PROTOTYPE

A CASE FOR PROBLEM BASED LEARNING

? - What parts of this talk resonate with you? What parts do not align with your experience or perspective?

• The part that resonates most with me is the idea that education should be personalized towards you.
• This brings up the point that we focus on what we are good at and people with certain strengths benefit the group in their unique ways.
• Creating a group of learners with specialties.
• I agree with all of the ideas presented in the video, the trouble would be creating a system to actually make this education system possible.

Let's apply our design process to generate some ideas for solutions to the issues Sir Ken raises. ? - If you had to boil the talk down to its core element, what is the problem Sir Ken Robinson is presenting?

• The problem presented is how to educate children to take their places in the economy.

? - With this theme in mind, how can we design experiences for our Creative Problem Solver's curriculum that facilitate a top notch experience for students? ? - Brainstorm 20 things that have either been or would be "bright spots" in your learning experience. Be specific!

1. Create a personality test
2. create an academic strength test
3. Don’t categorize by age but by discipline
4. Organize class where people with similar strengths sit at the same table
5. Put students who are morning people in first period class and night people in a later class
6. Find students that work well in big groups, small groups or on their own and divide the students
7. Keep interesting videos/discussions like this one
8. Investigate who falls into academic/non-academic categories
9. Help students find interests
10. Help students have career goals for the future
11. Keep all student types involved by alternating activities
12. Balance class time with learning and hands on activity
13. Keep some class engineering projects relevant to world issues (like Chilean Miners)
14. Ask for student donations of $20 at the beginning of the year to help fund the class
15. More TED-related videos
16. Keep the problem solving activities
17. Do daily life problem solving activities
18. Allow friends to work together only if they are productive
19. Have and A-grade student help ones who are less interested one day a week
20. Have an A-grade student give advice on organization planning and work habit to struggling students

DESIGN THINKING

Stanford D.School Bootcamp Bootleg

The difference in the two design processes is empathy. Adding empathy to the design process:

• Makes products more user friendly
• Makes the brainstorming process easier
• Puts you more in the shoes of others
• Allows people to relate to each other through product or design process

LOCKER DESIGN

Client: Mr. Mueller

Target Consumer: High school students

Designer: Philip & Team

Problem Statement:
School lockers are a mess. Students can never find a pen, pencil, or calculator, and their homework is always getting lost. Those who bring their lunch to school often find their food crushed under a sea of books and binders. Because of the clutter, it is often hard for students to close their locker doors completely.

Design Statement/Criteria:

• Design a high school locker organization system to satisfy Mr. Mueller's need, and that will neatly contain items commonly used and kept in school.

Constraints:

• Design must fit within your school locker.
• Easy to install.
• Must hold 20 lbs of books and binders.
• No flammable materials.

Process:
Break into your 2 person teams to collaborate with a partner on this project. Work with them to investigate the physical constraints of our CHS lockers.

Design Phase

• Identify the Problem: Find a solution for disorganized school lockers
• Investigate the CHS lockers
• Brainstorm Solutions
• Sketch Three Possible Solutions (include labels and important dimensions)

SKETCH #1:SKETCH #2SKETCH #3

• Select an Approach (justify selection with specifics): I chose cardboard dipped in flame retardant because the design was the most simple, uses the least expensive materials and is more environmentally friendly than plastic. This design was chosen as a blend of my other ideas and contains the best parts of many ideas.
  

My Design in CAD:

THE DEEP DIVE

1. “From the buildings in which we live and work, to the cars we drive, or the knives and forks with which we eat, everything we use was designed to create some sort of marriage between form and

function ”.

2. The folks at IDEO state that they are not experts in any given area. But, they do claim to be experts on the process of design which they apply to the innovation of consumer products.

3. After the team of designers is brought together, told the problem, and informed they have five days to “pull it off,” what phase of the design process do they immediately engage in?

