After the shark tank, we met with Mr. Standley to talk with him about our potential ideas for nap zone spaces. With his advice, we reached out to Mr. Sazo, one of the deans, to talk with him about our ideas for our i2 project. Early January, he gave us permission to use the upper Atrium to beta test our nap zones. If our experiment is successful, we also plan to reserve space in DePaul for our nap zones. We wanted to make sure that our nap zone experiment was both valid and reliable. If the students used the nap zones, we hoped that they would be able to catch up on some sleep, resulting in being less sleep deprived, along with having more energy and improvement in well-being and mental health.
Once we had permission for LaSalle, I emailed Mr. Standley a list of the items we wanted to order. We ordered 3 rugs and 2 beanbags, and they were going to take a few weeks to arrive. Unfortunately, there was a minor delay, and the material would not come until late January. However, we already had a bean bag from home, and also ordered a rug ourselves. Since my sister, Madi, played on the JV Girls basketball team, we notified her teammates of our i2 experiment, and they were all very eager to participate. We agreed that the JV Girls basketball team could be our first “test subjects”. We made sure that once they used the nap zones, their “homework” would be filling out a short survey that would help us convince the deans that nap zones would be beneficial to the school as a whole.
When we brought in the first beanbag, we brought it up the stairs after school for her teammates to try out. Our survey was ready for them to fill out, so we could receive feedback as soon as possible. In the nap zone, there was only 1 bean bag, and about 15 people wanted to use it. It was very popular, and they looked forward to the other items that would be coming in a few days. When our memory foam rug arrived, she couldn’t even roll it out all the way before my friends started calling dibs on certain spots. Thankfully, Mr. Sazo allowed us to use a storage closet in the Pavilion for convenient access and clean-up when we weren’t using them.
While Madi and her teammates were testing out the upper Atrium nap zones, I communicated further to Mr. Standley and Mr. Sazo regarding reserving space in the library. They directed me to Dr. Tapia, the librarian, who unfortunately was unable to grant our request. We realized that the library was used for academic purposes only, and the nap zones in view of many students could be distracting. So, we shifted our focus to another location on campus: DePaul.