Writing end report

Hi!

Project has come to the point were we need to take a look what has been done and to write a report about it. Also we are going to have ending gala and present our project to the public.

End report writing is going on nicely and it will be very inclusive about the project. It will cover all the planing, innovating and designing that has been done during the project. There will be also result of our surveys and overview of the project group.

You will hear some more about us when the writing has been finished.

Marko

Media relations - Medialle

We have published press page for the media due to increasing publicity of our project:

Projektimme saaman julkisuuden johdosta olemme julkaisseet projektille mediasivun:

http://sites.google.com/site/coin2020/

More info / Lisätiedot: coin2020 (#) gmail.com

-Simo

Coin of 2020 wakes Finnish media?

The seminar has really got our phones ringing and you might be able to spot our prototype in the Bank of Finland Museum on this Sunday. What's best of this is that you can visit the museum for free! The museum can be found in Helsinki at Snellmaninkatu 2 and it opens at 11.00 o'clock and stays so until 16.00. Together with our prototype you can also spot Pedro, who is there answering all your questions, free of charge of course ;)

More information about the museum can be found at http://www.rahamuseo.fi/

So be there or be square!

-Jani

The Show

So today it was time for the biggest goal in our project - the seminar to celebrate the 150 years old Mint of Finland. The seminar, which was held in Säätytalo, offered us a great chance to meet some people in leading positions in Finlands' money and finance industry. We even got a chance to chat with our Minister of Finance, Jyrki Katainen.

After the Mint of Finlands' CEO Maarit-Aarni Sirviö, the Minister of Finance Jyrki Katainen, the Governor of Bank of Finland Erkki Liikanen and Giesecke&Devrients Head of Product Portfolio Manager Holger Ziegler, our project group had "the 15 minutes of fame". Me and Mirva presented what our group had accomplished during the last 2,5 months.

In the end of the day I can say that the seminar was a great success. It was very rewarding to notice that so many people were really interested in our work. Besides the huge amount of positive feedback we also received a lot of valuable and constructive information concerning our coin project.

-Heikki

Hey!

Finaly our prototype is here. Here is a picture of it:



So we got this 3:1 prototype last week as well as the 1:1 prototype. It is casted from aluminium. After having it we first took it to Mint for grinding and polishing. Then we got it back and started assebling LED-lights and inner plastic cirle. Also we had to repare a vitrine for seminar that was held today at Säätytalo. Fortunately we got almost everything done within one day.

You can read more how it went at the seminar from the next writing.

-Marko

Group dynamics and interaction

On yesterday we had a good lecture about group dynamics and interaction. These are especially important things when it comes to projects like ours' which includes a lot of innovating and sharing of ideas. In our session we noticed that each group is unique and therefore has different group dynamics and interactions inside it. These can be affected for example with a positive atmosphere that encourages sharing of ideas and opinions and giving constructive feedback.

I have to say that our project has been very lucky getting a project group like us. In our group the ideas are shared with open mind and others opinions are respected. Somehow we've managed to bypass the usual "stormy" phase which can come after the group starts working together. I guess that our group has so positive and work-oriented people that we have a great chance to survive this sailing trip without storms and reefs, even though countering these shouldn't be afraid of. In terms of learning these situations are usually the best places to notice something new about yourself or others!


As Pedro mentioned earlier, the project's manufacturing phase is now going on. After yesterday it again seems that we will be able to have a haptic coin within our hands by the Easter-holiday, but let's not count our chickens before they are hatched...

-Jani

The last week was exam week and we didn't have group meeting but I'm going to tell you some things about the last group meeting, the steering group meeting and the main events during these almost two weeks.

Firstly, we have accorded to change the working style. Now we are going to work in smaller groups and only some of use are focused in each part of the work. During the general meetings, held on Thuersdays yet, we are going to present to the other the advances made by each group during the last week, we are going to take the necessary decisions to the work of the next week and we are going to discuss the next meeting agenda.

Later, each group has explained their advances during the last week:
-Markko have told that the strontium aluminate applied as a paint is the most commun form to give phosphorescence to the objects. He would try to purchase the paint in a hobby store.
-Jani has explained that the best form to validate the coins is the current method based on the electromagnetic field of the metals.
-Antti has told that the self cleaning product is avaliable as a paint too and that it is able to be applied outwardly to the coin with whatever design or material.
-Heikki was the responsible of the transparent materials of the coin and he has stated that the best material is probably polycarbonate, despite of its poor wear resistance, because other polymers present problems like bad recyclibility and the ceramics are very fragile.
-I have spoken to the others about the metallic materials for our coin. We have accorded that the silver is maybe the best option due to its nice appearence and maleability and ductility. Another option, if the silver is too expensive could be cupronickel which is already used in manufacturing coins.
-Finally, Simo and Mirva have told us that the normal LED lights are the best option to our coin since they can work with a little amount of energy and because they are really cheap while the OLED light are expensive and hard to made. Simo showed us a nice product out of the LED's to see the brightness and we have accorded to put in the coin blue (and maybe white) LED lights which have around 200 mcd.

To close the meeting we have decided to make 2 different prototypes to the seminar in Mint, one of them with LED lights (scale 1:3) and another one without LED lights but with the correct final size.

The next day(Friday) we had the steering group meeting where we explained to the Mint guys and to the teachers all our progress and decisions. Tuoppi seems really excited with our design and he gave us some useful piece of advices.

Everything looks nice but during the week a big problem have emerged. Jani and Ari went to Mint to have a meeting with Tuoppi and one of the Mint's designers told Ari that the his design should be modified to be able to be manufactured, so the the manufacturing process can't start yet and we have only two weeks until the seminary!
By the other hand the paints to give to the coin phosphorescence and self-cleaning surface could e purchased soon. Tomorrow we have the group meeting, let's see how we work under pressure!

-Pedro