Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Taylor and I'm really pleased you can join me for today's lesson.

Today, our lesson is called "Innovation When Generating Ideas," and this is part of the unit Iterative Design: Nature.

The outcome: I can innovate when generating ideas.

And we have four keywords: Innovation, new ideas.

Evolution, a gradual change or development.

Revolution, a big change.

Morphology, a way of generating large numbers of design ideas by combining different aspects.

We have two learning cycles today, innovative design and morphology.

Let's begin with innovative design.

Innovation is about new ideas.

Designers can achieve this by creating entirely original design ideas, this is described as revolutionary design.

Alternatively, designers can make changes to existing ideas.

This is described as evolutionary design.

Here we have a check.

Innovative design can be evolutionary or revolutionary.

Explain the difference.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Let's have a look at some of the answers you may have come up with.

Evolutionary design improves existing products and revolutionary design creates an entirely original design.

Well done.

The cat's eye was a revolutionary, original design.

Percy Shaw from Halifax, West Yorkshire, invented the road safety device in 1934.

He had been using the reflection from his car headlights on the steel tram lines to navigate in the dark.

When the tram lines were removed from the local roads, he found driving at night became very difficult.

The road safety device houses reflective lenses in a rubber case.

In the dark, car headlights reflect light on the lenses, showing the centre line of the road.

The revolutionary aspect of the design was that the lenses were housed in rubber.

When cars drove over the device, the rubber depressed and the lenses remained intact.

Here we have a check.

Why did the rubber case make the design revolutionary? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Let's have a look at some of the answers you may have come up with it.

It depressed under pressure, protecting the lenses when cars drove over it.

Fantastic.

Smart glasses are an example of evolutionary design.

Smart glasses combine smart phone technology with traditional vision correcting glasses.

Features such as voice activation, cameras, WiFi, and Bluetooth connectivity make the glasses an example of wearable technology.

Here we have a check.

Smart glasses are an evolutionary design combining which two existing products? A, touchscreen technology, B, smartphone technology, and C, correcting vision glasses.

Pause the video and have a go.

Let's have a look.

That's right, it's B, smartphone technology, and C, correcting vision glasses.

Well done.

When designing, it can sometimes be difficult to think of new and interesting designs.

Generating creative ideas can use different strategies.

One strategy is to combine different and unusual word associations.

Here are two unrelated word lists.

We have feelings such as lazy, scary, grumpy, friendly, peaceful, or energetic.

And items to sit on, a chair, a suitcase, a cushion, rocking horse, bench, and beanbag.

Using dice, if we threw two dice and got the number six and five, the words we would generate would be energetic and bench.

So six from the first list is energetic, and five from the second list is bench.

Can you design an energetic bench? Combining words is a strategy that can spark ideas.

Your first task, Task A, Part 1, use the word list to generate six different word combinations using the dice to ensure the combinations are random.

Part 2, for three of the word combinations you have come up with, draw or model an idea for a product you can sit on.

And three, add annotations to explain each of the three ideas and the design features.

Pause the video and have a go.

Wonderful.

Let's have a look at some of the answers you may have come up with.

Part 1, generate six different word combinations.

We have scary suitcase, scary rocking horse, friendly cushion, energetic bench, peaceful chair, and lazy beanbag.

Part 2, draw or model a design for a product you can sit on.

Here we have a friendly cushion, an energetic bench, and a scary suitcase.

And Part 3, add annotations to explain each of the three ideas and the design features.

Here we have a scary suitcase.

The eyes and teeth facial features on this suitcase make it look scary.

The colour and texture of the suitcase is also quite scary, like an old bone from a skeleton.

An energetic bench.

The colours of these benches are vibrant to make you feel energetic.

The benches could be used for seating or exercising, which is energetic.

And the friendly cushion.

The smiley face makes the cushion seem friendly.

The texture of the fabric looks soft and comforting, which I think would be friendly too.

Fantastic.

Well done.

We now move on to the second learning cycle called morphology.

Morphology is a way of generating numbers of design ideas by breaking down a product's design into different aspects.

These aspects can then be combined in many different ways to spark innovative ideas.

Aspects to consider could include manufacturing process, function, material, colour, style, and the product itself.

Here we have a check.

Explain how morphology helps to generate a large number of design ideas.

