Meeting with Canford School 5th March 2018

[TerryJC]

All four boys turned up today. The two hardware guys spoke with Penri (can you add some detail below) and the other two spoke with me.

Ben is doing the aesthetic design and he showed me some diagrams to illustrate his ideas. I had a number of comments on this and asked that they post the diagrams under the Canford School Topic and also make regular sitreps. Here are the suggestions that I made:

• They need to expand the diagram (or do a second one) to cover the Butts. The current one only shows the main river recirculation.
• I suggested that they have a high-level diagram that shows the overall plan of the River System and hot-spots to zoom into the lower-level diagrams. The present diagram suggests hot-spots for the information only.
• I suggested that they think about the use of animation to show water levels and flow.
• I suggested that they simplify the existing butts diagram to show only flow direction without attempting to show the complex system of valves.
• We talked about the needs of Visitors; their level of understanding and interest as compared to the Staff needs.

During the discussion, I discovered that Ben will be continuing with his work after Easter, but his cohort (whose name I've forgotten) will be doing his A-levels next year. However, he has a friend who intends to take over his role which is the software. I suggested that they all come in for a hand-over session this term if possible.

On a related topic, Penri and I also talked about developing a Questionnaire to send to the boys and the school to find out 'how we've done'.

Here is a starter - for the boys:

Questions with scores (1 to 10 where 10 is high)

• How easy did you find it to understand the requirements?
• How comfortable did you feel about asking questions?
• How well were your questions answered?
• How well supported by WMT did you feel?
• How challenging did you find the activities?

Questions with written answers:

• What do you think WMT could have done better?
• What do you think you could have done better?
• Do you have any other comments?

The questions for the school will probably be in a similar vein.

Please add any questions that you can think of. I may well think of others over the next few weeks.

[Penri]

Hello

On the waterwheel front we talked about progress to date and what Ben and Alby had discovered during their testing of the current design in the school water tunnel.

The current wheel design works in an undershot mode and as such is not producing good results, a fact possibly exacerbated by a small misalignment between the two nylon bearings. Moving towards a mid-shot design, by raising the point the water strikes the wheel, was thought to be a positive step forward as was adding a set of support bearings in place of the temporary brass olives.

Also in light of the water tunnel testing an alternative design for the waterwheel with deeper cupped blades and a closed centre has been developed in concept terms. It was agreed not to implement that revised design at this point, until the new bearing and higher water shot modification is trialled.

The prototype dam produce by Clive was reviewed and it was decided that a new addition to the water chute based on that design would be made and be available for trial next Monday, it possible.

Ben and Alby will review the support bearing choice and send details to Penri who would then produce adjustable support brackets to suit.

Some effort has already been made to document the work undertaken, Alby and Ben were encouraged to ensure that this was bought up to date to provide a record of the design and development process and of the design decision, with their rationale, being made.



In regard to the proposed question, for me they are striking the right balance, below my thoughts:

It needs to be said that these questions and the answers to them are intended to help us to understand whether what we are offering is beneficial to the participants and useful to WMT.

For the boys:

Questions with scores (1 to 10 where 10 is high)
How easy did you find it to understand the requirements?
How comfortable did you feel about asking questions? [I think these two
How well were your questions answered? [ are encompassed by the next question
How well supported by WMT did you feel?
How challenging did you find the activities?
Have you achieved / learned anything you consider useful from the project?
Would you recommend participation in WMT projects to your peers?

Questions with written answers:
What do you think WMT could have done better?
What do you think youl could have done better?
Do you have any other comments?

For the school:

Questions with scores (1 to 10 where 10 is high)
How well did the challenges offered meet with your expectation for XXX projects?
How well supported by WMT did you feel the boys were?
How well do you consider the boys responded to the challenge?
Has the school learned anything useful from the projects?
Would you consider future participation in WMT projects?

Questions with written answers:
What do you think WMT could have done better?
What do you think the school could have done better?
Do you have any other comments?


For WMT stakeholders:

Questions with scores (1 to 10 where 10 is high)
How well were the objectives of the challenges met by the participants?
How well do you consider the boys responded to the challenge?
Has WMT learned anything useful from the projects?
Would you support future WMT participation in such projects?

Questions with written answers:
What do you think WMT could have done better?
What do you think the participants could have done better?
Do you have any other comments?


All for now, needs a little kicking around.


Hwyl

Penri