Workshop 01

Workshop 01

Today I am going to talk about my first workout in Multimedia Development. This was our first session of the year. The task that was presented to us was to create flow chart that accurately described how a set of traffic lights at a cross-junction would work. 
As I have a driver's license, this task was not too much of a challenge to me. When we were first put into our groups and given the task, I was puzzled. It required a level of lateral thinking in order to put it down on pen and paper, even though I encounter traffic lights very day. 

During this exercise I learned that sometimes a task may seem as if it is very difficult but when you sit down and think about sometimes we understand a lot more than we initially think. When this task was first presented to us, I felt overwhelmed by how difficult it was. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to write down. After I put my head down and actually thought about how it worked, it became clearly. 
Firstly, I thought about how to distinguish all 4 directions of the junction. The system I thought of was using the terminology; Northbound, Southbound, Eastbound and Westbound. These terms refer to the direction in which the road is going. 
After that, I thought about the sequence of the lights. While one direction is allowed to go, then its opposite direction is also allowed to go. This meant that each opposite direction both had a green light at the same time. while the 2 roads opposite each other have a green light, the 2 other directions who are opposite each other have a red light. Obviously after each green light it must display a amber light before all junctions get a red light. Then, the other 2 roads get a green light. The sequence then repeats itself. 
With all of this in mind, the answer I gave was; All Red>N+S Green>N+S Amber>All Red>E+W Green>E+W Amber>All Red>Repeat

After I gave this answer to Shaun, he pointed out to me that while 2 of the roads are green, we must specify what light is displayed at the other 2 roads. This was a good point and I changed my answer accordingly. 

Overall, it was a good experience. I enjoyed the method of teaching and I enjoyed the problem-solving aspect, instead of listening to a lecturer ramble on for a hour or two. I enjoy working in groups but for such a simple task I found it easier to devise my own method and the present it to my peers. In my opinion, team work is only necessary with a task that require multiple skills or a big workload. 

It feels weird writing about my experience. I think maybe because it was just a half-hour task there isn't much to say but I can say that in larger projects and tasks, self-reflection is very important. 

Image Information:

Aerial Photograph of a cross-junction: https://pixabay.com/photos/cross-road-junction-road-traffic-425054/

Flow chart of traffic lights: https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/?noHomepageRedirect=true