Activities

Design Games

Intended Purposes:

Learn names of Classmates

Get to know Classmates

Realize to be successful in a team one must concentrate on what others are doing as much as what they themselves are doing.

Actual outcome:

Names learned for that day - Now I only now the names of the most talkitive people. I feel like I know the most outgoing people pretty well - but the others not so well. I realized the importance of teamwork, but more importantly the importance of genuine enthusiasm.

Thoughts on exercise:

This is a perfect idea for the first class session. I was surprised that almost all of the students participated wholeheartedly. At first I thought that it might be wise to put some incentive on successful completion of these exercises, to make it more competetive, but after I thought about this I realized that would be a bad idea. It is important for students to realize that in order to succeed they must be motivated by the what they are involved in not some tangiable reward. The importance of this is evident on muiltiple occasions. Take for example the athelete that loves the game does far better than the athelete that is pushed by his or her parents. Or take for example the student who only cares about grades will not learn as much as the student who loves the material. It was important that this exercise and almost the entire class was administered with little pressure to the students, so that they could see that their success depended on their own will.

Toy Dissection

Purpose:

Examine toys

Speculate on possible construction.

Dissassemble and compare

What I learned

The simplest and cheapest construction is usually the actual construction.

Some things you just have to take apart

Thoughts on exercise

I thought that this was an excellent exercise. It was an almost perfect simulation of the prototyping experience. An idea for a finished product was planted in our heads. We were then given the task to come up with a design for that product that would preform that function. Since the actual design was usually the cheapes and most efficient, we got to see how our idea compared with a good one.

MBTI - Group Dynamics

Purpose:

construct groups based on the MBTI Test

Things we learned

A group of four excellent designers can sometimes accomplish nothing.

The key to an excellent group is ballance

Overall thoughts:

I found the test we took to be very inccurate. It is possible for a person to be introverted in certain situations and to be an extrovert in other situations. Many of the questions in the test we took lended themself to everyday life. I think the majority of the questions should have been about a work environment.

Iron CAD Labs

Purpose

To learn how to use iron cad

What we learned

We learned enough about iron cad to manufacture our parts.

My thoughts

I was surprized at how simple the program was. I was also interested in how people make complex shapes from simple ones.

Design/Build - Newspapaer

Purpose

To build a structure out of newspaper that would enclose four people.

What we learned

Newspaper is weak.

A great idea that can't be conveyed is worthless.

Cardboard Cube

Purpose

Make a perfect cube

What we learned

We don't like to follow directions and would prefer pictures.

Knives dull.

Stupid Consumer Products

Purpose

Come up with a stupid consumer product.

What we learned

A slogan is important

We were the stupidest, because our group won.

Making Presentations/Self Critique/Viewing CD's

Purpose

Improve on presentation skills

What we learned

We all have a lot to learn about giving a good presentation. Everyone has their weaknesses, and you can only concentrate on one thing at a time.

Making Web Pages

Purpose

Learn how to make a web page

What we learned

I learned the importance of presentation. If someone just puts an essay on the web no one will read it. It must be presented correctly in order to work.

Working in Groups

Purpose

Help us learn to work in groups effectively

Help us be more productive

What we learned

Everything that we have learned in this course we have learned from one another. The group is the best learning tool.

Writing Essay

Purpose

To learn about group design, and to see how our ideas changed.

What we learned

I learned that the best group plan is no match for a great leader. The leader is the most important part of the group, because the leader is the ballance.

WatchingClassmates Presentations

Purpose

To learn how to present from one another's mistakes and successes.

What we learned

I not only learned what kinds of ideas are successful, but also what kinds of people are successful. It was the kind of people that had high expectations of themselves and wouldn't settle for anything less than their best.

Egg Drop

Purpose

To successfully land an egg on a bullseye.

What I learned

I learned that it is very important to be certain that you are within the rules. For this project I thought that my group could just lower our egg down to the bullseye, but actually we had to drop it. Sometimes if you look for loopholes you can get burned.

Playing with food

Purpose

Make some food

What I learned

Vineger smells nasty. Ice cream is fun to throw. I also learned that teamwork is important whether you are doing work, or having fun.

Design build Take 2

Purpose

Make a wireframe structure to enclose people.

What we learned

We learned that we are experts now at paper construction. When giving someone directions it is important that they know the terminology and are familiar with the ideas you talk about.

Jornada Experiment

Purpose

To find a way that these computers could help us learn.

What I learned

Technology is not such a great teacher, but is fun to play with. I realized that we learned much more from the simple things.

Poster and Final Presentation

Purpose

Present our ideas at Meeting of the Minds

What we learned

I learned that I could make a beautiful and professional looking poster, right here on campus. I also learned that if you are in a convention scenario you have to be a saleperson if you want to get your point across.