Project ideation workshop

While the Academy core content has not begun yet, we have been encouraged to start thinking about a final project to develop during this FabAcademy.

The final project Requirements are highlighted in the Assignments and Assesment guide. In short, it has to demonstrate the knowledge of some of the basic techniques learned in the course and has to be presented in a certain format.

If someone has a concrete idea in mind, ideally the project can be developed week-by-week during the course. This strategy helps avoiding the “final weeks panic” and is recommended also for bigger projects… but has one problem for me: you should already has an idea :)

One of the FabLab members, Georgi, facilitated for us a workshop based on Design Thinking concepts with the main goal of illustrating this design methodology but also to help us generating some extra project ideas.

We divided into pairs, went through some fun exercises to encourage a bit of creativity and remove some personal barriers …and started working with our “user”.

As designers, our “user” was the other member of the pair, currently they “is in search of a project idea”.
We approached the problem inteviewing our “user” and trying to empathise with them to understand their needs.
We drafted a possible problem statement for our user, asked for their feedback and started prototyping in form of sketches.
First we sketched 4-5 different solutions, got feedback from the user and selected one of them.
Finally we built a small physical prototype of the solution chosen.

Here is what my designer wrote about my problem statement:

Ilias, the inner social activist,
needs to find a way to make a local impact, because he wants to make the world a better place and give ice-creams to everybody!

The project that my designer prototyped for me is a “sustainable social housing project that can be connected in a global on-line platform for house sharing&swap”. Ideally the first prototypes could be built occupying some nice areas close by the Barcelona beaches :)

I actually found surpising how the idea developed “ticks” many of competences and themes I’m passionate about.
Well done, Dorota!