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 design process, 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. velcro seats


b. privacy blinds




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 judgement


e. Build on others' ideas




6. Why should wild (and sometimes crazy) ideas be entertained during the brainstorming phase?
Because it leaves a window of opportunity open for something new. Crazy ideas are always a good place to start and help create building blocks for more realistic ones. This way everything can be given a chance and there are more options as to what to try out. Ideas are always improved through trial and error.

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?




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?

One group was responsible for shopping, another for checking out, another for safety, the last for finding what's being looked 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?

Refining and Communicating Results

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?
About 43%




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?
Improve it




16. Of all the things that we are surrounded by every day, what has not been placed through the design process?
Only nature; everything else requires the design process in some way.

Conclusion

1. What did you find to be the most impressive part of the team’s effort?
I really liked how well everyone got along and how ideas weren't ever shot down. It seemed like it was a lot of fun.

2. What advantages are there to having a design team with members that have non-engineering backgrounds?
They bring in a different perspective and remind the engineers of the consumer needs/wants.




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?
So that time wouldn't be wasted. The Brainstorming phase could have lasted forever had not someone taken control.




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 cannot. I agree completely.

Class

Glider

• We needed to come up with the ideal glider: stays up in the air a long time and travels a long distance.

• Brainstorming rules:

1. Throw out random ideas to team members
2. Have every member contribute ideas and listen to them even if they seem whack
3. Jot down as my ideas as possible
4. Build on ideas and begin to organize them into actual processes
5. There are no rules as to what is a good or bad idea!

• Criteria: coming up with the best solution for a glider that has a long duration in the air, is fast, and can travel far
• Constraints: limited materials (tissue paper, regular paper, thin sticks, tape, glue), wind, can't be too small

• Using the CAD software (these are the four main pieces of the glider):

• Some of our ideas:

There wasn't really one idea thought up of first, but we decided to try imitating Da Vinci's helicopter design before anything else.

It seemed like a great idea at first, BUT! we didn't really have the materials to pull it off right. It wasn't going to be strong enough with the thin sticks we were supplied with.

We then thought we might try making more of an actual glider (like most others).

We gave it a tail and what we thought were wide enough wings.

This is what it looked like at first:

Once we tested it out, we saw that it kept flipping and didn't really go far so we tweaked things and changed certain parts of it, like the shape and length of the wings. We also moved the tail we had made to the top to see if it would help:

We tried making sure there was enough weight on the front of the glider as well and that the sticks were being used effectively, not just sitting there useless.

This was our ending result:

(just pretend I'm not in it)

• The day of the Challenge:

- Our glider didn't do so bad. It did stay in the air a while, but it still did its flip that we tried to avoid.

- If it were less windy, I think our glider would have done a lot better, but even so it at least gained some height before going to the ground.

- I think that to change it, I would try finding a way to keep it on a straight path. For our glider, our best chance at winning in the competition would be to aim for getting it to stay in the air long, which we did the first time we threw it and not so much the second time.

- Mostly, my group had a great time coming up with random ideas and putting things together.

It was a great project!