Redeeming Procrastination: Self-Compassion and Creativity

This paper investigates the effects of self-compassion interventions on creativity after reflecting on a past procrastination experience. The experimental survey ran on Amazon Mechanical Turk (“MTurk”) in April 2018. Over 400 participants were randomized according to the 2x2 factorial design into four groups: a self-kindness intervention group, a common humanity intervention group, a combined self-kindness and common humanity group, and a control group. Participants first completed pre-survey measures that measured trait self-compassion, guilt and shame proneness, and attributional causes. After being asked to reflect on a time they procrastinated that made them feel badly about themselves, participants completed a self-compassion or control writing task. Emotional affect and state self-compassion were then measured. Lastly, participants completed a written business proposal to measure creativity. Creativity scores were not significantly higher for those who received a self-compassion intervention, and were in fact highest in the control group, although not significantly so

A Methodology for Successful University Graduate CubeSat Programs

The University of Colorado Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering has over a decade of success in designing, building, and operating student led CubeSat missions. The experience and lessons learned from building and operating the CSSWE, MinXSS-1, MinXSS-2, and QB50-Challenger missions have helped grow a knowledge base on the most effective and efficient ways to manage some of the “tall poles” when it comes to student run CubeSat missions. Among these “tall poles” we have seen student turnover, software, and documentation become some of the hardest to knock-down and we present our strategies for doing so. We use the MAXWELL mission (expected to launch in 2021) as a road-map to detail the methodology we have built over the last decade to ensure the greatest chance of mission success