Sometimes it is better to think like a child
Going through college, work and now graduate school, I notice one character of me that is on the trend to decrease over time: my creativity. As an engineer, we sometimes are tied down to the details technical aspects, about the risk factor and regulation, etc and because of that, we forget to think outside of the box. It is really not until this J-term advance design class that I realize what would be different if I can just let my brain back to my little self and imagine without any constraints.
Similar to how we did with our Patient-health project idea generating practice, today we were given a problem/case study of an Alzheimer’s patient with falling issue. Our task was to design a special chair for this patient and then later used two different medium (paper and clay) to build our prototype.We then presented our ideas to the class and receive questions and feedback. From the outside looking into our classroom, we probably would received very weird look from people. Why would these college kids cutting, gluing paper and then playing with clay in the middle of the class time? Yes, we play, think and even imagine like a child but the end result from this class exercise is a collection of great chair, walking assistant solutions and even more new ideas, knowledge, experience that we learned from one another through the class period.
Remember those crazy, wild dreams that we imagine as kids like a machine that would remove your milk tooth without you seeing the scary dentist ? How awesome would it be if they actually came true? Sometimes, it is better if we can keep thinking like a kid, cause there is no limitation for the goodness we can bring to this world.
-Vi
BME Design 