Shermeen's blog

http://yousifshermeen.blogspot.com/

Wei Yan's class:
http://faculty.arch.tamu.edu/wyan/ARCH689/students.html

lean construction - games

Zofia Rybkowski described that as part of lean construction course she runs an assignment to create a game. As an example she mentioned one of the students' designed games:
Everyone gets given a letter size piece of paper and is told to make a paper plane in three minutes. Follows a competition and which plane flies the furthest is the winner. The winner then teaches everyone how s/he built her/his plane and round two of building/testing is on. Then the best few get to share their techniques. The cycle goes on.
The result is that everyone in the group progresses, everyone becomes quite confident and no-one in the team/company gets fired.

This is such a clever idea.
I like it so much better than just pure capitalist competition.

I do wonder whether this can work in the colonias and how.

Colonias program promotoras help Socorro flooding victims

Colonias program promotoras help Socorro flooding victims

The Texas A&M Colonias Program came to the aid of flood-stricken West Texans last September when heavy rain and rising water drove many colonia residents in Socorro, a suburb of El Paso, from their homes.

The local community center, operated by the Colonias Program and the city of Socorro, was transformed into an emergency operations center, and the program’s community workers, known as promotoras, were dispersed around the community to check on residents threatened by the floodwaters. 

http://one.arch.tamu.edu/news/2013/10/29/colonias-program-promotoras-help-socorro-flooding-victims/

TAMU Research Symposium - 21st Oct 2013

http://symposium.arch.tamu.edu/2013/schedule/

see:
Yu Xiao - Enhancing Local Economic Disaster Resiliency through Industrial Diversification? Evidence from the 1993 Midwest Flood
Shannon Van Zandt - Inequities in Long-term Housing Recovery after Disasters
Cecilia Giusti - Texas Colonias: Citizen Participation and Community Development Urban Affairs Association 43th. Annual Conference, April 3-6 2013, San Francisco California
Jorge Venegas - The Promise and Unintended Consequences of Technology
Sarah DeYong - Sigfried Giedion, Team X and the Evolution of a Relational Idea
Mardelle Shepley - Design Characteristics of a Healthy and Productive Healthcare Work Environment
Kenneth Joh - Examining Trends in Walking Travel in Southern California, 2001-2009: Insights from National and Regional Travel Surveys For most of the past half-century, automobiles have been the dominant mode of transportation in North America
Ifte Choudhury - Rainwater Harvesting for Domestic Consumption in Bangladesh
Chanam Lee - School-based Environmental Approaches to Promote Walking to School: Modifiable micro-scale environmental factors
Wei Li - Assessing Benefits of Walkability to Single Family Property Values: a Hedonic Study in Austin, Texas
Xuemei Zhu - A Walkable Community’s Impacts on Residents’ Physical and Social Health

Texas A&M Colonias factbooks

Texas Department of Human Services, The Colonias Factbook (Austin, Texas, June 1988), p. 1-3.

Texas Water Development Board, Water and Wastewater Needs of Texas Colonias: 1995 Update (Austin, Texas, February 1995), p. 3.

Proposal to U.S. Housing and Urban Development from Texas A&M University, Center for Housing and Urban Development, Community Outreach Partnership between Residents of Ten Colonias Along Highway 359 East of Laredo, Texas and The Government of Webb County, Texas and Texas A&M University's Colonias Program (College Station, Texas, April 1994). (Booklet.)

Texas Department of Human Services, The Colonias Factbook, pp. 6-4, 6-5.

Texas A&M University, Colonias Program Performance Appraisal and Opportunities for the State of Texas to Improve Colonia Conditions (College Station, Texas, July 23, 1996), p. 7.