#ideation process

SkillCoach | Plastics Playground - Exploring Multi-Cavity Tooling | Protolabs Whiteboard Session - Post reviewing video and expounding on and adding tips for part design and tool.

Multi-cavity tooling is the topic we’ll be exploring in today’s SkillCoach Plastics Playground. Now I’m not referring to picks, scrapers, or the high-pitched rotary tools used to make quick work of a menacing cavity wreaking havoc on your molar. Rather, I’m speaking of an injection-mold tooling configuration. Multi-cavity tooling helps optimize the production of plastic parts. Instead of an…

New SkillCoach Onshape CAD Video Tutorial | Using The Conic Sketch Tool To Shape Morph Stackable Food Storage - An unabridged step-by-step video tutorial with commentary covering the “Whys” and “Hows” from a design and parametric modeling point of view.

Digital food storage is the name of the game in this tutorial. In a recent assignment, I sought to coach my CAD students at Virginia Tech through an Onshape modeling exercise in the kitchenware category. Our aim was to build a parametric model that was robust and could be morphed into different configurations by changing a few key dimensional values. I also wanted them to learn about the…

So we have had numerous ideas for our dressing tables, and many were turned down by a small mistake / something that we missed out in our thought process. So the ideas that we had were:

1st Idea: A dressing table with 2 way mirror, and sensor on chair that lights up the back of mirror and activates a video that shows gruesome / unappealing images of plastic surgery.

Problem: iPad cannot work, and iMac can’t fit properly behind mirror.

Also, there probably have some TA who can’t take gruesome videos, so they will not continue watching it and walk away. 

2nd Idea: A dressing table with 2 way mirror, and sensor on chair that lights up the back of mirror and instead of video, show a poster / lenticular poster of different views of plastic surgery , e.g. one side shows all the scars, another side shows the scars hidden behind makeup (flawless).

Problem: Lenticular sheets & printing too expensive. DIY lenticular using paper does not work because the angle is too wide and people will need to move a lot to see both sides, and ours is a ‘sitting-down’ artefact.

3rd Idea: A dressing table with 2 way mirror, and sensor on chair that lights up the back of mirror and reveals, one at a time, a mouth with audio. The contents of the audio are demeaning comments. The drawer will also contain fake facial features , e.g. noses, mouths, etc. At the end, a question will appear.

Problem: Can’t make one mouth show up at a time with the spotlight. Takeaway message not strong enough. 

4th Idea: A dressing table showing a distorted mirror, ‘Whispering’ audio of demeaning comments and sensor on chair that turns off the lights at the back of mirror, and turning back to a normal mirror, and also the demeaning comments become more positive at the end.

Problem: People might not want to sit down in front of a dressing table with distorted mirror that insults them. The takeaway message is too obvious, interaction too little.

5th Idea: An ordinary / covered in makeup dressing table with ‘Whispering’ audio of demeaning comments. Sensor on seat activates lights that will show a question that will appear behind. Make up products on the dressing table allows TA to draw and interact with mirror. Wet wipes are provided for people who want to see the truth.

Problem: Too much leeway for imagination and reasoning. TA might not imagine what we want them to. Not making use of the whole dressing table and more interaction would be better. 

Ideation

Overview

During this studio session, we focused on exercises involving different techniques of ideation, particularly focused toward the generation of ideas around mundane topics, such as vacationing.

What I Did

We created a total of twenty sketches, each depicting a unique idea which we had come up with centered around vacationing. Ten of these sketches were unique, unrelated ideas generally related to vacationing. For instance, one idea that I came up with for this category was of an underwater hotel. The other ten sketches were variations on an idea from the first set deemed to be the most promising. For this set, I based the ideas on a portable translation device that would automatically detect the desired audio and translate it, either to the user or to a listener that the user is speaking to. 

Here is a link to both sets of sketches.

Reflection

I had a lot of difficulty coming up with ideas that I thought were interesting or unique. For this particular studio session, we weren’t necessarily being assessed on the quality and practicality of the products of our ideation, but I still wanted to come up with some ideas that were unique that hadn’t already been suggested before.

