Week 6

After completing the first 3 phases of our design thinking project over the past few weeks, we moved on this week to phase 4. This phase was entitled 'experimentation and prototype', and enabled us to bring our ideas alive and present them to the rest of our class. I looked forward to this phase as i knew we had a few good ideas and wanted to see how they would materialize.

We began the class by using an online tool called "Padlet", a website where everyone in the class could post notelets of their thoughts or quotes from their blogs. These individual posts would all appear on the screen so that we would be able to view them all and discuss with a partner.

After this, we took the drawings from last week of our individual ideas and stuck them to the wall of the classroom with a blank sheet of paper below it. We each wrote our comments on the ideas and then chose one to use. we decided that we liked different parts of each idea, so compiled the final one by using aspects from each. We then used Edward De Bono's Six Thinking Hats to look at our idea and think about each aspect and how we feel about it. 

Once we had a concrete idea, we had half an hour to create a basic prototype explaining the concept and present this to the class. Kim, Goretti and I used a cardboard box, tin foil, plastic cups, and tissue paper to create a working prototype of our multifunctional hallway. We presented this to the class and were able to demonstrate how the idea would be put in place in the school. 

As we presented our idea, the rest of the class were jotting down things that they liked, ideas they had, questions they had and wishes for our idea. They stuck these on a grid and we were able to evaluate and change our idea using this feedback, in order to make a new prototype and presentation to take to the school this week.

I felt that this phase was the most helpful and productive so far and I enjoyed the class.