How could you prepare yourself for a new project proposal?

Question

I am a high school physics teacher in Europe and hoping to write an Erasmus+ project for High Schools to deploy their cubesat (small satelitte) in orbit. This kind of project has been run several times in US, but not in Europe although Erasmus+ funds are enough to support this kind of activity.

I have written several projects before in my field but this kind of project is far ahead of my knowledge. My question: How could you prepare (or motivate) yourself for writing a new project proposal with a minimal knowledge about the subject so that you overcome the obstacles holding off you start off the project.

Answer 1

Start small and embrace failure as a learning opportunity.

You said you don't have much knowledge in this area and there are some obstacles. In all likelihood, your first attempts will not work out, so don't bet everything on them succeeding. I have never written educational project proposals, so I can't give specific suggestions, but I can provide some pretty universal good practices:

• Find the smallest action that will gain you feedback you can learn from. If you can submit the proposal many times, sometimes the easiest thing to do is do it wrong, submit it, and see what they say - or do it wrong and start floating it by colleagues to see if someone knows a person who has done this before who can give feedback on it.

• Look for quick wins that move you forward. If you know the tech part or the funding part, completing that successfully may help motivate you and show others you work with that you've got some of it and just need help completing the rest.

• Find a friend. Look in your school or professional community for people who have already been successful with part of it. Maybe someone has successfully applied for and received Erasmus+ funds before. They can at least get you moving and build momentum.

I hope this helps. Completely new projects can be the most frustrating, but also the most rewarding.