There were many problems, like the bottom of the water bottles, rust, making the lever run smoothly, synchronizing the bottles so they aligned, putting the sponges in the large intestine, and other stuff. However, we didn’t use trial and error until we actually needed to. The bottom of the water bottles were stumps we couldn’t cut across, so we cut around it. Some problems were human error (mostly me). I thought that the gap between the edges was too narrow, so I cut them to make it less narrow. However, I didn’t know that the edges were supposed to be narrow (communication problem on my part), so I ended up with rough edges, so I put tape around it, reinforced the bottles with cardboard, glued it, then cut it again. This made the lever run smoothly. I synchronized the bottles by putting cardboard on it, until it fit, then reinforced it with glue and tape. We just shoved the sponge in the bottles, then glued it. However, these were pretty minor problems (other than the bottoms of the bottles). The biggest challenge for me was teamwork. I usually branched off from my group and would do stuff by myself, sometimes giving advice to other people, and even doing things myself, but still, 50% of the time, I was working alone. If I didn’t simply branch off and decided to work with my other group members, I might have done things quicker. However, we had enough resources and managed to pull it off.

We’ve got the sponges (just a visual of villi) in the water bottles, reinforced the handle of the lever, made way for it, and put it together to form the large intestine. Everything went as planned, but there was 2 very big problems- the stem of the water bottles. Since we couldn’t cut through it, we cut around it, replaced what would have been the stem with duct tape and cardboard. The other problem was gluing the bottles together so the ends matched each other. through trial and error (and a lot of rage and infuriation), I managed it.

For the esophagus and stomach, we used pipes for the small intestine, and another water bottle for the stomach. We used food dye, soda, and water for the liquid, and used indigestion tablets (pretty ironic) as food.

For the villi, we used sponges and pipe cleaners. The main problem was the pipe cleaners rusting, so we made another set. The water would be the nutrients, and it would show the villi absorbing nutrients.

My part in all this: I designed and made the whole large intestine (Arnold prepared the sponges), took part in designing the villi, and was the proofreader of all scripts.

Things are going on pretty well- we’ve finished the intestines, stomach, and villi. We need to design the mouth (we haven’t started it yet).