I'm on a raft

     Being shipwrecked on a life raft isn't exactly the most ideal situation to be in, but yesterday's activity put us in the middle of nowhere with a handful of "useful" items. Our job was to order the items from least to most important in terms of how they would help us survive in the environment.
     For the most important, I put water and food because I figured keeping your energy up with nourishment would be vital for survival. Even though you are out in the ocean, the sea water is not safe to drink since it has a high salt concentration. Therefore water is both scarce and necessary. Food is also important because it keeps you alive longer, which is the basic premise behind surviving. For the least important I put chocolate bars and oil. I didn't think indulging on sweets could make the situation any better, so other items that have a practical use should be considered more useful. I could not think of any use for the oil except creating a fire, and I came to the conclusion that a fire on a raft would be a bad idea. Personally, I had a hard time ranking the mirror since it seemed to be an obscure object within the list and didn't seem to fit in.
     My group agreed my logic on the most important items so we chose water and food as the most important items on the list. As a team we also agreed that chocolate was pretty useless. However my team believed shark repellent would be less important than oil since the chances of a shark attack are very minimal.Overall, my group and I listed most of the items in a similar order. We were also able to work very well with each other since we could communicate openly and listened to all ideas (no matter how crazy). However the several tangents that we went on did slow our progress.
     I was surprised to see that the oil was actually ranked much higher, though it makes sense since it can be used to make a signal that help you get saved. The importance of the mirror also baffled me since the experts great praise for the potential of a simple mirror seemed excessive. I would rely more on experimental data since proof lies in the objective, not the subjective.

Dropping the ball

     The challenge was to pass a tennis ball to each member of the team so that the ball touched each person's hand. However this had to be done quickly so we could beat the other team. One constraint we added in which made the challenge much more difficult was that we have to be at arms length from our peers.
     At first we tried to simply pass it to each other, but we kept "dropping the ball." To succeed in the most efficient manner, our group decided to roll the ball down each of our hands, allowing gravity to do all the work for us. This proved to be the easiest way to solve the challenge. Unfortunately the other team copied us, even though we executed it better.
     It was good that we all communicated during the activity, since knowing what your team mates are doing is necessary. It would have been better if we practiced more so that we could perfect our technique.