The class of 2026 have just reached the conclusion of Project Utopia. Our task was to design Fremantle Port into “a place where all people thrive”, a utopia for all intents and purposes. It was a great school project that stretched my collaboration, communication, and organisation skills to a new level. I worked with different people to design a creative version of Fremantle, and I had a blast along the way.
I had to be a collaborative team member throughout this project. One of these times was when me and my group were in InnovatEd. We had only just been put together and I didn’t know anyone very well at the time, but I put my doubts aside and worked with new people to complete the task at hand. In my opinion, this takes collaboration skills to do. For some people, working with new people can be daunting, but really, it’s just a way to meet new people and make new friends. Later on, me and that same group of people had to make a four-part speech. It was a difficult process because each part had to have different ideas, but still be relevant. But everyone hauled their weight and worked together to make what I’d call a successful result. Collaboration is something hard to master, but from this project, I have learnt a lot about being in a team.
Communication was another thing that I learned from Project Utopia. When my group was practising the speech mentioned above, there was chaos at first. We all had our separate speeches but without each other, they were exactly that: separate. We had to communicate to each other to turn our individual parts into a whole speech. At the time, I thought that wasn’t necessary, and if we all did our parts it would work out, but the point of being in a team is working together, and that means talking. Communication can sometimes be taken for granted, but without it, it’s impossible to get anything done as a group. Project Utopia taught me this. Communication is essential to any group task and the better you communicate, the smoother things run.
The final ASC capability that I improved on during this project is organisation. In any project, whether it be a group task or an essay, to finish on time you need to be organised. I remember needing to be organised when I was researching the global goals and livability factors. This was a topic I was familiar with, and I did feel slightly relaxed, but that didn’t lessen the need for organisation. I still needed to schedule times to research and sort my notes into tidy categories. Another, more stressful time was when I and my group were making our vision board. A vision board is a large panel, packed with pictures, information, and diagrams and it takes a lot of work to make. The specialised athletics training was on at that time, and I had missed a few lessons. But I caught back up with the class, did my homework, and my group actually finished our board a bit early. Project Utopia has helped me to be more organised, collaborative and communicative in many ways. It was an incredible experience and I’m looking forward to the next InnovatEd project.
