Looking back on my month in Sweden I can say that I had an overall good experience even though it was very different than what I expected coming into the program. Even though I only had a few assumptions going in, those were mostly all turned on their head.

The ENGI 355 portion of the program was predominantly frontloaded into the first week and I am definitely glad that the class was structured this way because it would have been too difficult to fit it into the later weeks schedule. Coming in with little experience in 3D modeling I was nervous for this portion of the course because I knew we would have to move fast so I thought I might fall behind if I didn’t catch onto every concept as it was taught. However, I surprisingly got the hang of it pretty quickly and ended up enjoying the process of 3D design a lot more than I expected to.  Even though the days were long and filled with lots of CAD, it didn’t ever seem monotonous since building the parts was kind of like solving a puzzle. Also I think the work was broken up nicely by the fikas which allowed some time to decompress and also to get to know my classmates better early on in the program. I thought the homework was reasonable but the only thing that annoyed me were a few drawings from the textbook that weren’t super clear. Even though it was short, I feel like I really learned a lot from this course and will be ready to design parts for future projects and will be well equipped to learn new 3D design programs.

The ENGI 200 course was  one of the things that I had a vague idea of what I expected but those expectations were very different from the reality which was not necessarily a bad thing. I knew it would not just be a more prototyping focused rerun of 120 in the way I would have been at Rice, but Iinitially thought each of our own teams would be working on an independent engineering project with our own unique client.  After reading the project brief I learned that was not the case and we would be divided up into sub teams (each with a different mix of Rice students, structural engineers, architects) but still all working towards one common goal. For us the project was broken down into one planning week followed by two building weeks.  

Part of the planning experience I think could have been improved was the interaction between the groups and the teaching teams. Personally I would have liked to have had one member from the teaching team with us to just consult for some advice or to clear up confusion while still allowing us to create our own solution. I thought that the method of the teaching team being removed from the teams except for 3 of them checking in once a day and all of them suggesting different ideas, while not giving us an opportunity to defend our decisions, or explain that we have already done something they suggest was a little frustrating and counterproductive compared to a regular conversation. It felt like they were being too hands off until it reached a point where they would momentarily relinquish control and change the design,  then go back to hands off work until the next day.

While this was a different course than I was used to taking, part of the reason why I appreciated and enjoyed it was because of the unique experience it provided. I think sacrificing the technical engineering design for more of a focus on teamwork and managing skills was better because I had already done ENGI 120 so this was something totally new. I liked how our teams were made from people of different backgrounds and areas of expertise since it gave me insight into how this communication would work in real world projects. Something else I grew to appreciate were the leadership roles we had to perform for a day. At first I thought that this was a waste of time for us and that the managing should be left to the professionals. But after my day as project manager, I realized how different it was to be responsible for managing a team of ~30 people and my own confidence as a leader grew as a result of that day. 

I don’t know how much of this is viable feedback for the ENGI 200 course versus being feedback for Dare2Build but I figured I would give me thoughts on the program as a whole first. In terms of things Rice can improve on themselves, I would have liked a schedule or a better idea of what we were doing before arriving in Sweden. I know that the specifics of the ENGI 200 portion were not figured out until later but knowing the way we would be working would have been very helpful for packing. Also, I would have liked the program to have been a little longer so the days could have been less full of work and there was more time to relax and explore the city. Finally I would have wanted to see our project completed in the last week bu im sure this kind of scheduling will be fixed in subsequent years. 

I still had lots of fun on this trip and I am glad that I did it. Getting to know the summer workers and Chalmers students was a great time. Also becoming good friends with the other Rice students was awesome.  Looking back, our scootering and travel shenanigans are going to become lasting memories of mine and I hope that we stay friends in the future. 

Monday, June 24th

Today marked the beginning of our last week in Sweden. I was signed up for the role of project manager for the day and it was an interesting new experience. Instead of just working at the site I was responsible for planning the day and other logistics such as budgeting and conceptual drawings. Before starting I was a little nervous because I had essentially no experience leading a team of this size nor had I made many decisions of consequence to many other people. Once I planned out the daily objectives and assigned people to work certain tasks, my job became less stressful and I mostly stayed in the shipping container for the remainder of the day.

Later in the day, we had our first night lesson for ENGI 355 where we learned how to render objects. 

