Columbus St. Francis DeSales High School’s annual canned food drive, held this year Oct. 26 through Nov. 13, benefits the Columbus St. James the Less Food Pantry and Catholic Social Services’ Our Lady of Guadalupe Center.
As project manager, I was responsible for leading my classmates in an effort to build a Canstruction structure. My main job was to keep people on task according to their roles, as well as help design the structure.
In designing, we had to come up with a structure that connected to the themes “Live Jesus” or “Coming Home.” This pushed us to find something that everyone wanted to build, would look appealing and connected to the theme.
I took part in many tasks, including planning the placement of items, making measurements, configuring a 3D design of the structure, weighing different opinions from my classmates, calculating can amounts and colors, and helping build the armature.
Overall, I think this project helped me understand different responsibilities of a project manager as well as what it takes to be a structural engineer. I learned each role is deeper and has more underlying factors than it seems on the surface, and I don’t mean that in a bad way.
The amount of planning that had to happen before we placed a single can was surprising to me. I thought we would come up with an idea, buy some cans and start stacking within a few days.
RELATED | Zanesville students honor faith, country as Eagle Scouts
Canstruction challenged my imagination to figure out how we could connect a lighthouse and a boat to the theme, build something that is interesting to my peers, come up with a design, and collaborate with others.
Our idea was that the lighthouse’s light resembles Jesus letting His light shine and guiding others to safety, while the boat symbolizes coming back home safely. This made both structures relate to the themes.
Some issues occurred during the duration of the project. The count of our cans got lost and took some effort to figure out exactly how many cans were used. The shipment of the cans was also not ideal and left many in poor condition to use and build with.
The math was one of the harder challenges we had to tackle, since we were trying to figure out how to fill the space while staying inside the can count. Calculating the supporting cans, the half circles, the island and the boat was sometimes difficult.
One of the biggest lessons I learned was that Canstruction has more to it than just stacking cans. It requires careful planning, but above everything else, it requires teamwork. I began to realize managing the project was more than doing the work yourself.
Instead, it is involving yourself in everyone’s work by answering questions, giving a helping hand and keeping everyone on track. One example of this is when I helped design the lighthouse island in TinkerCAD, even though it wasn’t necessarily my job.
RELATED | High school grads witness to faith on Camino
Staying on top of deadlines was also necessary. There wasn’t a day where we sat around and did nothing.
As a result, I often found myself working in many different roles whenever someone needed help. Communication also proved to be important, making sure everyone was on the same page, had their questions answered and stuck to the plan.
In addition to my own role, I gained appreciation for my classmates and their contributions. One thing I learned is that having a specific role does not mean being stuck doing one thing. At some point, everyone had to step out of their role to help in another area, no matter how big or small their responsibilities were.
Everyone had their own unique role that bled into others, which expanded our responsibilities and kept our productivity high. At the end of the day, this project was fun, and it helped grow relationships with my classmates and learn more about them. Everyone chipped in at some point and played a pivotal role in the construction of the lighthouse and boat.
After construction, I am pleased with the outcome and how it is displayed, especially knowing the work put into it, but not just us students, but Mrs. (Kim) Gattis (innovation, engineering and architecture department chair) as well.
I think the coolest factor about making this cool structure is the cans we stacked with will be donated to feed people in our community, giving another sense of depth than just a lighthouse. This project gave me a helpful insight on what it takes to lead a team and complete a structural engineering project together, which are lessons I will carry with me into my future experiences.
