Try this challenge before reading the entire post:
Come up with multiple solutions to move 5 balls from one box to another without touching or damaging the balls or boxes.
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(please come up with solutions before reading on)
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What did you come up with? A grabber or a slide maybe?
Here's the results from an experiment we did with 30 students. The students all got to sketch their solutions.
Solution (How many out of 30 total concepts)
Slide (16)
Grabber (8)
Robot (1)
Grabber/slide combination (1)
Conveyor belt (1)
Vacuum suction cup (1)
Vacuum suction tube (1)
Hand (1) (does not meet design requirement)
Did you come up with something different?
Out of curiosity we posed the same question to a few faculty members in engineering and got various types of grabbers again....how Original!
Monday, May 30, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
How Letting Go of Objectives can Help Creativity and Discovery
Lecture at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design)
The title: How Letting Go of Objectives can Help Creativity and Discovery
This talk by Evolutionary Computer Scientist Dr. Kenneth O. Stanley will examine the negative effect of explicit objectives on creative discovery and the liberation that is possible when we abandon their false security. Although a common first step in many creative endeavors is to set objectives, recent experiments in the field of evolutionary computation (an area of artificial intelligence) have begun to reveal new insight into... why objectives often inadvertently damage the very process of discovery they aim to guide. In particular, especially in ambitious projects, objectives can blind us to essential stepping stones on the road to long-term innovation. Through several experiments in a process called interactive evolution and with a computer algorithm called "novelty search," this talk will expose the delicate nature of promising stepping stones and contemplate why reaching them sometimes may require abandoning the tantalizing idea that great works require great objectives.
The talk will be followed by a panel where Dr. Stanley will be accompanied by RISD professors who are also experts in the process of search to answer your questions.
This lecture is currently being digitized. In the meanwhile, here's a link to a different version of the talk (a bit more geared toward a Technical Audience) without the Q+A panel, that we might want to check out.
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Searching-Without-Objectives
The title: How Letting Go of Objectives can Help Creativity and Discovery
This talk by Evolutionary Computer Scientist Dr. Kenneth O. Stanley will examine the negative effect of explicit objectives on creative discovery and the liberation that is possible when we abandon their false security. Although a common first step in many creative endeavors is to set objectives, recent experiments in the field of evolutionary computation (an area of artificial intelligence) have begun to reveal new insight into... why objectives often inadvertently damage the very process of discovery they aim to guide. In particular, especially in ambitious projects, objectives can blind us to essential stepping stones on the road to long-term innovation. Through several experiments in a process called interactive evolution and with a computer algorithm called "novelty search," this talk will expose the delicate nature of promising stepping stones and contemplate why reaching them sometimes may require abandoning the tantalizing idea that great works require great objectives.
The talk will be followed by a panel where Dr. Stanley will be accompanied by RISD professors who are also experts in the process of search to answer your questions.
This lecture is currently being digitized. In the meanwhile, here's a link to a different version of the talk (a bit more geared toward a Technical Audience) without the Q+A panel, that we might want to check out.
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Searching-Without-Objectives
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Look for our upcoming poster at CogSci 2011! Here's the abstract:
Design fixation is a common problem in engineering. In two experiments, we implement two educational interventions, prototyping and critical feedback, to help reduce design fixation, which is defined as adherence to one's own design. We found that constant prototyping across the design process reduced fixation in the final product. Surprisingly, we also found that not receiving feedback reduced fixation in the final product. Implications for engineering design education are discussed.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Innovation Through Design Thinking
Dear team,
I found this: http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/357
The emphasis is on "Design thinkers must set out like anthropologists or psychologists, investigating how people experience the world emotionally and cognitively."
I think this was what I was trying to get at with the question "day in the life of..." where empathy for the user/audience was strongly considered for solving a design problem.
I hope you enjoy it!
I found this: http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/357
The emphasis is on "Design thinkers must set out like anthropologists or psychologists, investigating how people experience the world emotionally and cognitively."
I think this was what I was trying to get at with the question "day in the life of..." where empathy for the user/audience was strongly considered for solving a design problem.