I struggled a great deal with coming up with ideas because of this. I also had some difficulty drawing sketches that intuitively expressed the idea without any text embellishment or explanation. Although it was emphasized that we aren’t being assessed on artistic quality, I still felt that drawing ability was a limitation in this, as it’s hard to express certain functions of an idea without being able to draw it in a recognizable way. Imposing limitations, as suggested as a possible tip for this particular deliverable, on my ideation process actually didn’t seem to help me very much, as I would end up just coming up with variations of similar ideas with minute differences.

Wild Card

I picked the most promising design that I would use as the focus for my second set of ten sketches based on the wide applicability and ease of implementation for the idea. A portable translation device would be particularly apt for this. Although it obviously has extremely useful applications for vacationing, especially for tourists who are traveling to foreign countries, it could just as easily be utilized in any context that would require knowledge of a second language. There are already existing technologies and software that utilize input audio translation that could be adapted for creating such a device, which adds to the concept being easy to implement.

Applications

Ideation techniques and ideation as a process has many applications even beyond fields of design, where the applications are immediately obvious. Any field that requires creative expression could utilized the techniques that were practiced during this exercise. For example, creative writing is a field that lives and dies on the saliency of its ideas. Coming up with a unique and interesting setting, premise or narrative structure is extremely important for distinguishing your piece from others, especially when it’s entirely possible that there have been already dozens or hundreds of existing iterations of that same idea. 

Ideation.

In what ways did you find the ideation/brainstorming effective for generating new, creative ideas? Why? In what ways might it have been more effective? (Consider the four creative P’s)

One of the aspects I liked the most about brainstorming and the ideation process was how an idea led to another, and the open environment where no criticism was allowed and every idea was accepted as valid, this led to sense of worth and confidence that led me and my team members to create new ideas as well. Sometimes it was hard to break the ice and start the process, for which the “random word” process helped.

It was much easier to come up with a creative product when there was an open space for ideas and the fear of judgement and self-doubt was not present. The process also flowed a lot better, even though a lot of ideas where ruled out, the chosen ones where truly excellent, and sometimes tweaked and modified, or merged with other ideas.

In what ways did you participate in the ideation/brainstorming sessions? What did you learn about your own individual creativity by participating (reflect on your personal creative profile)

I participated by giving out ideas, and I realized that at first I was shy, and my ideas where very “safe” but as I realized my team members were not judging my ideas, but simply writing it on the board validated it’s worth and made me feel like my contribution was actually useful, this led to creating more, and more different ideas. I learned that the more chance I give to my creative self to freely exist, the more it develops.

How might what you have learned help you to be more creative in the future?

This week we are going to look at the benefits of brainstorming and Ideation. These two concepts are wonderful when you are in need of an idea for a new product or service, theme for a party or even somewhere to go for a family vacation.

For some clarification for those that don’t know. Brainstorming is an individual or group creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas to solve problems or find opportunities. Ideation is the formation of ideas or concepts. 

 Brainstorming and Ideation is great when your stuck trying to think of new ideas for anything from a product to birthday party to night out with friends. To improve the process, I would suggest that people first empty your mind, think of a white space. Try thinking of one word like active to describe a fitness program then go from there. Don’t do what I did the first time and think How Am I supposed to do this? Why can’t I think of an Idea? It will come. 

This week when I went through the process myself, I discovered some interesting things. For example, when I needed a new idea to generate interest for a local fitness program for children in my area I used ideation to create a few different solo ideas with an idea that combined three minor ideas into a new one. I gained a new appreciation for brainstorming and ideation due to its help getting me out my mind funk. I learned something this week about my own individual creativity. This was I work best when there is a set time limit and I ignore my base feelings and let things flow. I gained a lot more ideas that way than trying to force them out.

What I learned this week and I hope you will too is that in order to be more creative you must first create something. This can be a new idea, improvement on another, new way home from school...anything. Every little bit helps and the more you do it, the easier it becomes.