Brainstorming

4. Give two examples of what the team members did during this phase.

a. privacy blinds

b. velcro seats and pants

5. List five rules-of-thumb that IDEO employees follow when they share ideas during the brainstorming phase:

a. one conversation at a time

b. stay focused

c. encourage wild ideas

d. defer judgment

e. build on others’ ideas

6. Why should wild (and sometimes crazy) ideas be entertained during the brainstorming phase?

Wild and crazy ideas should always be entertained because it gives you points or ideas to build off of. The only way to create revolutionary ideas is through seemingly wild and crazy ones.

7. After the brainstorming phase was over, the team narrowed down the hundreds of ideas by voting for those ideas that were not only “cool” but also buildable in a short period of time. What phase of the design process is this called?

Identify criteria/constraints

8. IDEO believes that the ideas and efforts of a team will always be more successful than the planning of a lone genius.

9. Once the ideas were narrowed down and divided into categories, the group was split into four smaller teams. What phase(s) of the design process was each of these groups responsible for?

Shopping, Safety, Check Out, Finding what looking for

10. The leaders at IDEO believe that playful behavior and a fun environment are two important reasons why their employees are able to think quickly and creatively to produce innovative results.

11. Sometimes, people come up with great solutions that work by trying their ideas first, and asking for forgiveness later.

12. Design is often a process of going too far and having to take a few steps back. What phase of the design process would the critique of the four mock-ups come under?

Select an Approach

13. Upon critique of the four teams’ models, it was obvious that none of the teams had developed an optimum solution. However, the people at IDEO believe that it is important to fail often in order to succeed sooner.

14. What percentage of the entire week’s time did it take to fabricate the final prototype?

Based on a 24 hr, 5-day work week (120hrs):

The team worked 9 hrs for 4 days (36hrs) and 15 hrs for 1 day (15hrs): TOTAL hours worked = 51

51 / 120 = .425 = 42.50%

15. Instead of showering his design team with a tremendous amount of praise, what did the boss require his employees to do with their new design?

His employees were required to see what they could improve.

16. Of all the things that we are surrounded by every day, what has not been placed through the design process?

NOTHING, excluding natural resources/products, everything man-made has gone through some sort of design process.

Conclusion

1. What did you find to be the most impressive part of the team’s effort?

The team was very respectful of each other and polite. They stayed on track allowing them to be more productive.

2. What advantages are there to having a design team with members that have non-engineering backgrounds?

People with non-engineering backgrounds bring in a different perspective, more of a user/consumer point of view that may not be present in a group of people with just engineering degrees.

3. There was a point in the process where a self-appointed group of adults stepped up, stopped the ideas, and redirected the group to break up into teams. Why was this done?

The group was in the brainstorming phase, which could easily last forever, if someone doesn’t step up and direct their focus onto the next phase of design/re-design

4. At the end of the video, Dave Kelly states, “Look around. The only things that are not designed are the things we find in nature.” Can you think of anything that would contradict this statement?

I find this statement to be true. Everything man-made has gone through some form of design.

CAD Software in class assignment

GLIDER CHALLENGE: DELIVERABLES

MY COMPLETED

GLIDER DESIGN

DESIGN PHASE

1) The Challenge:

• Create a glider that will stay flying for the longest time and distance.

2) Brain-Storming Solutions:

• The Rules of Brainstorming

- Encourage wild seeming unrealistic ideas
- Don’t judge others’ ideas
- Build on ideas put forward by others
- Every group member and every idea has equal worth
- Get as many ideas as possible

• Ideas

- Use either of the 2 DaVinci models below
- Create a normal toy shaped glider
- Our other ideas came with testing [show on 4 quadrant feedback]

• 2 Brain Storm Ideas:

3) Specify:

• Criteria - Make the largest possible glider that will fly the longest and furthest.
• Constraints - Materials: paper, tape, glue, 1 big stick, 6 smaller support sticks.

4) Develop Solutions:

• CAD Models

TEST PHASE: TEST YOUR PROTOTYPE!

1) Adjustments Made:

• Reduced wing depth
• Increase wing length
• Made a tail for more air resistance

DaVinci Design

2) 4 Quadrant Feedback:

GLIDER CHALLENGE RESULTS

• Our glider performed well considering the harsh wind conditions. On the first flight for distance our plane actually gained altitude.

