Innovation

8 Days

Innovation

To innovate, according to Meriam-Webster, means to do something in a new way : to have new ideas about how something can be done, but how does one innovate an idea?

Innovation

Students will use the Engineering Design Process create a multimedia presentation about the creation of a new innovated product.

For decades, technology has helped to improve the lives of people with disabilities and injuries. In this lesson, students will learn about the invention process, including a new bio-medical device which allows individuals who cannot physically speak to type sentences by simply thinking.

** This unit focuses on students researching an invention or procedure and create innovative ways to improve upon it. (If you wanted to provide more choice for students you could select a few other industries as well. Example: Agriculture to make it easier for small farms or an invention that has made it easier for child care.)

Essential Question

How could new inventions change the lives of people with injuries and disabilities?

How will this innovative product be positive, safe, legal, and ethical when using using it?

How will the product be regulated?

Objectives

To improve upon the design of a common product or procedure using the design or invention process. (Or alternative product)
To understand the steps of the invention process and how innovation can be used for social change.

Materials

dowels or popsicle sticks
chenille strips/pipe cleaners
glue or glue guns
aluminum foil
sharpies

masking or duct tape
paper clips
cardboard
scissors
string
brass fasteners
WILDCARD: Each group can bring in one common house hold material - Example could be straws

DAY 1 Entry Event

Watch this PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs video about Ryan Hudson-Peralta, a man with congenital limb deficiency. Born without hands
- Complete TASK 1 on the student handout.
- Once the video is completed (use Playposit if desired) to have the students answer the following questions:
- What inventions are featured in this video? How might they be useful to Hudson-Peralta? What were the options available to Hudson-Peralta 50 years ago with regards to work, having a family and recreational activities? If you are not sure, how could you find out?
- How have medical inventions and procedures changed from ancient civilizations to modern day? (E.g. Antibiotics, leeches treatment, soap)

Teacher Resources:

As a class, brainstorm medical products on the whiteboard and briefly describe how they have helped improve people’s lives.
Make it clear to your students that a medical device or product is something someone invented, i.e. It’s an invention! This is important because it lets students know that a person or a team of people were behind a new idea.
STUDENT HANDOUT: - Provide a digital copy to each student

Day 2 - Invention vs Innovation

Student Resources:

YikeBike
- Complete the questions on your STUDENT HANDOUT

TASK 2 on the student handout.

Teacher Resources:

Entry Event: YikeBike
Is there a difference? People tend to think of an invention as the first time someone has come up with an idea and innovation as an improvement upon an existing invention. It becomes a little tricky because an innovation could also be considered an invention in its own right. Why or why not?

START VIDEO 1 minute in, 1st 60 seconds is a commercial.

Checkpoint: Task 3 of the STUDENT HANDOUT

Teacher Resource: For a quick checkpoint, students need to find a photo of an innovation that shows its development over time and answer two questons:

- What various innovations have been made to your product?
- What problem was each innovation trying to solve?

Possible Standards Evaluated

Innovative Designer Exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems. (STUDENT HANDOUT)

Day 3 - YOUR TURN - Define your problem and list your criteria and constraints

Student Resources:

Student Innovation Template

Teacher Resources:

Entry Event - 2021 Innovations

On the Student Innovation Template as a group decide what you want to solve with your innovation on slide 2.
List your criteria and constraints IN DETAIL on slide 3, you may add an additional slide if needed

Day 4 - Brainstorm Ideas and Generate 2 Ideas For The Design

Student Resources

On the Student Innovation Template as a group brainstorm ideas and document them on Slide 4.
Narrow down the possibilities of your design and decide on 2 alternatives - Sketch it out - You can use Sketchpad and do a print-screen of your two designs and place them on Slide 5.
- You don't have to be an artist or a designer to benefit from sketching. Visual thinking can help to trigger and develop ideas that discussion and writing might otherwise leave unturned. Similar to brain-writing, group sketching involves participants building on each other's ideas. Each member of your team will sketch an image related in a central way to the concept or idea.

Teacher Resources:

Brainstorming Activity Ideas
- Brain-Writing - Students in their group simply write down a few rough ideas for solving there problem on a piece of paper. Each piece of paper is then passed on to someone else, who reads it silently and adds their own ideas to the page. This process is repeated until everyone has had a chance to add to each original piece of paper. The notes can then be gathered, ready for discussion.
- Questioning Assumptions - Draw up a list of all the assumptions you can think about your project -- true or not -- and discuss the list as a group, questioning each one. Doing this at various stages in your plan development can spark fresh ideas, as well as identify knowledge gaps.
- Wishing - Ask students to dream up the most unattainable, extreme, and impractical solutions they can think of to a given problem.

Possible Standards Evaluated

Innovative Designer - Know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts, and solving authentic problems while understanding the criteria and constraints.
Innovative Designer - Develop, test and refine solutions as part of a cyclical design process

Day 5- Explore Possibilities & Defend A Final Plan

Student Resources:

Share and Discuss

What is Decision Making?

In its simplest sense, decision-making is the act of choosing between two or more courses of action.

In the wider process of problem-solving, decision-making involves choosing between possible solutions to a problem. Decisions can be made through either an intuitive or reasoned process, or a combination of the two.

Intuition

Intuition is using your ‘gut feeling’ about possible courses of action.

Although people talk about it as if it was a magical ‘sense’, intuition is actually a combination of past experience and your personal values. It is worth taking your intuition into account, because it reflects your learning about life. It is, however, not always based on reality, only your perceptions, many of which may have started in childhood and may not be very mature as a result.

It is therefore worth examining your gut feeling closely, especially if you have a very strong feeling against a particular course of action, to see if you can work out why, and whether the feeling is justified.

Reasoning

Reasoning is using the facts and figures in front of you to make decisions.

Reasoning has its roots in the here-and-now, and in facts. It can, however, ignore emotional aspects to the decision, and in particular, issues from the past that may affect the way that the decision is implemented.

Intuition is a perfectly acceptable means of making a decision, although it is generally more appropriate when the decision is of a simple nature or needs to be made quickly.

More complicated decisions tend to require a more formal, structured approach, usually involving both intuition and reasoning. It is important to be wary of impulsive reactions to a situation.

On the Student Innovation Template as a group
- Choose your final idea and explain why on Silde 5
On slide 6 of the the Student Innovation Template as a group
- Justify the idea
- Create sketches & formal documents. - Create an Isometric and Orthographic drawing of the product with appropriate labels.
- Attempt to test your idea and materials

Teacher Resources:

Play the video and have students list the traps to decision making and discuss with the class.
Predict what traps some students fall into when deciding on a class project - Example: Time, Structure, Group Pressure, and ETC.

Students Task: Select a final project and detailed design - Students should not deviate from their design, unless they have your approval, this prevents copying.

Possible Performance Standards Evaluated

Computational Thinker - Formulate problem definitions suited for technology assisted methods such as data analysis, abstract models and algorithmic thinking in exploring and finding solutions.

Day 6 & 7 - Design Your Product and Presentation

Student Resources

Split the duties up in the group

- - Who is developing your final presentation?
  - Who is developing the device?
  - Who is researching and investigating for the structure design?
  - What other duties can you split up?

Teacher Resources:

Discuss where good ideas come from!!

Days 8 Present the project and present

Possible Performance Standards Evaluated

Skilled Professional - (Used Safe procedures in the classroom)
Skilled Professional - (Evaluate their ability to utilize tools if applicable to the product)
Skilled Professional - Follow correct protocol for proper maintenance techniques for equipment, hardware, and software (Use of Technology tools for the product)
Innovative Designer - Develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process. (Final Innovative Product)

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