Art4/AP Art class went on a field trip to the NC State School of Design. During the field trip, we did an interactive lesson on how to come up with design ideas. For this, our class was split up into five group and were each given a prompt. As group five, our prompt was that we were stuck in a foreign country in which none of the members of our group knew how to speak the language. We were on a mountain and our car was broken down. We could see a town below but it was too far to walk to. Our group chose to be stuck in Germany. We also figured that being in the mountains, there would be snow. Our object that we designed to help us to safety was a sled (as a part of the activity we also had to make a model of the invention with some basic materials). To make the sled, we used suitcases that we assumed that we would have in the car. we would empty out and open two suitcases. Then we would remove two car doors from the car and put them in front of the suitcases. The car doors served as protection in case we hit an objects. Also the doors would help us steer the sled and control the speed of the car to some extent. If we pushed the car doors out, the sled would slow down; if we pulled them in, the sled would speed up. As far as steering was concerned, if we pushed just the right door out, the sled would move left and vise versa. All of the parts of the sled would be connected by jumper cables.
This field trip was very fun and I also learned a lot. One of the main things I took away from this activity was not to fall in love with your first idea, something that I tend to do a lot. Continuing the brainstorming process can lead to some even better ideas. Also, it is very important to write down every possible idea you have, no matter how crazy the idea may be. This is important because even if the idea in its whole is not practical, one aspect of the idea may be and you may be able to use that aspect to improve another idea.
This field trip was very fun and I also learned a lot. One of the main things I took away from this activity was not to fall in love with your first idea, something that I tend to do a lot. Continuing the brainstorming process can lead to some even better ideas. Also, it is very important to write down every possible idea you have, no matter how crazy the idea may be. This is important because even if the idea in its whole is not practical, one aspect of the idea may be and you may be able to use that aspect to improve another idea.