This is my third year as an I2 student here at SHC. I am extremely passionate about the environment so I wanted to help improve climate change. During my freshmen year, I developed a game in which I hoped would help teach children the importance of responsible waste disposal. Throughout my two years of being in the I2 program, I learned how to define a problem, create a solution, work with a team, define my audience, and the whole process of innovation. I have also been able to create a prototype of my project and I really hope to refine it and test it with my audience this year. The I2 program has taught me the importance of defining a problem before you jump into solutions. In addition, I must research to gain feedback from my audience on how effective my solution is to their problem. As part of SLI (Student Launch Initiative, an entrepreneur program here at SHC) I have presented my idea to investors. I love being a part of this program because I am exposed to applicable life skills and I have been able to make connections with other people. Last year in SLI, my team presented to investors in hopes of receiving a mentor. We hope that this year we will be able to receive advice on how to produce our game and make it accessible worldwide.
Currently, we have created an original prototype of the What a Waste, tested the game, and gathered feedback, which we used to improve the gameplay and redesign the cards. My team has finished our second prototype, which we will be sending out shortly for another round of feedback. In order to evaluate the efficacy of our game, we’ve also created a Pre- and Post-test for all players that would help us gauge how much the players learned and provide us with feedback that we could use to improve What A Waste. We will use this feedback to edit our draft in order to have the game finalized and ready to print. A graphic designer would then help us design our cards for us to create a pretty prototype that we could use to contact a factory to propose the final project of What A Waste and gain an estimate on how much publishing the game would cost. Finally, we would create a Kickstarter page to help fund the production of What A Waste, advertise to the community, and let us know the minimum quantity we will need to make. Our goal for What A Waste is to be able to make it available to everyone. My team also hopes to find new members to join our What A Waste team as many seniors from our team are graduating this year. I am extremely excited to continue to improve What A Waste and hopefully my team and I can achieve our goal soon.