Saturday, May 3, 2008 . 3:07 PM

Hehe following ryan........... D&T personal reflection.


For me, diorama making way exceeds the Secondary One Victorian Guitar in terms of skill, time taken, level of difficulty, and so on. ... But what mattered in the end was that I took a great interest in this highly absorbing project and eventually, I am proud to say that I have learnt something.

The diorama started with an in-class lesson and how an expert in dioramas made them. By buying materials and arranging them, though albeit costly, looked very nice on the screen. I resolved to make our diorama a top grade one. In the following lessons I planned the diorama together with the other members of my group. Although we drew out a definite plan, due to carelessness and other factors some were lost or we improvised or made new plans in the following weeks to come.

My group actually wanted to build a castle-like diorama with only one side exposed to show Macbeth in one of the rooms killing Duncan. The cost was estimated (by me!) to be around $80+. How drastic the actual expenditure would amount to! (~ $240)

So in the end, we made a diorama which had different dimensions, and changed the setting to be an opera house. As for the interior, thought out by me and Ryan in one of our numerous KFC dinners, we decided on the same scene and an audience row and a ticket counter and a staircase, not to mention other things. The scene was later changed to the discovery of the dead Duncan due to time constraints, which were in turn due to lack of active participation in some members. Also, there was supposed to be a back panel which had Duncan’s room painted on it. However somebody stole it and now it is gone forever.

Components of the actual diorama (also thought out by me and Ryan) were:
The base;
The ‘mechanism storage space’;
The electronics;
The orchestra;
The signboard;
The ‘grass’;
The trees and bushes;
The fences and gate;
The front door and walls;
The chandeliers;
The ceiling;
The ticket counter and staircase;
The audience, seat and aisle;
The stage;
The figurines.




So we got to work making the diorama. Although there was actually supposed to be equal workload, however some people did not work as hard which in turn cause the others to work harder. Thus might influence other projects and other grades.

So, all in all, the ‘completion’ of the diorama was a huge load off my shoulders. However I did enjoy myself immensely throughout the entire process, even more so as I was regarded as the ‘main architect’.

My Contributions:

I did do a substantial amount of work regarding the diorama. For the physical stuff (building of the diorama) I did:

Base; mechanism storage space; electronics; orchestra; the signboard; grass; trees and bushes; fences and gate; walls; lighting of chandeliers; ceiling; staircase; audience seats and aisle; part of the stage; and some figurines.

For the more ‘admin’ aspects, I did:

Calling of group members at the starting weeks; accounting for the first part; documentation; totaling of expenditure; planning of layout of diorama; researching on dioramas and other whatnot; buying of materials.

Some difficulties we faced along the way:

Some things we faced were, as abovefore mentioned, were lack of time, more pressing homework, arguments on whose turn it was to bring the diorama home and inactive group members.

Although there should have actually be more than enough time to complete the diorama, factors such as inactive group members dragged the schedule to the point of lateness; after all, it was handed in just in time. Also, things like CCAs, supplementary and other more occupying things compressed our remaining time. For example, although there was only one week left (or even less) to the choir’s Rhapsody VIII performance, Ryan and I still spared time and skipped practice to try and complete the diorama. Therefore we expected the other group members to do the same. However, we understand that not every member had priorities on the diorama and therefore will not blame them. But still, one meeting less is less work done.

For supplementaries, it was agreed that homework was more important, though some of us, including myself, skipped some to do the diorama again.

The diorama usually ended up in mostly Ryan’s, Azmi’s or Timothy’s house respectively, although I landed with the heavy load twice and carried home bags of material on all other days. As for Isaiah and Ze Hao, they did not take the diorama home at all, and whenever we asked them to they made an excuse and quickly ran off. Truth or false, I do not know.

Also, due to the diorama being quite fragile, whenever probing hands touched the figurines or the fences they were very liable to break off. We repeatedly fixed it; however, there was an incident when Timothy broke off a fence and just dumped it on the diorama, and did not bother to fix it. It pained me to see something which I, and the other group member’s, had worked on for such a long time be carelessly destroyed. Also from that I can see that Timothy is not very concerned about the state of the diorama and moreover he said several times that he wanted out. We tried to be patient with him and give him more chances but he blew them all; the final straw came when he ran off during D&T lesson to go find Ms Fox. Everyone had to go look for him, which wasted precious time which could have been used to further the diorama; also when the diorama was left unguarded somebody stole the curtain mechanism.

Some Lessons I have learnt through the process of making the diorama:

 I think that I have the capacity to become a leader if I manage to overcome my shyness. I was the ‘leading architect’, as mentioned above, and instructed some other members to do a particular aspect of the work.
 I have learnt that teamwork is important in a group; also team spirit. Without these qualities a member would invite resentment and would be excluded or self isolated during social working together and would not enjoy the whole learning process at all.
 Co-operation is necessary to do a group project; everyone must work together or the thing will fall apart.
 My little insight: Teamwork is useful throughout your entire working life and possibly afterwards.
 I like D&T a lot!
 Therefore when you do something or a subject that you like you will enjoy it. As my Agatha Christie book says, ‘A man not doing something he likes to do is only half a man.’ It seems likely that I will take D&T in Secondary 3.


On the issue of marks:
I feel that everyone should be graded according to how determined and dedicated they are in doing the diorama. Also, I think that peers should evaluate themselves and others and give truthful marks as this will make them honest and also since they are the ones working with their members they would know exactly what everyone did. Therefore they are actually the ones able to give the most accurate mark in proportion to amount of work done. Thus, I think that the marks should be left status quo (Me 25%, Ryan 25%, Azmi 20%, Timothy 5%, Ze Hao 15%, and Isaiah 10%) as everyone agreed in the D&T room that this should be their mark.