Abstract v. the Concrete

Hey!
So on Thursday, we examined abstract ideas and thinking with concrete ideas and thinking. The way we modeled this was by drawing. To model the concrete, we drew objects with looking at the sheet of paper; my drawing of a water bottle, for example, was very disjointed to say the least. (I will post the pictures of both my water bottle and my notebook shortly, so you can see what I mean).To model the abstract, we were told to make a diagram of all the components that make up a bike; this was more difficult because we had to picture a bike in our head as well as what parts made it up. I thought this activity was very beneficial to me because it gave me a better understanding of how engineers work in the concrete world but yet think in the abstract one; engineers need to imagine how components of an object will work before they can design something to do a specific task. Also, this activity showed me that someone cannot rely only on either the abstract or the concrete; both "worlds" are interconnected by some idea, process, or part. This activity was also a good transition exercise for our next activity in which we are to find something on Penn's campus and analyze its structure over three lengths and compare to some other structure, whether natural or man-made. I will let you know of what my "thing" to be analyzed is going to be after I make up my mind (I am still slightly confused about what sort of "thing" we are to analyze and exactly how we are to analyze it).