Quickly: Project Breaker is a 14 day training course sponsored by the Standford d school to teach Design Thinking to young adults (18-24) in Detroit, NYC, and online around the world. Design Thinking is a problem solving method that incorporates design practices into innovative solutions. The focus of the training is on The Future of Stuff. If you have future questions, let me know.
Each day I am writing a reflection of the day. This is my notes, opinions, ideas etc.
Enjoy
Day 1 (6/19) Reflections:
On the first day we all gathered at our studio space, which is our home for the next fourteen days. There are seven breakers (including myself) and most of us are from Detroit or the surrounding area. We all have very diverse backgrounds, ranging from architecture, urban planning to graphic designer and fine arts.
After introductions we were introduced to Design Thinking through a wallet exercise. Our task: design the ideal wallet. We spent a few minutes doing that, but ultimately it was not as easy as it seemed. We had little motivation to design an ideal wallet, and we had no inspiration to draw from. After we designed our wallet, we then reframed the project, by partnering with someone to make them their ideal wallet. We accomplished this through interview’s to collect findings and insights, which helped us lead to our POV (one of the most critical components but also most difficult). The POV helped us to frame the issue and how we can find a solution. We moved to sketching five more solutions based on the interview insights and POV we formed. We looked for more feedback on our initial solutions to finally come up with our final solution to prototype. We used a number of household craft supplies (tape, construction paper, glue, scissors, pipe cleaners etc.) to create our prototypes.
I made an iPhone case wallet for my partner because he liked to carry as little on him as possible. The case had three slots on the back to hold money and a few cards. Additionally the holder had a flap on it to keep the valuables out of plane sight. This idea came to my attention because of the interview process. My partner said he lets people borrow his phone all the time to make calls, and if there were valuables on the back he would be hesitant to have people use his phone. Furthermore, there would be a cut out for the camera portion so the case can support all the phone functions while staying on.
After the exercise we broke up for a little bit to change and relax before heading to Shinola’s Office for the Breaker kickoff party. The party was nice and relaxing. Shinola is an amazing space located in Midotwn/New Center. (depends who you are talking to). It houses the bike and watch assembly portions of the business. There we heard from two very exciting people, Veronika Scott of the Empowerment Plan and the head of Shinola’s marketing. In addition, we had the opportunity to meet some of our professional development colleagues and other guests. It was a fun night with lots of excitement for one day.