• If I were to compete again, I would change the competition location to the theater, so there would be little wind variables.

EGG DROP CHALLENGE – Iteration #1

Total # of Achievements Earned: “15”

Our Egg Drop Solution

List and Explanation of Achievements:

Idea Generation [4 Achievements earned]

Brainstorming: Sketched 3 solutions for Egg Drop

Material Prep: Generated a list of the 9 materials required for build day

Building achievements [1 Achievement earned]

Material Size: The materials used fit inside a printer paper box.

Drop Achievements [10 Achievements earned]

Drop Accuracy: We hit the BULL’s – Eye! We ran a string through a plastic straw taped to the side of the box and attached it to a rock to guide our box to the Bull’s – eye.

Egg Resilience: Our egg did NOT crack at all! The marshmallows and peanut butter were sufficient enough to protect the egg’s shell.

Calculation Achievements: Using a physics equation –

v=x/t

[[velocity = distance/time]]

For all of our products that had little wind resistance the time of the fall was fast. However, if there was some kind of mechanism inside like a rubber band or a marshmallow, the time of the impact slowed down considerably.

Therefore, the velocity slows down with an increase of time, resulting in less fore on the egg, protecting the shell from cracking

Other Achievements: A clever name for Egg Resilience would be: DPF – Drop Protection Factor

What designs did well?

Trent Shulte's design worked extremely well. His design was very creative, simple and effective. He made a card board box, surrounded an egg with tin foil and suspended the egg in the middle of the box.

No matter what way the box fell the rubber bands would slow down the egg to a safe speed. This was unlike other designs, because most of the other designs could only fall one way.

How would you redesign your project to obtain a better score?

I would change my design to use rubber band suspension instead of peanut butter to lesson the weight of my design. If money was no problem I would have put 20 helium balloons on the top of my box.

COMPUTER CRUNCH

Brain-Storming “Rules”:

• Encourage wild seeming unrealistic ideas
• Don’t judge others’ ideas
• Build on ideas put forward by others
• Every group member and every idea has equal worth
• Get as many ideas as possible

Issue:

Engineering class of 27 students have only 25 computers. How can all 27 students have equal access to computers?

Ideas:

• Ask class to donate $$$ for additional computers
• Ask for school funding / scholarships
• Find kids with parents that work with computer companies willing to donate computers
• Make computer assignments take half a class periods time
• See if other computer classes (math, biology, etc) have extra computers
• Duct-tape 2 freshman to the High School Sr Rock... (just kidding)
• All engineering students pool together to raise money to buy 2 more computers
• Shift 2 students to a smaller sized (23 or less) Intro to Engineering class
• Allow students to use their own personal computers (need to download software onto their computers)

TED pt 1 – Ideas worth Spreading?

1) What is the TED organization about?

The TED organization is all about sharing information with the world through their website.

2) What is the purpose of their website and how does the functionality of their site support that?

The purpose of the website is to spread new ideas/ways of thinking. It was originally meant to bring 3 groups of people together, the technologically inclined, the entertainers and the designers. The function of their site supports this by containing short informative videos, usually no longer than 20 minutes.

3) As Engineers and Problem Solvers, which topic areas (the choices from the “Show talks related to:” section on the sidebar) are of most interest to us? Justify your answer

TECHNOLOGY – Because as engineers we would be inventing the technology that moves the world forward.

DESIGN – Because engineers are not only focused on the function of something they also focus on the visual aspects.

SCIENCE – Because an engineer needs to know the physics/biology behind whatever they are engineering.

4) Based on your previous answer, what are 3 talks (videos) on the site that appear like they would be of most interest to you as an Engineer/Problem solver? Justify your answer.

ALI CARR: GAMING TO RE-ENGAGE BOYS IN LEARNING – Because they are trying to use technology to get male students interested in learning. By using video games that are both educational and entertaining boys will be more inclined to learn.

MICHAEL PAWLYN: USING NATURE’S GENIUS IN ARCHITECTURE – Because it uses aspects from nature to create environments that are “green”. For example using solar energy instead of energy produced from oil that is NOT reusable.

