my teammates, distribute work, and often serve as a diplomat to
our teacher.
However, this position has brought up many challenges that other, smaller
projects don’t. Because we had to complete a year’s worth of content within the span of
a semester, we were constantly dealing with immense amounts of work. There were
many moments where we were feeling discouraged, and I had to learn how to maturely
and responsibly proceed through the thick in a way that was best, not for me, but for the
group.

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 This year, I emerge more tolerant, more empathetic, and more firm as a leader,
and I will take this experience with me into college.

Diego’s Reflection

Daniel’s Reflection

25
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