Personal Statements
Some thoughts we would like to share after commiting ourselves to this fulfilling adventure.
CHAN Ka Yan, Shirley
The final studio project is a fruitful and rewarding journey to me. It is an active learning process where we brainstormed every possible solutions, came up with the entire scheme and managed to keep up with the programme. Interviews with the professionals are especially memorable as I have gained many perspectives during the process. I also gained a sense of satisfaction when some of them paid a visit to our exhibition and left us very positive feedback.
Meanwhile, I am delightful that we have met our expectation without overloading ourselves which is a great improvement compared to my past experience in this course. This is a precious experience on how to effectively manage a project. Regarding the hard skill, I have levelled up my competence in Adobe Illustrator and setting up webpage as a way to present our research results and deliver our messages. This is indeed very rewarding to me especially when I have gone through many attempts in order to give out the final work that I am satisfied with.
It is more than an academic project. Throughout the process, I am inspired by the strengths of each of my group mate, such as their logical thinking and problem-solving skill. On our weekly meetings, the collaborative thinking process does spark discussion and thinking on different social and housing issues.
CHOI Chun Hong, Keith
It is no doubt that Hong Kong is facing a serious housing crisis and the recent trend shows that nano flats are getting more and more. As the real estate students, we have come up with the idea of Tardis after the in-depth research. I am glad that through this project I have gained knowledge about the seriousness of the housing crisis of Hong Kong, particularly in the aspect of reduced flat size, after reviewing the relevant statistics from different governmental bodies and organizations. Furthermore, I have also learned a wide range of existing technologies which could be the potential solution in this regard. Apart from collecting information through desktop research, we have also interviewed scholars and industry representatives. We have gained a lot from their insights and all these help build up our Tardis. MR technology is actually developing rapidly and I strongly believe that it could go further and further until one day we could use Tardis without wearing a bulky headset. This is Tardis, a solution for the future.
Lee Kin Ting Victor
Working on Tardis is like working on our own startup company. We have thought innovatively; acted with limitless motivation; and more importantly: tried to breakthrough the current boundaries. Therefore, I have really enjoyed working on this challenging yet very rewarding final studio project.
My major duties were liaising with interviewees, producing all videos and the VR concept realization. The 3 duties were delivered successfully towards the end of the project. However, I have encountered major technical difficulties while realizing the VR concept for exhibition. This has hence caused severe delay to the programme of the project. Similarly, I was also slightly late for the video deliverables.
Time management is an important lesson I have learned and it must be further improved before I can handle more complex, demanding projects. Special thanks must be given to Ian (Our programme manager) for urging me to follow the schedule, and also to my teammates for their unlimited tolerance.
All in all, I am very glad that our department and Mr. Barry allowed us to explore any possible solution to the housing crisis, without setting up too many constraints. I firmly believe that Tardis will be the future of housing and real estate. I am inspired by the professionals we have interviewed; by Mr. Barry's thinking path and comments during weekly meetings; and my fellow groupmates' support, ideas and commitment.
LEUNG Tsz Fung, Marco
An innovative solution to the housing crisis? That really sounds a challenging but fun topic. That was my thought when I first came across with this year’s theme of studio. To have an idea is not easy, making our ideas real is even harder. Tardis is the product for the studio and it is also my first-ever product to launch.
Before the idea development stage, it is a new idea to me to draft a learning contract where we make commitment to achieving something in the Studio course. It later on became one of the important metrics of the project. Other essential metrics are peer assessment and the programme. They are good tools for motivation and task management.
From idea development to marketing the product, I gained a lot of business knowledge from this project. Understanding the product, locating the unique proposition of the product and making it beknown to our audiences. Making a website today is way easier than years before. It allows some newbies like me to have a try on producing a new website for Tardis. Layout, content writing and even some graphics production. These sound not surveying related but I am very grateful for having a chance to attempt on doing them before I graduate. All these are good learning opportunities for me and I am glad that the learning curve was good.
Launching the product in an exhibition is another remarkable experience. It is another story from software production. Interactive elements and a logical and easy-to-follow flow of presentation are necessary. Just as developing Tardis, we together developed another real-life experience for our audience to try out the prototype of Tardis.
All these took place within a semester. It wasn’t easy and there were some hiccups along the way. I appreciate very much for Mr. Barry Wilson’s facilitation throughout the journey. I am very glad to work with a dynamic team. To me, this studio project is so far my most achieving project.
TSE Hoi Hin, Ian
Tardis is one of the most challenging projects throughout my university life. However, it is also the most interesting one. It is interesting not only because of our innovative idea but also because of the unique format of the project. We drafted and signed a learning contract, which states our learning objectives, in the very beginning of the project. According to our contract, our performance is not only assessed by the solution itself, but also how we manage the project, how we motivate each other by peer assessments, and even how we draft the learning contract.
As the “project manager”, I admit that I did not think the programme will be helpful. However, I eventually realised how important a well-managed programme is. Our team has successfully delivered our tasks on time and to an acceptable standard since we reviewed our programme every week to ensure all of us are putting appropriate effort on each task. The difficulty of being a project manager is also beyond my expectation as I have to understand what everyone is doing and motivate them to meet the timeline we set in the learning contract.
To conclude, I am satisfied with our project as we delivered a great exhibition effectively. It is also a rewardable learning progress not only because of knowing more about pioneering VR technology but also because of learning how to manage a project team.