Tuesday and Wednesday, June 25th and 26th

With our final layer of planks coming in the next few days, we needed to decide upon a strategy for fastening our base logs and middle layer together. We started off with 3 different options of pins, rebar, and bolts, but we found through prototyping that these methods would take too much time and money. After a quick material run, we got 2cm wide metal strips that we would lay on top of the logs and screw down in either side. We finished one section pretty quickly on Tuesday and my team finished securing the rest of the base on Wednesday. when I was on Food and Fika duty. After working at the site, I worked more on my final presentation that I would have to give Thursday morning.

Thursday, June 27th

The day began with an hour of the Sleep deprived Rice students giving a presentation on the work their team had done on their path so far. Despite knowing each team’s progress from being at the site, the presentations showed the of their method of planning that led them to their solutions.  Soon it began to feel like Christmas morning when the rough sawn planks arrived on site. For the rest of the day we took measurements and dertimed a more specific plan for the pattern of what would be the final layer of the circle. After 5, the Dare 2 Build Team went to the lake where we swam, jumped off diving boards, ate pizza and played kubb. The water was refreshing and it was a great way to spend our penultimate day together.

Friday, June 28th 

On our last day of building, we knew that we had to get at least some of the boards screwed into place so the Chalmers team members would have a manageable amount of work for the next week and to ensure that we were going forward with a design the team had collectively agreed upon. By the end of the day we had fixed planks to 2/4 sections of the circle, one section on top of logs and one section on top of planks.  Even though we didn’t get to see our whole project completed, I was still happy that I could see part of it finished in a way where I could finally visualize the final result. In the afternoon we said goodbye to the summer workers and Daniel. Finally, the remaining Rice students played one last game of 4 square together just like we did on our first night together. 

Saturday, June 29th 

Today was my last full day in Sweden and I mostly used it to check off the final boxes of places to visit. Around noon I visited the famous fish market and the rose festival with Dr. Wettergreen. Also I checked out this really cool science fiction store which had everything I could have ever wanted and more.  Then I walked around Gothenburg’s Botanical Garden before heading to the Hostel to pack up. 

Monday-Thursday June 17th-20th

The first official week of building had begun. When we first arrived at the building site, my team had to decide between our two circle structures. We had narrowed down the structure of the base to a design with about 32 piles in the ground which rested on a stone slab and were then surrounded by gravel or the raft technique where the horizontal logs would be stacked upon each other. While we dug 5 holes of the appropriate depth quickly, we ran into many roots while digging the holes and continuing with this strategy would have been too harmful to the environment. Luckily we made this decision early in the building process and switched to planning out how we would implement our backup strategy. To accommodate for the uneven terrain we would level out the ground by layering  gravel upon geotextile. After placing down the outline of our circle with the geotextile. Over the next few days we spent lots of time shoveling, moving, then laying the gravel around the circle and a few other paths. Once all the gravel was down, we planned out the placement of the bottom logs of our structure based on two different sized semi circles and two straight sections. During this process we were also deciding what to do with the top of our structure which the people would be walking on. We could have made the whole top look like a raft by having a path about 6 logs wide wother the gaps filled in by branches, or we could make the surface flat with planks at the expense of a more natural looking structure. Eventually, we decided on trying some rough sawn planks to make the surface mostly flat and to avoid a too neat style.

Friday-Sunday June 21st – June 23nd

After a long 4 days of working on site, we got Friday off for Midsommar. Since it seemed like most of Gothenburg was out in this Country side homes for the weekend, we took this day to relax and walk around the city.

On Saturday we left for Copenhagen on the 8:45 flixbus which was surprisingly enjoyable given the on bus wifi and USB charging between the seats. Once we checked into our hostel, we walked around the city for a while. The city is beautiful and with all the canals, every street was a good spot to take pictures. We walked into Christiania which was one of the most interesting places I have been with the graffiti and art everywhere.  For dinner we went to Reffen, which was a street food spot made up of a bunch of different vendors in their own shipping containers. We did some rock climbing, watched some dank scooter tricks at the skatepark right next to Reffen, then took an extended scooter ride back to this ice cream place with churros.

On Sunday, I scootered over to Mad & Kaffe to meet up with my Oweek Advisor Amy who happened to be researching the biking in Copenhagen for the next two months. We had a good time catching up about life since school had been out and a great brunch too. After brunch, I met up with the rest of the group to see the Danish National gallery and the botanical gardens.  Our time in Copenhagen was coming to an end so we did some souvenir shopping then walked back to the bus station for a long ride back to Gothenburg.