Creating Design Challenge Workshop in Ann Arbor

Screenshot 2017-05-24 at 3.54.21 PM

This morning from 10am to noon we had 7 participants from southeastern Michigan attend our inaugural workshop on Creating Design Challenges. We had a good mix of both school and public librarians as well as experience levels.

A collection of documents (rubrics, methods, and slides + a shopping list of materials we used!) is located here!

DesignChallengeGame

We started the day off with a short (or “tiny”) Design Challenge based on our Making in Michigan Libraries-created Design Thinking Game. By chance, we were creating something to help a mermaid organize — but wait, we also had to make sure to not introduce new things as our particular mermaid’s constraint was that she didn’t like new things!

MermaidLegoDesignChallenge

In small groups our participants used a material they were familiar with — Legos — to create organizational inventions for our hypothetical mermaid. As we debriefed and continued to think about the why and the how of design challenges, we also discussed best practices for implementing them and different lengths for different focuses.

BenExplainsDesignChallenges

We then introduced a second Design Challenge with a less familiar — but still inexpensive — material: Strawbees! We changed up our groups for variety’s sake and had participants consider the challenge, prototype, and finally pitch a commercial for the “something to help a fisherman relax”!

StrawbeeDesignChallenge

We had a great time pitching, even showing off a Strawbee umbrella! Look at our complete album of photos here.

StrawbeeUmbrella

If this sounds interesting (or just downright fun) check out our other events coming up this summer!