Each week I’m left thinking, “I could have done better” when it comes to putting together these Design classes for our FabSlam team. It’s a journey into the unknown for everyone involved. How do you facilitate a class on something neither of us know anything about? How do you balance sharing foundational ideas about Design Thinking to 13yr olds that are there on their day off, to socialize, have fun, and get hands on? The list goes on.
But then I remember, pioneering anything new should reflect exactly what is happening. You try, you make mistakes, you fail forward, and you do it better or improve next time. Also when I look at where we’ve gotten to, it’s utterly amazing. These youth are amazing. From starting with zero knowledge about 3D printing, design, or problem based learning, to have settled on designing a unique piece of safety equipment for a motorized vehicle helmet, I’m in shock. Is this actually working? Sure we stumbled, we had boring moments, we had exciting ones, structure, no structure, but through it all we persevered. We have a plan to solve a problem in transportation, “motorized vehicles”, that will attempt to increase their safety based on empathy and user input through interviews and data gathering and we’re forging ahead to designing it.
Next week: Dodge ball. (duh!) That and taking a look at pressure sensors, arduinos, heat sensors, and feasibility of programming these bad boys!
Leave a Reply