Hey guys, for the last couple of months my class has been working on two different projects: The Tempest project and Blue Sky which is what I’m going to be talking about today. To complete our Blue Sky project we had to follow the LAUNCH cycle which is basically a cycle that you follow while coming up with and creating something. It is split into 6 sections: L or look listen and learn, A or ask a ton of questions, U or understand the process or problem, N or navigate ideas, C or Create a prototype, H or highlight and fix, and finally the launch.
We started the project with the Look, Listen, and Learn milestone of the launch cycle and what we had to do was pretty straight forward. There were three sections the we had to complete in our LAUNCH journal:
- Complete three different brainstorming challenges. These challenges all are supposed to get you to tap into a different central focus, they also were supposed to help you create you own driving question since none was provided due to the openendedness of the project. However I found that this challenge while sometimes helpful most of the time lead my mind astray.
- Develop a task that shows how you listened and learned more about your idea. For this I decided just to do some basic research of my idea and write down my notes on the LAUNCH journal. It helped me come up I with my driving question by looking and seeing what solutions already exist and how I should shape my driving question to make sure I don’t come up with the same solution.
- Narrow your idea into a ‘How Might We’ framework. A ‘How Might We’ framework is how driving questions are created, you start your question with how might we and create a question that is not too vague that it could mean anything while still open enough to lead to interpretation. My question was “How might we create a dance bag that will keep your stuff organized while still being easy to carry?” This was now my driving question that I would keep throughout the rest of the project.
We then moved onto Ask Tons of Questions which also had some sections in it but this time only two. The main point of this part of the cycle is to start to get you creative juices flowing to come up with your project to pitch to Ms.Willemse and Mr.Hughes.
- Develop a list of Need to Knows (NTK’s) for your project. Many of my Need to Knows were asking about what the outline was for what my prototype should be, such as if I should come up with a whole business for my product of if it could just be a cheap prototype. These questions helped me come up with what I was going to pitch as my idea and how much thought I would have already put into my product.
- Create an up to date Action Plan chart to help you keep up to date with your work. At first I tried to stay up to date with my Action Plan but it became too tedious to keep having to go back to numbers and open the specific document to continue to update it. If I do another Blue Sky project I will be sure to use this chart from now on.
Once we had finished parts L and A in our LAUNCH journal it was time for us to pitch our project to Ms.Willemse and Mr.Hughes. This consisted of completing a pitch form in my LAUNCH journal and pitching my idea verbally to both of my teachers. Although I had to face severe social anxiety and get rejected on my first pitch it was for the best, I had to come up with a better problem to solve and a better idea for a solution that would be approved by Ms.Willemse. Once I did I moved onto part U of my LAUNCH journal.
For U we were tasked with learning even more about our subject, what was really needed in our solution, and what sort of materials could be used in our prototypes. To do this we had to complete two different types of research: primary and secondary.
- Primary research is research that is done by you and collected from people you talked to, this can be achieved by interviews, surveys, and/or brainstorming yourself. I got my research from interviews with a couple dancers and a mother of dancers and a survey on survey monkey. The answers I got really helped me come up with what exactly was needed in the bag so I could make sure it was easy to carry like I said in my driving question.
- Secondary research is research that you have gotten from sources that would not be classified as first hand evidence, so a blog post on the essentials to have in a ballet bag would be secondary research. Most of my secondary research was dedicated to understanding what proper dancers would want in their bags and what types of materials and designs ballet bag companies use to make their bags. This helped me come up with a basic idea of what I wanted in the bag.
Navigate was one of the easiest parts of the LAUNCH cycle because you are just writing down all the ideas you had already and grouping them so you know what I deal are the same and what are different. I used my previous ideas that I got from the U phase to fill out a bunch of sticky notes and group them. This helped me come up with the layout for the holders and hangers for my rapid prototype and the redesign for the live prototype.
Due to poor time management and the need for efficiency I was forced to do both C and H at the same time. While I was building I was continuously getting feedback from my mother and sister which would have fit multiple live prototypes and feedback sessions. All their criticism helped me come up with my final design for my prototype. It answered my driving question perfectly and actually worked pretty well but there was still more to be done.
Of course no amount of work like this can go without a presentation so to present our Blue Sky projects we were given the spring exhibition. We were all put into groups that matched somewhat what our product was about, I was put in the individual sports group. Our theme was set in a forest due to the fact that the majority of projects were for sports in the forest, the decorating of the area was easy it was the personal stand that was harder. I had decided to show off my invention by having the prototype with me to show what it can do and talk about how I made it. This was the final piece to answering my driving question which I think I did a good job of answering.