Fundamentals of Engineering Design

Lecture 10 (Video 1/2)

Conceptual Design II (Internal)

Learning Objectives

Recap Principles of conceptual design

Phases of conceptual design: External and Internal
Brainstorming and Brainwriting
Introduction to the SCAMPER approach
Applications

During Concept Design Phase

Need lots of feasible design concepts
Need to select the best one or more concepts
Is there a process that we can follow?
Answer: Use External and Internal Tools

Anything related to outside the teams own work is

external (Patent, Lit. review, Benchmarking,..)
Now we move to what can we do ourselves to introduce
our new/modified design need for Innovative thinking,
creativity
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Motivation

Creativity is part of being an engineer.

Move away from single problem single solution fremwork.
Need to be creative and generate a variety of possible designs.
Need to be able to evaluate different designs.
BE ABLE TO DEFEND YOUR DESIGN!
While doing the above, Develop your engineering judgment.

What ideas look like when a brain is thinking

1.5 kg
100 billion neurons
100 trillion synapses

Left vs Right Hemispheres

LEFT
Letter
Words
Arithmetic
Objective thinking
Logical problem
solving

RIGHT
Non verbal memory
Face recognition
Geometric patterns
Holistic picture vs. details
Mental rotation of shapes

Creativity Exercise (1)

Using only one stroke, turn the Roman numeral seven, shown
below, into an eight.
VII

Creativity Exercise (2)

Using only one stroke, turn the Roman numeral seven, shown
below, into an eight.
VIII

Creativity Exercise (3)

Using only one stroke, turn the Roman numeral 9, shown below, into
a 6.
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Creativity Exercise (4)

Using only one stroke, turn the Roman numeral 9, shown below, into
a 6.
SIX
Context (viewpoint) shift from Roman numerals to Latin characters
and English

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Creativity Exercise (5)_1

Move two of the toothpicks so that the coin is no longer in the
shovel, but you still have a shovel.

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Creativity Exercise (5)_2

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Creativity Exercise (6)_1

Connect the nine dots with 4 connected lines

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Creativity Exercise (6)_2

Nine dots solutions

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Creativity vs. Innovation

Is Creativity something that is inherent in the individual or something
that can be learned?
One of the ways to spark creativity is to solve puzzles!
Shawn Hunter, author of "Out Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive
Exceptional Outcomes," (Wiley, 2013) defines creativity as the
capability or act of conceiving something original or unusual,
while innovation is the implementation or creation of something
new that has realized value to others. Business leaders frequently
interchange creativity and innovation, without understanding what
separates the two.
"Creativity isn't necessarily innovation," Hunter told Business News
Daily. "If you have a brainstorm meeting and dream up dozens of
new ideas then you have displayed creativity, but there is no
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innovation until something gets implemented."

Barriers to Creativity

Perceptual Blocks
(prevent people from seeing the problem for what it is)
Emotional blocks
(fear of failure)
Cultural and Environmental
(team members, management,)
Intellectual and Expressive
(the designer needs to have understanding of
intellectual tools that are applied to solve problems,
e.g. truth tables, state diagrams, )
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Example: Perceptual Blocks

There is a need to move from vertical to lateral thinking!

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Vertical and Lateral Thinking

Scenario: A body is discovered in a park in Chicago in the middle of
summer. It has a fractured skull and many other broken bones, but
the cause of death was hypothermia.
Generate as many solutions as possible.
The idea is to see the problem from a variety of different
viewpoints and generate plausible scenarios.
You have insufficient information and should examine your
assumptions.

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Lateral Thinking by Edward De Bono

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb9Oe83ruUw

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Vertical and Lateral Thinking

Vertical thinking takes a logical approach. In fact, its methods
have already proven to give the desired results.

lateral thinking seeks to approach a problem through seemingly

illogical methods.

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Vertical and Lateral Thinking

Vertical thinking is?
Vertical thinking is a type of approach to problems that usually
involves one being selective, analytical, and sequential
Lateral thinking is?
Lateral thinking is solving problems through an indirect and
creative approach, using reasoning that is not immediately obvious
and involving ideas that may not be obtainable by using only
traditional step-by-step logic.
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Thinking Laterally
Mr. Stones truck attempted to enter a parking garage, but
got caught underneath the garage ceiling because of the
trucks 66 height. It wont budge forward or backward.
How can he get the truck out from under the garage
ceiling?
Using any symbols ( X + ) make the formula below
correct
10 10 10 = 9.50

10 (minutes) to 10 (o'clock) = 9.50

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Strategies to Enhance Creativity

Have a questioning attitude

Practice being creative
Suspend judgment
Allow incubation time
Think like a beginner
One major strategy is brainstorming!

