The Learning Revolution: Design Thinking Workshop!

"It had been a while since we had fully used our brains, such is fourth year. On Friday, half of TY were lucky enough to have a Design Thinking workshop. For 3 hours we were challenged to think outside the box and use depths of our imaginations we didn't think we had. Our challenge was, in groups of 7, to simply design "the perfect water bottle".

However not before a few warm up exercises to get our minds in gear. Challenged to make rain in the classroom, the best we thought of was setting off the sprinklers...but who ever mentioned water? We learned that 50 people clicking their fingers made it seem like monsoon season right there in the room.

Also among the brainteasing questions posed to us, after attempting to make a duck out of 6 Lego pieces, was "why not have the bricks upside down?". It works fine, but wasn't thought of by anyone just because its not the accpepted method. Lesson learned! For the next three hours we wouldn't be allowed to think normally. When we got around to designing the bottles, we all dived into creating 25th century bottles, but were reminded soon after that it had to be practical and solve real consumer problems.

After presenting our prototypes, we then set about picking a winner. Armed with three poker chips, each group invested in another eventually leading to the best water bottle, coincidentally named "The Greatest Water Bottle on Earth", stealing the show! In just 3 hours we had made rain and produced a water bottle prototype, all by thinking outside the box and looking for different approaches to the problem!
Written by Shane O'Hanrahan 4POT2 year student