Starting the 2017 9th Grade Year, I was not prepared for the amount of work that was required in 9th Grade. In the beginning of the year, I was only used to an 8th Grade amount of homework, and was caught off guard by the sudden increase of 9th Grade Homework. I was not used to the schedule for 9th Grade work, and as a result, I did not do as well on some of the projects and assignments. One of the major examples of this struggle I had was with the Puzzle Cube Project. To those who do not know about the Puzzle Cube Project, the Puzzle Cube Project was a project that we did in Introduction to Engineering and Design in 1st Quarter. The point of this project was as an assessment of our skills that we learned earlier in the Quarter. Earlier in the quarter, we learned skills such as drawing isometric sketches (sketches made in diagonal view to show as much detail of a part as possible), working in Autodesk Inventor, and wood-working skills. We learned features in Autodesk Inventor like Mate (which was having the sides of two parts attach to each other), and Flush (which was having the sides of two parts border each other). We learned wood-working skills like hot gluing and sanding (which was rubbing a material on a rough surface to make it smoother). We learned these skills in order to do the project. After we learned the skills that we needed, we began work on the project. The first thing that we did was find all of the individual cubes needed to make the puzzle cube. We took groups of individual cubes and sanded them down to make them around the same size. After we got all of our cubes, we used standard deviation to find how many of the cubes could be used and how many could not be used. This was the Algebra part involved in the project. Once we replaced the cubes that could not be used, we actually began working on the project. The first thing that we did was work in Autodesk Inventor to create the design for our puzzle cube. Using isometric sketches, we reconstructed the shapes of the parts of our cubes, and then connected the parts in an assembly to see how we should create our puzzle cubes when we actually built them. We sanded the cubes further to make them smoother, and then began gluing them together in order to actually make the Puzzle Cube. After making the puzzle cube, we drew isometric sketches of all of the parts of the puzzle cube and an isometric sketch of the complete puzzle cube, and attached them to the finished puzzle cubes. The puzzle cube and isometric sketches were the final products of the project. After completing the project, we received the skills needed to move onto the Model Car Project. I did not do as well on this project specifically because I did not spend my time well during the project. My major flaw was that I changed my plans for the project at the end of the project. I did well at the beginning of the project because I had thought of all of my plans for what to do earlier, and had created the parts in Autodesk Inventor to start on that idea. However, I was not used to the quicker pace of high school work, and I misjudged how much time I had to actually make the Puzzle Cube, so I began working on a new plan. I disliked my old plan because the model only balanced on one or two corners, and since the rubric gave more points to the amount of balancing points of the piece there was, I wanted to redo my design. Once I started, it was too late in the project, and I had to rush through the rest of the project, focusing too much on some details and not enough on others. Overall, I struggled because I did not use my time management skills well, and the craftsmanship of my poor time management skills suffered as a result. This can especially be seen in the parts of the project that were done at the very end of the project, such as my two artifacts of this experience: the Final Isometric Sketch, and the Final Puzzle Cube. The Final Isometric Sketch was the isometric sketch of the final design of our puzzle cubes. The use of the sketch was to show how the piece was supposed to come together, but also to act as a test of how well we could draw isometric sketches. This artifact is evidence of my struggle of time management because of my process in making. I was so focused on getting as much as I could get done in the small amount of time I had left that I had forgotten about the isometric sketch part of the project, so I forgot the paper needed to do the isometric sketch on. Instead, I had to use an older version of the paper to use for the isometric sketch, and I had to complete all of it in an evening. You can see the uneven coloring as evidence of how I had to rush through this part. I did not use my time to work on the project wisely, and due to my poor time management, the part’s craftsmanship suffered. The Final Puzzle Cube was the Puzzle Cube we made in class using our wood-working skills. It acted as the assessment of our wood-working skills, and it acted as the final product of the project. Similarly to the Final Isometric Sketch, this artifact is evidence of my struggles, but this piece conveys my struggles more than explaining my struggles. This artifact is evidence of my struggle of time management because of how low craftsmanship the piece is. We only had time in class to make this piece, and I was already busy with recreating the Autodesk Inventor parts and assembly for the project, so I could not spend enough time to work on the actual puzzle cube. Due to my poor time management, I could not work as much on the puzzle cube, and it shows. You can see in various examples the low craftsmanship caused by my poor time management, such as the crookedness of the blocks and the varying levels of smoothness to the blocks. However, I think the greatest example of low craftsmanship is varying sizes of blocks, which made it so the Final Puzzle Cube could not fit together well. I did not use my time in class as I should have used it, and as a result, the part’s craftsmanship suffered. I did overcome my struggles a little bit at the end by using my time wisely for the extension of the project, but the extension just barely managed to bring my score up for the final piece. I was used to the 8th Grade amount of work required for projects, so the 9th Grade amount of work caught me by surprise. My poor time management was the main cause of my struggle. Luckily, I realized that I had a problem with my time management, and this endeavor encouraged to grow in time management.