This week we focused our attention to our groups product idea that we will be printing using 3D printing to create. To begin we were challenged with coming up with 3 potential ideas that could fulfill a need. Outside of the design thinking experience our group had back in week 3, this 3-40 minute team meeting was really our first chance to flesh out some of the potential ideas we had in person. Finding viable solutions was challenging at first, mostly because it is quite enticing to want to think of a solution before actually thinking of a problem.
Once our g
roup took a step back, and started brainstorming problems that we had encountered in recent memory, it was then easier to consider solutions to those problems. Furthermore going back to our lesson on design thinking, each time we came up with a solution we had to think about our end user of our potential idea / product. Would the end user actually have a need for our solution? Is it economically fee sable to produce? Would this product actually make the end users life easier? All of these are important questions to ask when taking into account design thinking. Of the 3 solutions we came up with, I am not quite sure our group has one that we are really leaning towards doing. This is both a positive and a negative for our 3d printed solution. On one hand we do not have a potential prototype to start putting together, but now we still get to go through the discovery phase a bit more and really understand our problem. Our group is certainly excited as we do have 3 good problems to solve. What will be interesting is to see if any really can be solved by the a tangible product created from 3d printing making materials. This next week will be very important for the group to think of potential solutions, and really hone in on one problem we want to tackle going forward.
See below for photo of the 3 problems we are addressing.
Hi,
I can’t agree more with your thinking path. We also had a lot of discussions of our ideas for the final project in the brainstorming session. At the most of time, we would ask ourselves similar questions as you did such as what is the true demand of the users or how could our idea satisfy their needs. By asking ourselves constantly, we could move step by step towards our final proposals. One more thing I want to remind you is that we have to take our/3D printer’s capability into consideration as well. We might get some brilliant ideas while we can not achieve them within a semester timeline or with the current tool set.
Hi,
I think your thoughts on consumer needs identification is great! I also experienced in my group brainstorming session with Veronika and Olivia that we were consistently taking a step back and evaluating whether or not the end user would actually have a need for the product. In my brainstorming session, many times Veronika, Olivia and I would realize that either the consumer need is already fully saturated or there would be no need at all. For instance, we originally wanted to help consumers move furniture easily. Unfortunately, this market was already heavily saturated as their are customizable attachments that fit all different types of furniture to move it easily. Lastly, I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with for charging smartphones and computers because I’m always running out of juice on my electronics!