Final reflection

Whilst completing my capstone project, the things I learnt about myself is that I am a good woodworker,
but my time management skills and procrastination are extremely bad. I put off working on my project
until three weeks before winter break and that was a huge mistake. One night I realized what I had
done, and it was a downward spiral of stress after realizing how little time I had left. I learnt an especially
important lesson from that and that is to take more responsibility and to no longer procrastinate over
projects I lost a lot of sleep because of the stress, and it could have all been avoided if I just worked on
my project from the start like I was supposed to. I am glad I learnt this lesson like this through the
capstone because if I did this after graduation a lot worse outcome could have happened. Some things
that I learnt about my subject is that average distance between frame pieces is 12 inches, for the siding
of houses and roofs you start from the bottom and go up, and the corner pieces of the house are called
facias they are used to cover the edges of the siding.

This capstone is relevant to me because I have a job opportunity to go into the trades and become a
carpenter. I chose this project so that I could do some basic learning and get a hang of the tools and
terms used in carpentry.

Throughout the duration of my project, there has jurastic growth and learning on the core
competencies. My social responsibility skills have increased a lot as I had to go over my project with Mrs.
Dahl in detail to ensure it was doable. My capstone has really challenged my personal awareness and
self-determination skills because I have had to put a lot of effort and my free time into this project and
that was really hard for me to do then I realized what I needed to do, and I was able to do that after
finding the right motivation which I could not have done without my capstone project so I am happy
because it has helped me get my priorities straight. In result of getting my priorities straight it has really
improved my wellbeing because for a time I was lost and did not know what to do with my life, but this
project has pushed me in the right way and now I am a lot happier as a person. My critical and creative
thinking skills were put through the grinder from my project. I used my creative thinking to design and
layout what I wanted my house to look like and my critical thinking was used whenever I ran into a
problem and needed to think of a solution so I could keep going on with my capstone. I am now able to
produce solutions to problems a lot faster than I was able to do before. If I am being honest, I practically
learnt what time management truly was through this project because before this project I did not have
anything this important with such a strict due date where it is all on the line to make it if I pass or not.
My time management has improved so much through my project because it made me set due dates for
myself and I knew if I did not reach them, I would be behind, so I tried my absolute hardest to get where
I wanted for the time I spent on my project. My communications skills were also tested to the limit
because I am not a confident person so having to talk about what I wanted to do for my capstone and
how I would go about it was incredibly stressful at the start but now I am confident with my ideas and
my perspective on different things now because I am proud of all the work I have done.

My capstone had a profound impact on me. Even Though it might not seem like it this project woke me
up and made me realize that I needed to stop being so lazy and to just start putting my head down and
grind through the work because I have always put work off to the last minute and in previous years it
might have worked but now, I have realized that I can no longer do it and I have now started taking
more responsibility to be the hardest worker I can.
Something I am most proud of from my project is the siding of the house. The siding was a terribly slow
and boring part of the project. Each side of the house took about 2-3m hours to complete and they were
all done by hand with no machines. Even though they were such a pain to do I am happy with how they
turned out because they were an additional detail to add that I did not think about until Mrs. Dahl
suggested that I do them. They turned out amazingly and help make the house look so much better than
before.

The biggest difficulty I ran into was that I had to share the shop with other classes. This was a problem
because I had to share all the machines and tools with the other students. That meant that I would have
to wait for other students to finish what they were doing before I could do what I wanted. This problem
was especially challenging whenever the class started a new project because then the entire class would
be using all the machines. To fix this problem I asked Mrs. Dahl how long it would take for the machines
to clear up and she said about two weeks. So, every time the class started a new project, I would have to
wait two weeks to really do anything to my project up until when I started doing the siding.

If I am being honest, I would go back and change my entire product. I am not disappointed in the final
product or anything I just feel like if I could use my knowledge, I gained from doing the capstone and
was not so lazy at the start I could have made a lot better project and could have followed building
codes to make it as close to a real house as possible. I also would have liked to use actual material
instead of plywood so I could have used the brad Nailer and wood glue instead of using hot glue and
super glue.

The advice I would give to a student who will be doing capstone next year would be to NOT
PROCRASINATE! I procrastinated a lot while I was doing my capstone and I regret it so much. I did not
benefit from procrastinating. It is so much better to just grind away at it and finish early and not have to
worry about it opposed leaving it until lastminute and stressing if you have enough time to do it or
questioning if what you have done is good enough.

My most valuable source was the short YouTube video on the model house. That was such a help
because it gave me a picture of what I wanted my house to look like and how to do it. I used his trick
that he used in the video for cutting out the strips for the framing. His trick was especially useful and
saved me a lot of time.

What I would change about my approach would be, that I went into doing my project thinking it would
be super easy and would not take too long but I was wrong. If I did not have that approach, I believe I
could have had a lot better project and saved myself a lot of overthinking and stress.