It’s been a week since returning from Sweden and the conclusion of iSeed. Looking back on the experience it definitely had its ups and downs, but overall I learned so much. 

First, Engi355, the CAD class we took mostly towards the beginning of the program. A big reason I wanted to come to this program to start with was that I wanted to take 355, but I didn’t have time to fit it in my schedule. We worked in Fusion 360 and I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of how to use the program even though it was just one class we took and in such a short amount of time. I really enjoyed all the CAD we did and feel like it was such good information to know that can and definitely will be applied in the future. In the beginning of class we struggled to make a simple box with an angled cut, but by the end of it we were making moving mechanisms. There was a decent amount of homework to do and a lot of time went into the class outside of scheduled class time, but this was understandable given the short amount of time we had in Sweden. I’m definitely glad I was able to take this class.

As for Engi200, although I didn’t have much expectations going into the class, what it turned out to be was nothing like I imagined. We were tasked with creating a design that had certain criteria, a timeline, clients, and budget, which is what I thought we would get. But, the people we were working with were masters students in structural engineering and architecture. I had some reservations at first, before I started working with them, because I thought they would be at such a higher level that it would be hard to get along or work together as equals. When we started however, we were able to hold our own, which was a great feeling and helped the learning process. We ended up collaborating well with our various backgrounds and agreeing on design solutions. It was also cool because while the students were from Chalmers, most of them were not actually Swedish. Having the mix of cultures made the experience even cooler. 

Outside of class we didn’t have that much time to explore a lot of Sweden, but we got to see some pretty cool stuff. We went to Copenhagen, we were in Sweden for some pretty big festivals, and we were able to hang out with our colleagues outside of the site as well. While there were parts of Sweden that almost made me forget I was abroad, like the fact that everyone spoke English and the extensive metro system, there were also aspects that were pretty interesting. This included the daylight until almost midnight, many stores closing super early, and the abundance of fikas, but we adjusted pretty quickly– especially to the fikas. 

Overall, the experience was one to remember and helped me grow in several ways.

Our last week in Sweden has come to a conclusion, and it feels like the time flew by. We were not able to stay through the completion of the Dare to Build project, but it was an amazing opportunity to have been a part of. This past week was when we really started getting into the building and making more visible progress, which is super exciting to see.

Team Wilderness, the team I am a part of, finally got our precious planks delivered so we could start making to the top of our storytelling circle and actually walk on it and everything! We were all a little anxious at the beginning of the week because the planks were a major part of design, and although we had some other details to work on, we couldn’t really make much progress without those rough sawn planks. The guy we were ordering them from said they would come Thursday, but those times estimates are often unreliable so we weren’t too optimistic about getting them by Thursday. But wait, a miracle happened, and the planks came! I don’t think I’ve been more excited about something so random before, but given the context it was an amazing day. There was a lot of back and forth with ideas for laying the planks as they had to make a curved shape, but on our final day, after our last fika ever, we blasted through a curved section and figured out our game plan. I never worked on such a large collaboration project before and having so many different opinions was definitely a little hard to work with at first, but it was a cool learning experience.

Over the week I also felt as though we were going closer to the Chalmers students and learning much more about them. At lunch everyday we have a “lunch talk” where someone is chosen to speak about them themselves, a project they worked on, or really anything at all. That helped us learn about people outside of the context of this project.

Unfortunately, everything in Gothenburg closes pretty early, so by the time we get back from working at the site, there isn’t too much to do. We are pretty tired most of the time so we end up just resting up a lot. This week we went back to Haga to do some souvenir shopping and enjoy the city some more. There was also an Italian food market set up near Haga and there was so much good food so we ate there twice this week.

On Thursday, we gave our final presentations for engi 200 in front of the entire team. Then, we went to the lake after work and enjoyed some time to relax with each other. We got a lot of pizza, some people went swimming, and we played Kubb: a Swedish game in which you try to knock down the other teams wooden blocks by throwing a stick. The lake was super pretty and it was a nice way to end it. 

The last day of work was very packed as we tried to get as much done as possible before we left and it was only the Chalmers students left. That night we went back to Slottskogen park and ended the way we started: playing four square.

This week was our first week of building! We were on site everyday, setting up material, prototyping, and moving forward in our design process! A bunch of logs and gravel that we ordered came in so a lot of the time was spent doing some heavy-duty lifting and moving the gravel and logs down to the site as well as cutting logs. We had pretty nice weather the whole week which made the days better!

On Monday we moved fencing down to the site and outlined where we would be working as well as marked out more of our paths. On Tuesday, I was part of the food and fika guru team so we had to go grocery shopping and cook for the entire group. We decided to make tacos and they were a hit! We underestimated a bit and ran out of food for ourselves, but it was a lesson learned for future groups. I’ve never cooked for a large group of people before, so it was definitely and fun and different experience that broke up the work we were doing on-site. We also got some cookies, fruit, and coffee for our two daily fikas. The rest of the week we enjoyed some really good Thai food and on Thursday to celebrate Midsummer, we had some traditional Swedish Midsummer food! It consisted mainly of bread, potatoes, and pickled herring of different flavors– I didn’t even know flavors of that existed, especially not earl gray flavor! On Midsummer we went out for lunch and went to the park at night.

During the week we got a good amount of work done on-site. We laid down and leveled pretty much all of the gravel and began placing the logs down for the base of our path. We are hoping to get almost all of the circle path done before we leave this week and I think we are on track for that. We had to change our design a lot to adapt to the changes in plans and environment, but having to redesign on the spot and think on our feet was a cool and applicable experience. Having to change plans and reach an agreement between the mechanical engineers, structural engineer, and architect was tricky, but made the process challenging and exciting. By the end of the week we had a lot done and were more than ready for a relaxing three-day weekend.

Over the weekend the group took a trip to Copenhagen for two days. It was super fun and definitely quite different than Gothenburg. It was a lot busier and more touristy, which was a fun change. We went to Christiania, or Freetown Christiania, where everyone is pretty free to do what they want, as the name implies. Then we saw Nyahvn and got really good street food at Reffen. The next morning we saw Rosenborg Castle, The National Gallery of Denmark, and the Botanical Gardens. We finished our trip with some good ice cream and headed back to Gothenburg for another week of building!

The last week came quick, but I hope it’s the most productive one yet!