“Alright, today you and your teams are going to make a bridge out of newspapers and rubber bands,” is how Professor Johnston started class Thursday. She handed us a pile of newspapers and a package of rubber bands and told us it had to support a small water bottle, and the bottle had to be able to go underneath the bridge, and the tie breaker would be a second small water bottle.
My group sat dumbfounded for a minute, trying to understand how to build a bridge out or newspapers and rubber bands. After a few minutes of trial and error, we decided on folding the newspapers in half and rolling them to create the foundation for our bridge.
Working on this assignment exemplified how working in a group should work. We bounced our ideas off of each other, and no idea was dumb. The environment within our group made everyone comfortable to voice their ideas.
While we did not win the IT Amber trophy, we did gain valuable experience working in a good group environment.