While ethical concerns for this project are few and far between, it is important to weigh them up with equal concern to ensure that this project is safe.
Having a father that is also a fire engineering project manager has given me considerable advantages, especially regarding DE502, the professional practice segment of the marking criteria. Pre-existing connections within professional industries is always a large advantage, but some boundaries and actions were required to ensure that our interactions in both personal and professional capacities were kept as separate as possible. We agreed to not discuss the project outside of working hours (aside from passing comments) so that I did not begin to feel pressured or overwhelmed about my work. Due to me having ADHD, experiencing high pressure or overwhelm can often cause what is known as a “shutdown.” It is very frustrating when shutdowns happen, because my ability to work calmly and efficiently is severely inhibited. As such, it is best to take measures to lessen the likelihood of such an event occurring. However, I would like to emphasise that setting/maintaining personal and professional boundaries did NOT impact my work or the quality of the feedback I received.
Due to a lack of available information and resources, I was unable to find the exact mass per unit length of any bass guitar string for my tension calculation. I did work around this by working backwards from the weight of a package containing all 4 strings, but due to the nature of bass guitar strings (varying thicknesses and thus slightly varying weights), it is important to note that the result of the calculations may not be entirely accurate to life. In the event that you are tuning your instrument, please do so using proper tuning equipment (or even just a free mobile app!) instead of relying on the value of frequency.
Using TikTok as a means of gathering public opinions on the project was slightly problematic. Quantifiable surveys need participants to be aware that they are partaking in a survey, as well as needing the participants to understand what their responses will be used for. In the short video I posted I tried to clarify that the responses received would count towards my assessment for this project, but found myself struggling to properly explain things within the limited time I have. Since I was unable to gather informed consent from the participants, I had to omit their names and profile pictures in any screenshots posted of the resulting comments. In addition, using a platform wherein it is impossible to accurately verify age meant that I would be unable to use the responses in any legal capacity, regardless of informed consent. While there are no laws in the UK governing minor interaction with online surveys [NHS Health Research Authority], it tends to be within manufacturer interest (assuming one is not manufacturing a product intended for children) to ensure that their survey demographic is at least 16 (the legal age of informed consent in the UK.)