Daily Blog #22

This past week we have accomplished a lot. Joe has talked to Mr. Morris about our ideas for the seating arrangements in Akahi. We had two ideas that we shared with him. We are replacing the round tables on one side of Akahi with rectangular tables. For every three round tables, we are putting in four rectangular tables. This actually saves more space and allows us to add more seating. With more places to sit in Akahi, we have come up with a solution to make our dining hall less crowded. We have also created a pre and post survey and have already gotten some feedback.

Daily Blog #21

Hey guys! So it's is getting very close to the end of the school year and that means that our project is finally coming to a close.  Today we discussed what our game plan is for next week because our prototype needs to be launched by next Friday.  We decided that we were going to make a survey and we just got approval from Ms. Martin (Vice Principal) to send out the surveys via email.  That will take place next week sometime.  Furthermore on Thursday, we will be helping to set up tables in Akahi during period 4 to be launched as our prototype for Friday.  We all hope that you guys take the time to do the survey because it will help you guys out in the long run.  Anyways enjoy your weekend!

Daily Blog #20

As the days go by, we are coming closer and closer to our deadlines. Next week Friday is an important date for all of us. That is the day when all the groups will have their prototype of their “solution” deployed. For us, we are up to date on our schedule. I was able to meet with the head of Food and Nutrition Services, Mr. Morris. I discussed with Mr. Morris the different solutions we had in mind, the space issues, and the overall plan. He was thrilled to see our plan of solution and agreed to help us in any way he can. We agreed next week Thursday we will replace the current tables with the rectangular tables. Hopefully we will see a difference in the flow of the students and how they interact. 

Daily Blog #19

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The first half of the period we discussed our plan for the week. Joe called Mr. Morris to see when he was available, and he planned to meet with him period 5 on Thursday. Then we went down to Akahi in order to collect some data. We measured how much space a rectangular table takes up and how much a circular one does. We also set up a flip video camera, like the one depicted up, in order to record the flow of students in Akahi during a usual block lunch period before we deployed our project. However, the data might've been a little off because the juniors got dismissed from their meeting in the auditorium early.

Daily Blog #18

Hey guys.  I am so excited.  Tomorrow we are going to start taking data for our project.  We are going to be in Akahi during lunch for the duration of the period while video taping flow of the lunch lines and the capacity of the lunch period in three different locations.  We are going to have a camera in front of the lunch line, one camera by the doors filming the tables and one more somewhere else (I forget where it was supposed to be, but we will discuss it further tomorrow before we leave)  I just realized that we have a mandatory class meeting tomorrow though.  So I want to see if we can get an excusal pass from our teacher to do this because this is our grade.  Anyways, peer evaluations are also due tomorrow!  I am working very hard to make the reviews fair yet critical.  Sorry about the picture.  I screen shot my peer evaluations and blurred out what I have so far for privacy reasons.

Daily Blog #17

Today, we worked on the post-survey and talking more about our goals for the week. We are hoping to meet with Mr. Morris on Wednesday during 4th period, but he has not gotten back to us yet. We also found out today that we may be able to get our surveys approved by Ms. Martin after Thursday, but we cannot send them to her now for approval. We also plan to collect data and record in Akahi on Wednesday during the senior lunch period. The picture above depicts Joe and Austin working on the post-survey on google docs. 

Daily Blog #16

As we move along with our project, we have been making substantial progress. Each of the group members is responsible for a certain task.  I am currently working on the Post Survey for ‘Akahi. This survey will help us to compare and contrast data with the Pre Survey. We will be able to see if our changes within ‘Akahi made a difference for the High School. Although Sean has not been with us during class, he is diligently working on the Pre Survey. Next week, we are looking to get our survey’s completed and approved. We will email Mrs. Martin to see if our surveys are okay. \

Daily Blog #15

Hey everyone. We have been working very hard this week trying to finish our detailed design. In our design we listed our schedule, our ideas/process and our diagrams. I was in charge of making the diagrams. They aren't completely to scale with the actual plans, but they are close enough to get a good understanding on what we want to accomplish. We made three diagrams, the original plan of Akahi and our plan A and plan B. Plan A is basically replacing all of the round tables with the rectangular tables in order to achieve maximum capacity. The flaw with this plan is that we don't exactly know if we can add more seats in the dining hall because it is already at maximum capacity. Plan B is replacing the round tables with the rectangular tables making sure to have the same amount of seats as previous. And with the left over space we were planning to add an extra lunch line to increase productiviy. The problem with this is that we don't know how much the extra lunch line is. If its too expensive, we won't be able to buy it. We have to meet with Mr. Morris this week to find out further details. Hopefully we can achieve one of our goals. Wish us luck!

Daily Blog #14

 As of today, we have been tentatively been working on our project. We submitted our proposal to Mr. Blake and discussed what further actions will take place. Our main focus is trying to maximize the seating arrangement. Last class, our group went to ‘Akahi and brainstormed our options. We came up with a basic idea of replacing a section of the current round tables, to 12 square tables. However, our group will need to take qualitative data from the high school students, so we can compare data after the tables are replaced.

Here are some pictures of other school’s seating layout of their cafeteria. What’s common in both of these pictures is that both cafeterias have rectangular tables. Hopefully by introducing rectangular tables in ‘Akahi, we can help maximize the seating arrangements.

