And now we're waiting...

 I know, this blogpost must seem REALLY boring, but there's really nothing else to post about. We're currently in the waiting phase of our project— we're waiting for important documents from Mr. Hooper (to be sent via campus mail), waiting for Rachelle to get better (get well Rachelle!), waiting for contact from Robert Cardenas, Mr. Hooper's boss, and waiting for the deadline to approach (just kidding.) We're just getting our proposal ready and hopefully airtight for Thursday's meeting. We hope to answer questions about the number of kids this would reach, the intricacies of the proposed PA system, and how this would work accurately and automatically. I think we'll try to answer those questions tomorrow. Kenny and I will try to hold down the fort if Rachelle is still sick (hopefully not) but I'm sure it will be fine. We just want to make sure that we're prepared for anything Mrs. Martin and the administration team have to throw our way :).

Friday's (LATE) Blogpost!

Waiting for Ms. Martin in the office :O

First off, I would really like to apologize for this late blogpost that I was supposed to have completed by Friday night. I promise there won't be another late blogpost!

But anyways, our interview with Ms. Martin on Thursday after our interview with Mr. Mike was very helpful because it gave us the reality expectations of what our plan would take. As Nikki explained in the prior blogpost, there were many other problems/roadblocks that came about in our meeting with Ms. Martin that we weren't expecting. The most shocking thing to our group would probably have to be the fact that the PA system is actually only for emergencies. I don't think anyone in our group realized this as we created the PA system solution, so we realized we needed to find another way to somehow make announcements through another system. This will prove harder than it sounds (even though it doesn't sound easy) but we're up for the task! We're excited to see how our solution will actually pull through because with all these changes, who knows, we might end up implementing something completely different :)

Mrs. Martin and the upcoming meeting

After interviewing with Mrs. Martin on Thursday, we realized that we had a few kinks to work out in our otherwise innovative plan. The problem with our current solution, as Mrs. Martin so adeptly put, was that there is an insufficient number of people working in the office at the considered time of day (afterschool/study help period) and the limited number of people there are so busy with a variety of other time-consuming tasks, so to press a button and initiate the bus sequence over the PA system would be just another task to add to the never ending list. Whoa. I did not foresee that roadblock. However, I don't think it will be a major problem if we can find a way to make the system self-sufficient; initiated at the proper time by a student, perhaps, or something. But we are making progress— we've knocked out two interviews and will hopefully get to one more as we prepare for an administrative meeting on Thursday. Mrs. Martin kindly invited us to share our ideas at this week's high school administrative team meeting for the first five minutes in order to get a feel of how her colleagues would respond to our idea, and we accepted, as you can see from the email sent above. We hope to have a few more questions answered by then, and Mr. Hooper, who has been a great help to us, is sending his information via campus mail. I am confident that his bus data will be able to provide answers to Mrs. Martin's questions, and we look forward to sharing with her and the rest of the high school administrative team.

Mahalo Uncle Mike!

so today we were extremely fortunate because mr. blake was able to set up a meeting for our group with Mr. Michael Hooper who is in charge of some part of transportation. we explained our project and our plan of action to fix it to him. he had very interesting ideas regarding possible solutions to the problem as well as much more information as to what happens on the transportation department's side of things. he said that at present, all of the buses are to start loading students at 3:30 in order from longest route to shortest. this seems to be a pretty effective way of doing things but he has another idea which is to start different buses from different locations in order to speed up the process of loading students and getting them out and on their way home. he presented more ideas similar to these which may not necessarily be they types of things that we could work with but he also told us about a program which he uses to organize all 28 buses which is called common tracker. using this system he is able to view the gps location of all of the buses at any time. we were hoping to possibly get a device like this in smith office and at a certain point when each bus is near konia have a pre recorded anouncement play informing students of the  near arrival of their bus. we thanked mr. hooper for his time and mana'o and proceeded to Ms. martin's office....

"Attention, Attention! Your bus will be here in 5 minutes"

Courtesy of: http://www.artisticcontrols.com/images/public-address-system.jpg

Let's see, so far our group has proposed to you two solutions we find could solve the bus stop dilemma. One of which may be more reasonable than the other. But, guess what? Our ideas don't stop there. We've got one more idea, and this one consists of working with administration to get a hold of the PA system. Whether it be study hall, in a classroom, or hanging out with friends in the hall, I'm sure people would rather spend their time hanging out in these places than the bus stop any day. That's why, we are proposing, as our third solution, to somehow find a way to make bus announcements everyday after school for everyone to hear...no matter where they are. The PA system is great for sending out mass announcements to the student body at any time during the day because it is likely these students will be somewhere near an announcement box. We would somehow get the transportation department and the Konia office to work together allowing an announcement to go off 10 minutes before each country bus comes. We think this could be very beneficial for all bus riders, and if successful, could carry onto the Paki bus stop as well.

"is that an airport?" nope, just konia bus stop!

you know how at the airport when you are headed out on your long earned journey to disney land and your flight is inevitably delayed simply because the universe hate you? yes we have all been in this situation and the step right after crying profusely is to check one of those cool sideways tv things that they have on the walls that show all the times of flights arriving and departing. well imagine having one of those boards available for use by students at konia so that they could view the position of their bus along its route to the bus stop. this would give students the knowledge and power to more accurately manage their time after school while waiting for their ride home to arrive. they could possibly get over 15 minutes of extra study time in after classes are finished! thats a lot of time, if you add up even just one week thats over an hour! this is just one of the ways that our group is considering as a solution to the cramped bus stop situation which currently is a problem at our school.

Proposed Solution #1: Mobile Alerts

          The previous blogpost proposed a problem we see and feel as a group, can solve for this project. As a group, we have come up with three different solutions that may or may not be reasonable to put into effect. Our first idea has to do with mobile alerts through a cell phone. Just like TheBus Company has HEA, the Kamehameha bus drivers and transportation department would have some way to contact bus riders to let students know when their bus is going to arrive. We feel this is a potentially efficient solution because in this generation people live on their phones. I personally don't know anyone in high school who doesn't own a phone. These devises are always in people's pockets, if not in their hand. So, if your phone is always with you, it would only be beneficial to the rider to rely on a text to let them know when their bus is going to arrive. This way, the rider won't have to rush or guess what time their bus will come.

(what the alert would look like)

          On the other hand, we do realize there are flaws with this solution.
          Say, you forget your phone at home and you are no longer to receive the notification because you don't have your phone. Or maybe you're not able to send or receive text messages on your phone because it's not included in your data plan. We do realize that these may bring up issues, but we also offer simple solutions to these drawbacks.
          Ask a friend who catches the same bus (and has the mobile alerts) so you know when your bus is going to come, or something like that. IF all else should fail, we have a simple solution to that too.
          Wait at the bus stop :)

(where people normally wait)

          This is our proposed solution number one and although it may not be flawless, we are making progress!