Building the Shredder

Hello Everyone!

The project is underway! Thank you to those who could attend the first meeting, I know it is hectic between Canada Day (CANADA!!) and the end of the spring semester. If you couldn’t make it, not to worry, this email will provide plenty of information. It would be a good idea to give this email a couple of read-throughs and to reference back the other Team Newsletters (See 2. References on where to find them) as needed. Here’s your outline:

1. Next Meeting

2. References

3. Trello

4. Events this week

a. Machine Shop visit (Basement of ENC)

5. Next Steps

1. Next Meeting

Our next meeting will be held on Wednesday, July 6th at 6:30pm in Gallery FM. Whether our space (Gallery FM) will be open over the weekend will be decided then as well. Bring your laptops please!

2. References

Over the summer, we will keep in contact using 2 platforms: Google Drive (Owner account is calgaryplastics@gmail.com ) and organizing our project through Trello.

a. Google Calendar will feature events, meetings, and locations. I recommend adding it to your own calendar or checking back frequently.

b. Google Drive will feature shared files, notably Precious Plastics: YYC which you can add to your own Google Drive. Folders include

i. Team Newsletter: every email sent to the entire team is archived here. New (and current!) members can read through them to have an idea of our project progress and where we are now.

ii. Member List: This is democratically found under 00 General.

iii. Other shared documents which will be created

If you don’t use Google, let me know and I’ll recommend some workarounds.

3. Trello

If you haven’t used Trello before, the idea is that it breaks down a ‘project’ to ‘tasks’ which ‘members’ can be assigned to. I’ve attached a separate document to coach you on how to use Trello (02 Appendix – Trello and Project Organization Crash Course), please go through it!

Tasks which are assigned to CP (calgaryplastics@gmail.com) will represent the machine shop.

4. Events this week

Machine Shop Visit: On Monday, July 4th (from 1:30pm) we plan to meet Rob (the head of the Machine Shop) and the staff which will be working on the project with us (Patrick and Sava). The purpose of this meeting is to get input on design changes to the Shredder and to start building. Angat Desai will be organizing this visit; you may have already received his noticed but his email can also be found in the member list.

5. Next Steps

A great question that comes up in the face of large projects is ‘where do I get started’? Start with the precedent. Go over to preciousplastics.com and see what they’re making. How are they making it? How can we improve it?

Once we’ve got the broader concepts in mind, we will break down the tasks. ‘How can we get there’? For now, our immediate focus is on building the Shredder (Check out the ‘Shredder’ Trello board). Once that portion of the project is properly supported, we’ll be delegating tasks towards designing and educating. This will happen fast; I predict those roles to be distributed by our Wednesday meeting.

Immediate next steps for the group:

1. Watch videos, observe the possible creations, identify what is possible for us to accomplish.

2. Continue to invite those who may be interested to sign up on the Google Form.

a. The Team Newsletters are a great place to get new volunteers up to speed.

b. The google form really helps us organize our members

3. Populate our space (photo attached). What do we need to bring in to optimize our work space?

4. Start gather materials. We’ll need (clean) plastic as raw materials as well as storage bins to keep them.

Remember, this is not a program with a set answer. All we have is an idea and all the resources to build that idea. If you have any questions or would like some more direction, do not hesitate to contact myself or other members.

This is super exciting! Thank you so much for your willingness to be part of this project. We’re going to make something remarkable together :).

Cheers,

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Rachel Shi Ling Chan