Jyler Tharaldsen

Mr. Rudebusch

Senior Project

4/8/24

Reflection

Throughout the duration of my product I spend around 36 hours on the whole

project. I spent the majority of my time shadowing. I spent 2 days shadowing for a total

of 20 hours. The second thing I spent most time on was the final product. It took me

around 9-10 hours to come up with the product, design it, make sure it fits into the way

linemen work, make it attachable and detachable, and make it fit in with the way

lineman work. The rest of the time was spent doing research, making my portfolio and

going through everything closely making sure I covered everything and there were no

errors in my product. My project took a little bit longer than expected because I invented

my own product, from the concept for the idea to the way it looks and works, all of it was

my idea. But I'm glad I took the time to make it the way I wanted it.

With inventing my own product there are a lot of issues that you face, making this

product was no different. The biggest challenge I faced was making the product

lightweight. For this I chose to make it out of aluminum, it's very lightweight but strong,

which is important for the heavy insulators that it will be holding. The second biggest

challenge I faced was making it small. This was an issue because in order for it to be

strong it had to have some size to it. So I figured out that making it attachable and

detachable would be best. This way not only does it have some size but it can also be
taken off the bucket when not used. This way the linemen can maximize space on the

bucket when they are not replacing insulators.

During this project time management was important for me because I am a very

big procrastinator. Coming into this year and starting this project I knew that I couldn't

procrastinate as much as I did in past years. So reprogramming my brain to get it done

early was hard at the beginning year but as the year went on I got way better at it. I

spent a lot of study hall and class time designing my product and making it work the

way I wanted it to work. Overcoming procrastination was huge in this project because it

took so much stress and weight off my shoulders.

I learned a lot from this project, not only about the linemen field, but as well as

myself. Shadowing helped me learn the most because they let me do a lot of things that

they do in the actual field, as well as gave me a lot of helpful tips and pointers about

what to do coming out of college that they didn’t do but should’ve done. Having this

knowledge going into college will give me a head start compared to the other kids also

going into the linemen program. I will use this knowledge to get ahead and stay ahead

of the people in my class which will be a big advantage for me