This picture shows how I break down the system.  It all starts with the founders, and the thinkers and doers of the program, i.e. David Goldberg.  Then their idea of iFoundry comes to life and but it requires funding.  That is where UIUC and other private donations come in to play to help it move along.  This then leads to iEFX, which is where most of everything comes into play.  It is then broken into the tow main parts, of ENG198 and the iCommunity.  ENG198 is then broken down into the two components of of the lab and discussion.  The lab allows real world skills like working across multiple disciplines to get things done and working in a team to achieve a goal while the discussion section allows us to learn the missing basics.  On the other side iCommunity is broken into the iHouse and the iTeams.  The iTeams then break into the projects and the iSA, which are students which is also where the ENG198 side also ends.  Then they give the feedback to the head people and they improve on it and it creates a cycle.

As far as gaining from doing this it allowed me to see exactly how much work is being put in to this program. It also helped me understand how i think about this experience and also helped me learn how to do this kind of chrat to better understand the systems that i use and am apart of.  The most interesting part is realizing how many adults are involved in this and how it all comes together.  It was a very interesting thing to do.

my computer labeled to the best that the picture i have allowed me

Free Writing

Communicating, writing and presenting are all some of the most important things that people can do.  If you can not do this well then you cannot be a leader within your group or even be helpful as you can not get your main ideas across to the rest of the group.  As far as writing goes it is probably the hardest for most people because they might be able to explain everything through words or something like that but if they try to go through writing they cannot get the same detail as talking simply because they are not used to having to do it.  It is also hard in writing because you are never sure who is going to read what you are writing and because of that you have to explain everything that you are doing and can't use acronyms for anything or nick names as someone who is unfamiliar with the subject might have trouble understanding what you are trying to say.  Another thing with writing that presents a huge problem for engineers is that we, or at least I, hate trying to explain every little detail and want them to know the basics with out me having to say anything so that everything can move quicker and i don't have to do as much work.  The only problems is that most people don't know the basics about engineering and couldn't identify even the beginning of what we had to learn, which to us is so basic but to them it is so foreign.  Another huge challenge for us is that we are not the best public speakers, or presenters, but in order to become successful in life we have to make people believe in what we are saying and doing.  If we cant present anything then we will never get our great idea onto the shelves because we cant make anyone believe that it is a good idea.  We have to be able to sell it and not be scared.  Engineers also need to know how to present.  Most of the people we present to are not cared about the details of the latest invention.  They want to know how much it will cost, how much you can sell it for, and how much can they make.  They are interested in the money side, which is fair because they are paying you to deal with the technical details of the operation.  So if you are presenting to people like that then don't bore them with the technical stuff, get to the part they care about, cater to the people you are presenting to.  But what both of those things have in common is communication.  If you are not good at that then you will have alot of problems in life as you cannot get your main ideas across to people or teach someone how to use your device or sell it.  You have to be able to communicate what you are thinking, either verbally or written, to other people other wise your thoughts arnt very useful because no one else can understand you or knows what you are thinking.  And regardless of what your job is you will always have to deal with people and talk to them and make them at least deal with you in order to get promotions, pay raises, or even just keep your job.  Communication is the single biggest thing that someone can have because if you have that half of the battle of anything you are trying to do is over.  If you have good communication then you can go very far simply because even though someone else might have a better idea, they might not be able to put it on paper as well as you or sell it and therefore your idea will be accepted.  Communication is the single biggest downfall for most engineers as we tend to stick to our selves and just want everyone to know without having to say anything.  But if we can find a way to communicate that then we would be fine and could go far in life.

Missing Basics

The amount of material we will cover in math and science greatly out weighs the amount of stuff we will be exposed to in other areas.  Yet as engineering progresses as a idea we have to become able to do more than just crunch numbers, figure out the hardware/software/mech/ everything we are used to doing.  People now want us to come up with ideas that we think would work and to present them to large corporations.  Because of this we have to know what kinds of questions to ask, how to ask them, and how to speak to large groups, which are some of the missing basics.  If we know how to do these things we become better than the people who are also trying to get the same jobs as we have more skills and can better assist the company in what they are trying to do as we can come up with ideas and present them and not just figure out how to make them work.  The missing basics will help us better survive in the real world as it prepares us for jobs and not just what we have to do in them.