Daily Blog #13

This week, our detailed design is due. The last time we had class, our group discussed what we needed to do in order to keep our project going smoothly. We then also divvied up specific tasks so that we could finish our detailed design by Friday. Austin is working on a couple of before and after sketches, Sean is creating the survey on Google Docs, Joe is researching online sources, and I'm creating the schedule, as depicted above. Also, I e-mailed Mr. Morris to see if we can schedule another meeting with him regarding our plans. If we can't meet with him this week we'll be sure to do it next week.

Daily Blog #12

So today we actually met with our teacher to further discuss our project.  He basically recapped our project and gave some ideas about how to gather data for it.  We haven't quite decided if and how we are going to do a survey for the data, but we are currently working hard in figuring it out.  After we discussed our project, we went to Akahi to gather data for our project.  We counted and equated the number of seats in Akahi and figured out that the maximum capacity for the number of seats (for now) is 720.  We have two plans that we are considering.  We don't exactly know if we are going to be able to add additional seats to Akahi because we already exceeded maximum capacity.  If we can we are thinking about replacing around 9 to 12 round tables with the rectangular tables.  There are about 4 rectangular tables for every 3 round tables.  If we cannot plan B would be to replace the round tables with the rectangular tables but with the same amount of seats.  Then we will have more space to open a third lunch line.  This will (hopefully) increase the productivity of the lunch line flow.  The picture is of our notes/basic diagram of the seating in Akahi.

Daily Blog #11

The picture depicted above is a screen shot of the online 'Akahi menu. Since our project is focusing on improving the dining hall overall, our group decided that we wanted to figure out if it would possible to bring back old dishes that were taken off the menu. In order to do this, though, we'd have to create some sort of a survey so that we could have a better idea of what most students would like to see return to the menu. We plan to work on this more this week, and later return to visit Mr. Morris to possibly present more ideas to him regarding the menu. Perhaps at the end of our project the menu will once again have foods that haven't been on it for a while.

Daily Blog #10

So on Friday, we began to discuss what we were going to include in our detailed design. We came up with the idea to do a sort of before and after sketch of 'Akahi and the changes we are planning to implement. The picture above is definitely not the sketch we're going to include in our detailed design, it's pretty much a really rough sketch of our sketch. Something we need to do this week is count the number of round tables in 'Akahi and get a better sense of the dining hall in general so that we can draw an accurate depiction.

Daily Blog #9

Today in class we turned in a hard copy of our proposal and also shared our google docs copy with Mr. Blake so he can make some corrections and edits. We also talked about our ideas and plans for the next week. We need to create a detailed design of our idea. This design needs to be five to ten pages long. We were thinking about making a before and after sketch of our idea for the tables in Akahi. We were also going to make a before and after sketch of the bus bins and show how it would make things more effective. Another thing that we need to do next week is have another interview with Mr. Gordon. This interview would mostly be to follow up with the changes that have been made, and see if he sees a difference in efficiency.

Daily Blog #8

So today all we worked on was our proposal paper.  Although it didn't seem like we did much, we actually finished like 2.5 pages out of the 3 pages required.  We not only did that, but we also discussed our project in further detail.  This includes some possible flaws that if not already, might and will encounter later in the project.  We also discussed several other fall back solutions, just incase we either mess up or something goes wrong during the project.  We did have some dilemmas because we didn't know exactly how to solve all of the problems stated.  But we managed to power through them and were able to solve them without worry.

Daily Blog #7

Recently, a few rectangular tables were placed in a corner of Akahi in the hopes that more students would be able to sit in the dining hall and eat lunch. Our group now has to figure out if the tables make any difference in the crowdedness of the dining hall or if people even utilize the tables. Once we figure out a way to monitor our progress, we also need to plan a way to see if change occurred, since we didn't collect data before the new tables were placed in the dining hall. We were thinking about creating a survey regarding different foods that are no longer on the menu that students want back. Also, our group is currently working on our proposal paper, and we our goal is to try and finish it by the end of class tomorrow.

Daily Blog #6

This past week of the Ho’oulu ia Kamehameha project we have made much progress. After interviewing with Gordon Morris, Director of Food and Nutrition Services, we were able to gather much information. Our main goal was to help relieve the congested lunch lines. But as we interviewed Mr. Morris, we came across many problems that he had in mind. His main problem was the seating arrangements. Originally, students would have to get their lunch from what is now the pasta and sandwich bar. However, the lunch workers were not able to accommodate the sudden surge of students. So, to relieve that problem, we have our lunch lines today. But, by moving the lunch lines to the dining room of Akahi, minimized the amount of seating. Mr. Morris left that problem aside and tended to other problems such as the overflow of food waste. So we came up with the idea of “picnic benches” to help maximize the seating arrangement. Hopefully, by introducing a different setup of tables will help the seating arrangement. We also talked with Mr. Morris about trying to have the students dump their napkins into a specific container before putting their trays on the conveyor belt. As you can see in the picture above, Mr. Morris had his workers put out bins so students could dump their napkins in its respective bins.

Daily Blog #5

Happy belated Easter! This past week, our group did a good job with keeping on task and completing the things that needed to be done. Our ideas are already being tested in Akahi with the bus bins. Mr. Gordon also informed us that he will make an effort sometime this week to switch a few round tables with longer, more efficient benches. Since we have accomplished so much with our project so far, we can start writing out our proposal and be ahead of the game. The proposal is due on April 13th and needs to be a minimum of three pages, typed.

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