Roadblocks are Made of Paper

By Alex Wolfson

Roadblocks come in all shapes and sizes. This week’s roadblock came in the shape of a stack of paper about the size of a toaster oven. Our adviser, Katie, got us a year of room count data for Wooden. This information will help us determine the peak usage times in the gym room-by-room, so we can better determine which rooms are most important to measure air quality in. Unfortunately for us, only the last month of data was recorded electronically, the rest of the data was recorded on paper. Hence, the stack.

This roadblock is minor, we will have it (and the data) sorted out by early next week. It’s the process behind it that is important. Roadblocks may come in all shapes and sizes, but a strong team structure and dynamic is essential in overcoming any. Our team has bonded quickly in the past four weeks as we have gotten to know and work with each other. Breaking down issues and rolling with the punches are important skills to develop, and are skills we are working on. Hopefully, our team dynamic will help us deal with any roadblocks in the future.

Our project keeps moving forward. In addition to working through the room count issue, this week we met with both a professor who specializes in indoor air quality and the building engineer for UCLA Recreation. Two important meetings that answered many of our lingering questions regarding the scope of what we will be able to do. The goals we set for ourselves are, at this point, achievable. Our methods for getting there changed after these two meetings and will likely change again, but we are well on our way to answering our core research questions.

We are rolling with the punches and learning more every day. Roadblocks may come in all shapes and sizes, but all can be overcome. After all, roadblocks are (just) made of paper.