I hope you enjoy it!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Innovations in 2010
Popular Science always publishes a great list of innovations. Many are great innovations by engineers, such as an ultrasound device that can be brought anywhere.
More creative innovations at http://www.popsci.com/bown/2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
How to adopt the practice of critiques to engineering design education?
Crits are widely used as part of the “creative discipline” as the main means of assessment. In engineering, the assessment tends to focus on technical feedback and lacks the discussion and reflection that are integral parts of the crit. We hypothesize that the crit can challenge the students to come up with better solutions.
There are no guidelines how to run a crit in any discipline and very few hints of it ever being used as part of engineering design. Luckily we have Yoon Soo, an expert of crits and the developer of 'Peer Crits' for our team! We ran pilot studies with over 40 students under different conditions ('use of crit' was one of the conditions), and found that it helped significantly improve the level on creativity in the designs they produced. This motivated us to give the crit a try in an actual class room setting.
The Crit was used in MNE 497 (Senior Capstone Mechanical Engineering class at UMass Dartmouth) to assess projects during the concepts embodiment phase. We used the Peer Crit format where teams were grouped together and asked to critique the projects in small groups (3 projects per group). Each team put up the original project objective, list of stakeholder needs, and current risks for everybody to see and then gave an overview of their chosen design. The students were tasked to discuss:
-The strengths of the design
-The weaknesses of the design
-Suggested improvements for the design
Each team took notes on the three topics. Each project was discussed for about 20 minutes.
After one hour, each team briefed the instructor (Katja) on the strengths, weaknesses and suggested improvements for their projects. Trina also observed some of the team interactions.
Here are the first observations from the use of the crit process:
+ universal participation by all students
+ teams took the crit and suggestions with an open mind (they were not defensive at all)
+ the feedback was more in depth than the usual technical feedback
- 2/12 teams felt they gained more from the instructor than from their peers
- the time it takes for the instructor to go over all the teams can be very long
If anybody would like to test the use of peer crits in their engineering classes, let us know we would be happy give step by step guidelines and other helpful tips on how to do it. Also, if somebody has already tried using crits in their classrooms, please share with us!
There are no guidelines how to run a crit in any discipline and very few hints of it ever being used as part of engineering design. Luckily we have Yoon Soo, an expert of crits and the developer of 'Peer Crits' for our team! We ran pilot studies with over 40 students under different conditions ('use of crit' was one of the conditions), and found that it helped significantly improve the level on creativity in the designs they produced. This motivated us to give the crit a try in an actual class room setting.
The Crit was used in MNE 497 (Senior Capstone Mechanical Engineering class at UMass Dartmouth) to assess projects during the concepts embodiment phase. We used the Peer Crit format where teams were grouped together and asked to critique the projects in small groups (3 projects per group). Each team put up the original project objective, list of stakeholder needs, and current risks for everybody to see and then gave an overview of their chosen design. The students were tasked to discuss:
-The strengths of the design
-The weaknesses of the design
-Suggested improvements for the design
Each team took notes on the three topics. Each project was discussed for about 20 minutes.
After one hour, each team briefed the instructor (Katja) on the strengths, weaknesses and suggested improvements for their projects. Trina also observed some of the team interactions.
Here are the first observations from the use of the crit process:
+ universal participation by all students
+ teams took the crit and suggestions with an open mind (they were not defensive at all)
+ the feedback was more in depth than the usual technical feedback
- 2/12 teams felt they gained more from the instructor than from their peers
- the time it takes for the instructor to go over all the teams can be very long
If anybody would like to test the use of peer crits in their engineering classes, let us know we would be happy give step by step guidelines and other helpful tips on how to do it. Also, if somebody has already tried using crits in their classrooms, please share with us!
Monday, November 8, 2010
The business of innovation: Steven Johnson
Found an interesting article on BBC News about creativity and innovation. It speaks about how creativity and innovation happens through collaboration and working in groups.
Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson (youtube video link)
Here is the link!
Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson (youtube video link)
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