Inquiry to Innovation - Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens Project
The project took on was to design and fabricate a motorized zip line trolley to be able to feed tigers by inducing a hunt. The project consisted of two parts, the first being the motorized trolley, the second part is a mechanism which will carry the bait and release it when the tiger gets a hold of it. Below is the final research poster:
Pi Kappa Alpha Service Trip
The service trip was an incredible experience and pushed me every step of the way. Learning about a culture that is almost opposite of what I know was eye opening and forced me to reflect on my own personal belies and values. The books I read prior to my departure definitely helped prepare me but nothing can fully prepare you for such an immersive cultural trip.
The trip started off with 24 hours of flying to get to Kathmandu, Nepal. The first night we stayed in a hotel, and the next morning we started driving to our final destination. We drove for 7 hours to Besishar and stayed in a local hostel. The second day of driving we rode in jeeps to Chame for 8 hours on a mountain pass. The following day we hiked for 7 hours with a 3000 ft elevation change to 10,500 ft and the town of Pisang. The following day we continued hiking for 6 hours to our final destination of Manang, which was another 1000 ft elevation change. Once in Manang we spent the following two days carrying bags of rocks from the river where gravel was being made from boulders, to the work site of the health clinic which was being repaired from earthquake damage in 2015. After two days of hard work we drove for 10 hours in the jeeps back to Besishar, and then back to Kathmandu. We spent one day in Kathmandu going to the famous monkey temple and learning about the faith and customs of Nepal.
The trip gave me such an appreciation for the luxuries we live with every day. The trip pushed me to my limits at times and the effort and physical strain required helped me grow tremendously. The health clinic which is still in repair will support the hundreds of travelers who come through the region every yer as well as a community of over 6,000 people. The trip helped me form lasting bonds with not only my brothers but also our phenomenal guide Geljen Sherpa, who taught our entire group about the faith, traditions, and customs of the people of Nepal.
Inquiry to Innovation
The inquiry to innovation class is meant to challenge students to think outside of the box and to work in interdisciplinary teams to come up with creative solutions to urban issues. The issue we decided to target was the lack of Hughes High School students who attend the University of Cincinnati. At the conclusion of the class we had to put together an executive summary which was sent to the university president and the provost. Below you can view the final executive summary.
Teamwork & Leadership
The honors experience I took part in was a class called Teamwork & Leadership. The class was a pilot class so we were the first class to participate in the course. The class consisted of weekly honors meeting with Dr. Jeff Kastner, followed by siting in on Greg Sizemore's Leadership and Career Decision Making class. As part of the class we went to on a leadership retreat to Adventure Outpost, and taught Junior Achievement lessons to students at Rockdale Elementary. In order to reflect on the weekly lecture and assigned reading in John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadrship, we wrote journals over each chapter in the book and how the law relates to the speakers and the other experiences we had in the class. To give you a taste of the journal, here is my entry over my favorite chapter in the book, "The Law of Intuition":
Chapter 8: The Law of Intuition
a. This law seems very abstract because you either have it or you don’t. Leadership intuition has so many definitions and applications that it is difficult to achieve. I think if a leader has intelligent leaders around him and has a lot of information during a given situation, their leadership intuition is very high, but a leader without good resources has minuscule leadership intuition. A leader’s leadership intuition seems like it should be affected by outside variables but that isn’t the way John Maxwell defines it, which made it hard for me to understand. Leadership intuition could come down to luck in certain situations as well.
b. I got a 48/60 which surprise me since I felt lost reading the chapter. There is nothing tangible about the concept which makes it hard to follow.
c. The work place application would be to use your resources better and view the situation as leader steering a ship. The leaders have to look out for obstacles and be prepared to overcome barriers.
d. The way I can improve is by following the guidelines at the end of the chapter such as reading books on relationships, engage more people in conversations, and become a people watcher. The other way I think I can improve is by understanding what leadership intuition is exactly, that way I would understand the application of it more wholly.
e. UPDATE: I really didn’t understand this law and it didn’t seem like any speakers touched on it, but as the semester has progressed I’ve noticed certain things good leaders do. In the JA classroom I begin to pick up on which kids are natural leaders. I’ve started noticing these traits because my leadership intuition has developed over the course of the semester, which ties into the law of process.