Ioannis Valindras, B.S.

Creativity is not an innate characteristic of all individuals. Creativity is a "muscle" that individuals have to train throughout their lives by undertaking challenging tasks. Throughout this semester, ENGR 407 did exactly that. I am glad I had the opportunity to work and meet certain people, while in other cases I can use my experience as a valuable lesson for the future. Failing did not scare me; on the contrary it spurred me on because I know the only way you can move after a failure is up. This is exactly what happened with my next team. I am more than grateful for meeting some wonderful people in this class with bright ideas and having the opportunity to work with them.

​

JunkYard Wars

For this rather unusual assignment each student had to collect and bring to class three pieces of junk. We were then divided in teams, where each team had to pick its own thrash that would be used and put it together in order to make something creative. The class had many great ideas and the competition went really good for everyone. My team created the "Ultimate Sports Chair". The user of this chair would be able to load food on a special food launcher, and he/she would also be provided with a fan for the times they feel a little warmer than usual.

​

New Business Competition

For the needs of this challenge, each team had to come up with an innovative or creative service, or product. The task of this competition was to take the class through the process of creating a start-up, and presenting our company to judged who have experience investing in businesses and have been in the market for a few years. This was probably my favorite and most fun challenge throughout this class. I am really glad that I had some wonderful people as my teammates, but I know that all of them are also my friends coming out of this class. Our team created 'The Po-gramming Company', whose purpose is to teach children from a young age how to code. Our product consisted of small cars, or a board that you can attach to a car, which the kid could control by using a drag-drop module on a device such as a mobile phone, or a tablet. Compared to our competitors we would offer a much cheaper product, with the same capabilities. Most importantly, our team came in contact with people from the State College school district, as well as a professor at Penn State who specializes in programming education.