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Brainstorming
Brainstorming helps designers to generate ideas.
Brainstorming helps in generating ideas, solving
motivating teams.

problems,

Brainstorming is usually conducted in groups however some

studies showed that individual brainstorming is effective also.

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How Many Ideas Should We Have?

The best
way to get
a good
idea is to
get a lot of
ideas
Linus Pauling, 1901-1994
Chemist, Nobel prize
winner

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Brainstorming Activity
Write down as many ways to use a paperclip as possible in 60 seconds.

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Brainstorming

What is brainstorming?
Why use brainstorming techniques?
Brainstorming is not a structured meeting
The process of brainstorming
The environment
Setting the scene
Rules for the session
A brainstorming technique
Affinity analysis
Summary and future action
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What is brainstorming?
Brainstorming is a means of generating ideas.
Brainstorming can be used to identify alternatives, obtain a
complete list of items and to solve problems.
There are a variety of brainstorming techniques.
The common principle of brainstorming is to set aside the
restrictive thinking processes so that many ideas can be
generated.

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When to use brainstorming?

You can use brainstorming in a project when:

Developing the solution definition,

Identifying all potential risks on a project.

Developing the Work Breakdown Structure

Dealing with difficult problems that arise during the

course of the project.

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Brainstorming is not a structured meeting

Brainstorming is:
Idea generation
Issue generation
Divergent thinking
Open format

Structured meeting is:

Fixed agenda
Chairperson
Minutes
Action items

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The process of brainstorming

The environment
Setting the scene
Rules for the session
Running the brainstorming session
Affinity analysis
Summary and further action

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The environment
Location: preferable to be held away from
normal place of work
Room: natural light, plenty of space
Materials: whiteboard and pens. Provide
a pack of post-it notes and pen for each
attendee

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Setting the scene

Explain the brainstorming technique.
Specify the rules.
Loosening up: use a free thinking exercise and/or a practice
brainstorming session*.
For example: how could safety of taxi drivers be improved?
The facilitator provides exercises and determines when the
participants are ready to proceed with the technique.
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Rules for the session

Any idea is valid
No judgement or criticism allowed
Mobile phones switched off
Participants cannot leave the room during the
brainstorming session

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Typical Brainstorming Techniques

Individual
Whole-group
Small group
Rely
Round robin

Individual Brainstorming
(Get ready to write your
responses.)
Example: Uses for Sheep
Skin

Whole class brainstorming

Innovative classroom setup

Small Group Brainstorming

Collaborate with your group
members.
Example: Redesign student
chair
How can you use a
barometer to help determine
the height of a building?

Relay Brainstorming

Each team member must respond in order.

Responses cannot be used twice.
No helping is allowed.
Teams compete.

Round Robin Brainstorming

Respond quickly.
Respond only during your turn.
Step back when you are asked.
Example: New uses for discarded
automobile tires

A brainstorming technique
Present the problem or opportunity for which
brainstorming is being applied
Allocate 3-5 minutes to write on the post-it notes
as many ideas as possible one idea per note
Each person quickly writes their thoughts onto
the post-it notes regardless of how impractical,
outrageous, extreme, crazy they may be (do not
filter the ideas)

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Affinity analysis
Each person in turn sticks their post-it notes on the whiteboard,
putting their note near to an idea that is similar to theirs. This
should result in clusters of post-it notes representing similar
ideas.
Review the ideas by cluster. For each type of idea ask the group
How could we make this work? Discuss each variation of the
idea and refine to develop a possible solution.

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Summary
Need for lateral thinking to generate ideas
Brainstorming sessions can be structured to be very useful for
ideation
Brain writing is more useful for writing type of activities
A number of other approaches can also be used in imagination
or ideation
The whole purpose to innovate, develop new ideas, new
designs, then comes the stage of ranking and choosing.

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