Decision Making Issue

During the decision making process in class, I ended up following the role of “avoidance.” I didn’t want to be this role but as I saw a group of 8-10 people up in the front arguing, adding one more person would make things even less efficient. As I witnessed more chaos and little arguments I realized that there were egos in the class that would impede the process. I actually tried to get involved and give a suggestion but I was quickly shutdown and told “Yea, we know. Don’t worry we got this.”
Knowing the end result of our troubles, I would have instead involved the class at the beginning of the voting process to get a grasp on the ideas that the people had. I realized talking in groups didn’t really matter because then the class would have to be polled anyways. If we had a more town hall like meeting, where anyone who wanted to voice their opinion can, our goals would have progressed quicker.

The Yo-Yo Plan

We wanted to create the most simple setup that would ensure the egg’s safety when dropped. Once we realized that only 8 straws and 2 feet of tape would be provided as well as one pair of scissors for the whole class, we began to plan. Quickly, everyone with ideas drew out how their setup would look and those who couldn’t draw instead spoke of their contraption. After viewing and hearing the group’s ideas, we concluded on one with a few changes. Basically, we let the two people who came up with the idea, lead the process. The suggestion was to create a chain of straws that would lower the egg as far down as 8 straws lengths would take us. This idea was constantly referred to resemble a yo-yo (lol). From there we hoped the drop wouldn’t be too far for the egg. Some doubts arose about the egg’s safety so we wanted to modify it. We figured that the egg would have to drop about 4 feet still with no protection around it. This was the major flaw of the original idea. We then decided to save one straw to wrap around the egg as a means of protection. This idea however made the drop even longer. Another group member suggested that we cut the straw length wise so that we can double the amount of material we had without breaking the rules. With this new length, we concluded that we can use 15 straws to create the yo-yo and use one straw to wrap the egg. The only problem with this idea is that with more chains, we would have to use more tape. Knowing this, we risked it and hoped that there would be enough tape for the assignment.
The plan was to have one person cutting the straws in half while another rips the tape into small pieces. Another person was to just hold the egg to make sure it doesn’t crack and risk the whole project. Three people were assigned the task of attaching the straws to one another. The last person brought whatever items the groups needed as well kept the time limit. In addition, that person was running around trying to get the group the scissor. As we began to tape the straws, we realized that the only female in our group excelled in taping the straws perfectly in which the right amount of tape was used and the straws were placed correctly. Having other people do it incorrectly, led us to go back and undue their work in order to have it redone. Once this was realized, we decided to let her tape the straws to ensure the project’s success.
In the end, our contraption was a success with many straw lengths and tape to spare. Everything went according to plan and we succeeded.