Community Service Initiative

COMMUNITY SERVICE INITIATIVE PROJECT

PERSONAL E-JOURNAL

Introduction:

The purpose of community service initiative project is to enable students to engage and to solve problems of real community living in the real life situation. The project is conducted for a duration of 10 weeks time and students are required to form a group of total 8 people. This project requires students to work as a team to provide a helping hand to serve the communities groups of different socioeconomic status and social groups through architectural, culture and environmental activities. Students are given freedom to select any community or social groups as a site to help them to fulfill their needs which involves architectural knowledge, design and construction. Besides that, a budget of RM 80 is given to each students in the group in this project for them to spend wisely on the materials and tools that they decided to use.

PROJECT PROGRESS:

WEEK 1: Brief and Module Outline Introduction & Group Formation

The project brief and module outline of community service initiative are briefed by our lecturers to students in order for students to understand the objectives and tasks of this project. Students are also given time to form their own groups of maximum 8 people and minimum 5 people per group. I had formed a group of total 8 people with my course mates and we had also selected a leader from our group to lead and work with us as a team.

WEEK 2: Site Selection

After the group formation, my group members and I decided to choose Yayasan Sunbeams Home as our site and the community group that we wanted to serve and help. Yayasan Sunbeams Home is a self supporting and non-governmental organization that take cares and keeps displaced, abused and neglected children of single parent families. My group leader had contacted the person in charge of Yayasan Sunbeams Home, Mr Alvin Tan to visit the site and discuss on the issues and problems that we can help.

WEEK 3: Site Visit & Site Analysis

Fortunately, Mr Alvin Tan allowed us to come for a visit and meet him to discuss on the problems and issues that he was facing in Yayasan Sunbeams Home. Therefore, my group members and I decided to visit Yayasan Sunbeams Home during the third week of this project. During our site visit, we found out that there were kayak boats are stored unorganized in a small storage warehouse together with other objects. Besides that we also found out that inside Yayasan Sunbeams Home office there were house and car keys stored within a key box cabinet randomly. After our discussion with Mr Alvin, he stated that Yayasan Sunbeams Home were experiencing lack of space in storing the kayak boats and keys. Therefore, He told us that Yayasan Sunbeams Home required a kayak rack to stored the kayak boats in a organized manner. He also told us that he needs a few bigger key box cabinets to store many keys and also can put books onto the cabinet neatly.

WEEK 4: Idea Brainstorming & Task Distribution

During the fourth week, we had already identified the problem that Mr Alvin had told us. We were required to design and construction a kayak rack and 3 key box cabinets for Yayasan Sunbeams Home. Before constructing these items, the first stage is the design stage for these items, we had discussed and brainstormed some design ideas together in order for the rack and cabinets to look interesting and function appropriately. Design ideas on the two items generated by my group were ideas that were able to solve the solutions on the lack of kayaks and keys storage and their disorganized storing methods. During the design stage, we also recorded down the important measurements such as measurements on one kayak boat and also the current key box cabinet that Yayasan Sunbeams Home were using. These measurements are important for the rack and cabinet design so that we can decide on the numbers of kayaks and keys that can be stored in our design. Moreover, during the design stage of this project, our leader had also distributed the tasks for each group members.

WEEK 5: Initial Design Proposal Submission

During the fifth week, after we had decided on our kayak rack and key box cabinet design, we were required to consult our lecturer about our design and submit our design proposal to him. In addition, we were also have to meet with Mr Alvin and discuss on our proposed design to him in order for both our lecturer and Mr Alvin to finalize our design.

WEEK 6: Design Discussions & Design Development

During the sixth week, after the initial design proposal submission, we returned to Yayasan Sunbeams Home to conduct our second discussion with Mr Alvin on the kayak rack and key box cabinet design. The purpose of conducting the second discussion with Mr Alvin on our design was to help improve the design of the kayak rack and key box cabinet. During this stage of the project, we did drop down some comments from Mr Alvin and also the previous comments from our lecturer on the design improvements.

WEEK 7: Design Finalization & Task Execution

After discussions with our lecturer and Mr Alvin, during the seventh week, our design for the kayak rack and key box cabinet design were being finalized. In order to keep our work in progress, my group leader started to execute the important tasks to each group members to proceed to the next project stage. The next project stage will be on construction of the kayak rack and key box cabinet based on our finalized design. Before starting constructing the rack and cabinets we had decided and finalized our materials and our group leader had also assigned one of our group members to purchase the materials. We had decided as a group to first start constructing the key box cabinet because during our discussion with Mr Alvin, he would provide us the tools and materials for the kayak rack construction. Fortunately, Mr Alvin able to provide a space for us to construct the kayak rack. Each of us were required to set a day and come to our university campus to start constructing the key box cabinet. Our group had used a total of 4 days period of time to finish constructing a total of 3 key box cabinets.

WEEK 8: Task Execution

After the completion of the 3 key box cabinets, we proceeded on to construct the kayak rack during the eight week. For the construction of the kayak rack, we went back to the site as Mr Alvin had promised us that he would provide a space for us at the site to construct the kayak rack. During the process of constructing the kayak rack, each of us work as a team under the guidance of Mr Peter, on of the person in charge at site. The method of constructing the kayak rack is to connect different lengths of steel bars together by welding each steel bar to form the kayak rack. Throughout the process of constructing the kayak rack Mr Peter had taught us the appropriate method of welding and connecting the steel bars together. It took us to three days for us to finish up the welding process of each steel bars.

WEEK 9: Task Execution

After the welding process, during the ninth week, we complete the construction of the kayak rack by painting it and connecting the "X" bracing structure using nuts and bolts onto the kayak rack. After the kayak was finally completed, we returned back to our university campus to compile our design drawings, photos and videos that we had taken during the constructing process. The compilation of all drawings, photos and videos in a organized way is to enable us to complete the project easily to produce an organize work with excellent quality.

WEEK 10: Final Products Installation & Final Presentation Board & Video Presentation Preparations

During the tenth week of the project, it was the week where we had came to the final stage of the project. The final stage of the project is the installation of the kayak rack and key box cabinets in Yayasan Sunbeams Home and also the preparation for our presentation board and video presentation. After the completion of both kayak rack and key box cabinets, we had helped the children of Yayasan Sunbeams Home to install both kayak rack and key box cabinets and let them tried out their new products. Before returning back to our campus, we had make sure that the children were satisfied with our products that we had constructed for them. After returning to campus, all design drawings, photos and videos that we had compiled were used to produced an A0 size presentation board as requested in the brief for submission requirement. In addition, videos that were being compile were edited in the form of a video presentation to document our 10 weeks progress of this community service initiative project.

WEEK 11: E-Journal, Presentation Board & Video Presentation Submission

During the final week of this project where we had completed the community service initiative project, it is time for us to submit our project. Besides that, community service initiative project also consists of an individual part which required each of us to submit an E-journal in the form of E-portfolio in order for this project to be considered as fully completed and submitted. The E-journal should consists of details on pictures, diagrams and video footage of the project work progress and our involvement in the community service activities.