DANNY HILLIS: UNDERSTANDING CANCER THROUGH PROTEOMICS – Because it will be informative about how cancer behaves and puts us on step closer to engineering a cure.

Follow this link to Danny Hillis' video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/danny_hillis_two_frontiers_of_cancer_treatment.html

Or view Danny Hillis' video here:

5) Each student will watch a unique video. Select a video to watch and inform Mr. Olson of your choice. If no one else has “claimed” the talk, you will be allowed to proceed with it. If someone else has already chosen the talk, you will be asked to pick another one. Watch the video. Create and post a bulletized outline of the key issues presented in the talk.

• Genomics shows a list of ingredients (genes) of the body, we can identify those genes with a predisposition for cancer – a supply list without instructions
• Proteomics is the study of proteins. It is the instructions for the “supply list”. The instructions of life.
• How you understand what’s going on in your body
• Conversation between cells, with cancer something is going wrong. Cells tell each other to live, function and die.
• Building robots to measure the body’s proteins through blood samples.
• Proteins responses to various diseases are studied.
• The beginning of how we will treat cancer.
• Hillis says we are treating cancer like an infectious disease, as if it has invaded your body.
• Cancer is a failure in the human cell system. A malfunction of our body.
• Proteomics gives us the ability to build a predictable model for cancer. Find solutions by identifying what’s happening and then giving the patient treatment based on their specific DNA sequence.

6) How could you get involved in the field/technology/issue you chose to hear about? What experience/skills/training/education would you need to learn to get involved with this field?

To get involved I could contact Danny Hill and his team via eMail for more information. Search the web for more information and people to contact about the field. The education you would need would be at least college level biology and experience working in hospitals or research labs.

Reverse Engineering: Functional Analysis – ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

1) What is the purpose of reverse engineering?

Reverse engineering’s purpose is to get your mind in an Engineering mode. To be an engineer you have to think like an engineer. It’s also important to visualize and understand the mechanics of things, break them down and see how they fit and work together.

2) What is the difference between a product’s visual and functional qualities?

Visual qualities are simply the appearance of a product and functional qualities are what make a product work.

Reverse Engineering: Visual Design – ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

1) What is meant by the phrase The Language of Design?

The Language of Design is the elements and principles of design. These are the way designers communicate through the use of visual language, with pictures, graphs, colors, and more.

2) What are visual design elements?

Visual design elements are the themes of visual design, for example, line, color, form/shape, space, texture and value.

3) What are visual design principles?

Visual design principles are 5 design techniques that are related to making things look good:

• Balance
• Rhythm
• Emphasis
• Proportion/Scale
• Unity

4) What makes a designed object aesthetically pleasing or eye catching?

The visual design elements and principles including things like vibrant colors, flashing lights and emphasis on shape.

5) Why do people associate a design’s aesthetic value with its functional efficiency and structural resilience?

When something “looks” good people assume that it “works” good. Although when something is made good it is generally made to look good too. For example, a Ferrari is built great on the inside and looks spectacular on the outside.

6) How does the gestalt principle explain the way in which the human mind perceives visual patterns?

The gestalt principle says that the human mind tends to organize visual elements into groups. The mind perceives visual patterns as a group. For example, when several objects look similar to each other we see it as one object, this is similarity.

Although there are 11 distinct objects in the design below, it appears as a single unit because all of the shapes have similarity.

7) What is graphic design and how is it different from product design?

Graphic design is more on the artistic side and produces things like printed items and signs. Product design still uses the fundamentals of art but is more focused on things to build like infrastructure and cars.

8) What information can be gained from demographic research and why is it used in marketing?

Demographic research collects information on a particular group of people and their behavior. Data collected can include gender, age, income, race, education and more.

This is important in marketing because you can focus on a target audience when designing a product.

9) Why must a graphic designer understand the demographics of the intended audience?

If you don’t have knowledge of your audience, how will you know if any one wants to buy your product? It is essential to the sale of a design.

10) How are visual design principles and elements used to capture a consumer’s attention?

When a design is visually appealing it captures your attention. The principles and elements are put together or organized in a clever way that attracts your attention.