Week 1

The project that I have chosen to work on revolves around the maintenance and fixing of cars. More specifically I've chosen to focus on learning to repair and clean a car so that it runs more consistently without major problems that hinder its reliability as well as looking nicer. Basically, the idea behind this is to learn basic mechanic as well as cleaning skills so that an older rundown or even broken car can become something that a person would be ok driving in from both a mechanical and looks perspective. The first car that my group and I have begun to work on is a 2005 Honda Odyssey that had some problems with its battery, doors, trunk, and some body damage.

I chose to do this particular project because I think that it will give me the opportunity to learn several skills that can be important in my adult life. There are several skills that I'll be able to learn in this project but the main ones include performing general maintenance, detailing and cleaning, and also possibly some harder skills like motor work or hard part replacements. This project will also give me some experience with the second hand market car market as we plan to get our second car from this method by either using sites like craigslist or a car lot. All of these skills can be useful now and later in life because being able to keep your car in good working order is important and being able to do some of the maintenance yourself can save you lots of money particularly for some nicer cars. learning how to navigate and work in the second hand market is also important as it is very likely that I will sometime need to purchase a new car through this method or sell an old one and so building experience early could prove quite useful throughout my life. 

The inspiration for this project was really born out of a want to learn some useful skills while also having enough stuff going on so that every member of the group can stay engaged the whole time. we came to this idea because it is just that and also has the potential to provide some real challenges that we will have to research and problem solve through together as a group that can help to grow our teamwork. The people that I'm working with are Jake Nemecek, Andrew Priest, and Terin Snyder and we chose to work together because we have all been friends for awhile and believe that we work quite well together especially when there is something that we can all do together. we pulled this project together by initially us having the opportunity to use Terin's house as a place where we could work on the cars that we acquire which also happens to be close to a mechanic shop if we need to rent some more expensive tools or get a further helping hand past just our mentor. Luckily, we also received our first car as a donation to the project by some friends who didn't want it anymore which made the beginning of the project in this week much easier since we were able to get straight to work. 

There are a few goals that I want to have for my senior project. Firstly and likely the most obvious goal i have is to learn how to maintain and perform the routine maintain that a car requires throughout its life to keep it running properly or make it run better than it was. Included in this goal is also learning how to clean a car both inside and out to keep it looking nice or make it look nice again. Another goal that I have is to improve and learn new skills in relation to teamwork in a more real world setting than in the classroom. I think this is important because even though I likely won't end up working as a mechanic, getting the skills of combining multiple people's ideas to try and problem solve in a difficult or unknown situation. The final goal that I have is in relation to the second hand market aspect of the project. more specifically I want to learn or become somewhat proficient with the process of finding out specific details of something that someone is trying to sell and then bargaining based off of wether that is a good or a bad thing to get a better price for something that I want. Also, I want to work on being able to describe things in a specific manner to make things more appealing.

This is the first car that we are working on, the Honda Odyssey Van