20 Time Individual Reflection

This project challenged my level of creativity, thinking outside the box to come up with ideas and create experiments in order to test the fun theory. When first introduced to this project, I was immediately drawn to the idea of learning and testing psychology. After Reva and I both decided we were passionate about something having to do with the workings of the minds of Saratoga High School students, we came across an interesting theory in our initial research. It is called the fun theory and we figured it would be reasonable to conduct a couple of experiments, using the statement of this theory. Our original goal was never to test or prove the fun theory, it was to use the theory to improve the lives of students. Even though we never stated a clear goal as a final product, we envisioned an end result that looked something like a list of ways the fun theory can make you healthier and improve your happiness.

Overall, our project was not as successful as we had hoped. It took us a few weeks to pass the stage of brain storming and get to the actual planning of our experiments, slowing down the entire process, causing us to run out of time at the end. We were able to successfully gather data for one experiment and are still planning to squeeze in two more experiments later this week before our TED talk. From this experience, I have definitely learned the importance of creating an exact blueprint, or at least a defined product when starting a project. The consequences of having a vague vision of the final result of a project can cause the entire project to be unsuccessful. I don't think I would want to do this project again because it has been proven difficult to find ways to improve everyday life that do not require extensive set-up and are reasonable for people to do on a daily basis. To do it differently, I might want to try observing people and seeing how people naturally use the fun theory to make things more fun for themselves, rather than setting up ways things can be fun. Reva and I are planning to finish up with our experiments and draw conclusions to share in our TED talk. I think in the future we will be able to have valuable conversations with people about ways they can use the fun theory to solve cumbersome areas of their life, but I feel like we won't be able to take the information from our findings much further than that.