Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Spring Catapult
Check out this cool spring catapult created by one of our home schoolers in a design thinking workshop.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Prototyping: A Design Thinking Skill
Last night, parent Dan S. and I built a couple of tables for the New
Design Lab project that our head of school announced a few weeks ago. The
lumber had been sitting in the room for a couple of weeks, and we were both
eager to get these structures done.
It's worth mentioning that Dan had a lot more carpentry experience
than I've had. I've built a couple of Adirondack chairs, and assembled a
worktable very much like this one. He's built some cabinets, some furniture,
some other projects, and more. He's also got a much larger tool-set than
I have. I have an impact drill and a circular saw, a set square and a long
level; in addition to that, he's got a mitre saw and some other quite useful
tools for cutting and shaping wood. Even so, we'd build a couple of
things like this before, and how much trouble could it be?
Nonetheless, there were a couple of times when we stopped working,
stared at the parts we'd cut and the screws and drills and measuring tools
lying about in the sawdust. Anyone looking through the windows would have
assumed we were a couple of dummies who'd just made a major mistake. We
weren't dummies, though. We were thinking. Hard.
The IDS Design Thinking Manifesto assigns the heptagon to the mental
mindset of prototyping. The seven-sided polygon is one of the most
difficult shapes to create, geometrically. It requires an estimation
technique called neusis to complete; and if the geometer doesn't
estimate correctly, the heptagon looks lopsided and weird. We were going
through our own process of neusis as we built those two tables —
using straight edges, right angles, levels, and other tools to confirm that the
frames of our tables were built at right angles to each other and to the floor;
that the table tops would be level; that the legs would all rest on the floor
and there wouldn't be any wobble (or at least, not very much).
And that's prototyping in a nutshell, really. We built two
tables in three hours, and under normal circumstances you'd assume that meant
an hour-and-a-half per table. But really, it was two and a quarter hours
for one table, and forty-five minutes for the second. A lot of that
extra time, we were looking at pictures and reading explanatory text in the
manual; neither of us had built a table quite like this before; and just
because it was going to be for a workshop space was no reason not to do it
right.
Even so, we still got it wrong.
As we prepared to cut the plywood panel down from 4x8 feet to the
four tabletops and lower shelves of the two tables, we discovered that the
frame of our first table was not square. Could we fix it by hammering on
the frame? No. Could we twist the frame by hand into the right shape?
Sort of, but not really. How was this going to affect our final result?
Should we unscrew the frame, and try again?
All at once, a simple solution occurred to us. Maybe we should
measure the frame and see how much the actual construction was off from the
intended design. The answer surprised both of us — a little less than
1/8". We could see the distortion in the frame when compared with a
totally square piece of plywood; but once the plywood was cut, the distortion
would be invisible. Our obsession with neusis — close, deliberate,
estimation — had paid off.
We cut the plywood. As I did so, the circular saw drifted
offline, and I wound up cutting a deep gouge into the sheet of plywood — the
stuff we needed for the other table! Oh no! We stood there for a
good long while, trying to figure out how to solve the problem; Dan said a
couple of placating words, but you could tell he was disappointed in me for
screwing up.
We stood there for a while trying to figure out how to work around
the mistake. My mistake.
Then we shrugged, and moved on. We re-allocated how the
plywood sheet would be cut. This time, Dan would cut the plywood, and I would
manage the process of weighting down the sheet and holding it stable for the
saw. Again, during the main cut, the circular saw drifted off the true
line, and this time Dan cut a bit off that 'ruined' the sheet of plywood.
Cutting plywood is a maddening experience, you may guess.
We re-re-allocated the remaining plywood, shifting those two
remaining panels from being the tops of tables to being the lower shelves; and
reserving our two original pieces (which looked BEAUTIFUL, by the way) for the
tops of the tables. We decided to save the second sheet of plywood for
another purpose, which I'll describe at another time.
In the midst of this process, Dan asked me if we should assemble the
other frame to the point that we'd reached with the first frame. I
dithered for a while, I admit. It would be nice to have two tables almost finished.
At the last moment, though, my eye landed on a paper along one of
the windows, a quotation by former NASA engineer Scott Billups. Scott is,
in many ways, a 'nobody'. You won't find a celebratory biography of him
on a website, nor a Wikipedia entry, nor anything of that sort; you might not
even find his Facebook page. But something he said to me resonated, and
it's a rule I've tried to adopt in our Design Lab ever since: "Build the
whole prototype, well past the first mistake. That way, you'll discover ALL of
the mistakes, and learn how to avoid them."
I told Dan, "Let's finish this table. And figure out what
we did wrong by comparing with the manual."
So we did. We finished the first table. Then we compared it
with our original build instructions. Along the way, we discovered that
all of our original mistakes, that led to the slight twist in our first frame,
were the result of not following the directions. We followed the
directions the second time through; and behold! The second table took
less time, and was more exactingly constructed — and even so, it's the table
with more wobble in it.
How did that happen?
Well, it turns out that materials aren't always perfect. A
plywood board, or any wood at all, can have a bit of warp in it. The 'perfect'
materials that are found in instruction guides are rarely found at your local
hardware store. You have to learn to adjust, and move on.
That's prototyping in action.
Your Kids and Prototyping
Children go through the same process that Dan and I went through
while building these tables. There are times when they stand around,
looking at what they've built. There are times when they have to look at the
materials and equipment and tools, and times when they have to stop and ask
questions. There are times when the assembly process hasn't gone according to
plan. There are times when the work has to be completely taken apart, and
re-constructed.
This is normal.
It's not failure to go back and correct your mistakes. Even
with the most careful estimation, the most careful measurement, mistakes still
happen. Your frame is going to be off by an eighth of an inch.
Sometimes that miniscule distance matters a lot. Sometimes it doesn't
matter at all — but you won't know until you finish building your prototype.
It's important to keep going. Even when you get stuck, even
when the effort seems to be a failure. Build the whole prototype, and
learn from the mistakes, and then figure out which mistakes matter and need to
be corrected; and which ones don't.
That's the lesson we're trying to impart when we teach Design
Thinking to you and to your children — that it's hard to tell which mistakes
matter until the work is done. And once the work is done, it's usually
clear that the mistakes are part and parcel of the success.
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