Pause the video.

Have a go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

Let's have a look at some of the answers you may have come up with.

Different aspects of a design such as function, material, and style can be combined in many different ways to spark innovative ideas.

Well done.

Here is an example of a morphology table used to design a decorative storage unit.

The designer takes one word from each column.

For example, blue, blocky, and casting.

The three words, blue, blocky, and casting, can then be used to generate design ideas for a storage unit.

And here we have three examples.

They are all blue.

The first two are quite square and angular and would be described as blocky.

And we can see in the third example, that it is made from metal, which could be created using the process of casting.

Here we have a check.

Which aspects could be included on a morphology table? A, colour, B, cost, C, style, or D, ergonomics.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Let's have a look.

That's right, it's A, colour, and B, style.

Brilliant.

Izzy could use morphology to help generate several design ideas.

Here is her design brief.

We can use this and choose some categories to create a morphology table.

"I am going to design and manufacture a system to teach young children about animal conservation in the wild.

My sister and I visited the local zoo and realised how many wild animals are in danger, and we want other people to learn about this too.

I think a teaching toy or aide in nursery schools would really help children to understand from a young age." Izzy could use this table to help generate ideas.

She chose to consider endangered animals, materials, and the product.

Taking one word from each column, she can create many combinations.

For example, chimpanzee, textile, and figures.

So here in the endangered animal column, she has bluefin tuna, Borneo elephant, chimpanzee, and red panda.

Materials, she has paper and board, polymers, textiles, and metal.

And product, she has board game, figures, hand puppets, and a pop-up storybook.

Izzy came up with these ideas from the words chimpanzee, textile, and figures.

A soft, felt chimpanzee toy, an action figure with moving limbs chimpanzee toy, and a chimpanzee toy made from crocheting different coloured yarns.

And here we have Task B.

The first part, using your design brief, choose three relevant categories for use on your morphology table.

Part 2, use these three categories to create a morphology table.

Three, create six different word combinations using your morphology table.

Part 4, draw or model an idea for each of the three word combinations.

And five, explain your ideas with annotations describing the design features.

Pause the video and have a go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

Let's have a look at some of the answers you may have come up with.

Here is a design brief.

"I am going to design and manufacture a herb growing system for wheelchair users.

This must be accessible and easy to move around the kitchen.

The users must be able to water the herbs and position them in the sunlight.

They must also be able to cut the herbs easily and independently.

They can't do these tasks at the moment because the kitchen window sill where the herbs are growing now is too high to reach." Three relevant categories for this morphology table could be: Material, colour, and style.

And Part 2 was to create a morphology table using those three categories.

So in colour we have red, silver, grey, green stripes, or blue with white clouds.

Materials we have polymer, timber, metal, textile, or paper and board.

And style we have minimalist, cartoon, technological, natural, and funky.

Part 3 is to create six different word combinations using your morphology table.

For example, grey, timber, minimalist.

Blue with white clouds, metal, and cartoon.

Red, polymer, technological.

Green stripes, textile, and natural.

Grey, paper and board, funky.

And grey, polymer, and technological.

Here we have part four, draw or model an idea for each of the six word combinations.

So on the left, we have grey, timber, minimalist.

In the centre, green stripes, textile, and natural.

And on the right, grey, paper and board, funky.

Part 5 is to explain your ideas adding annotations to describe the design features.

So here, the herbs are in separate pots which means they can be moved individually.

The pots stand on two different heights.

The one at the back is higher than the one at the front, which makes it easy to see all the different herbs.

The green stripes, textile, natural combination.

The annotations are: The herbs are all held together in one bag which looks natural, but wouldn't be very easy to identify which is which.

The design hangs up, which is interesting, but might be difficult to move around as you would need to reach the hook, which could be too high.

And the grey, paper and board, funky option.

The aesthetics of this design are really funky with the angular shape.

The material could be from a sustainable forest and therefore is good for the environment.

Well done.

Here we have a summary of today's learning.

Innovation is about new ideas.

New ideas can be revolutionary or evolutionary.

Generating creative ideas can be done using different strategies.

One strategy is to randomly combine different and unusual word associations.

Another strategy is morphology, which is a way of generating large numbers of design ideas by combining different aspects.

I'm really pleased you could join me today.

Really well done.