As the Hall of City University is small and crowded, sometimes, it is not enough spaces for us to put many shoes on the floor.
On the other hands, we wear a pair of socks every day which going to school. However, when we come back to hall after school, we usually just place them on the desk or floor instead of hanging them up after washing them, because we do not have the sock stand in our hall.
Way to deal with problem
In order to save more spaces, we want to put the shoes somewhere except putting them on the floor. Also, we want to hand-made a sock stand for us to hang up the socks and save the space.
Inspiration by creative thinking
Firstly, we prepare a lot of rope and connect the rope together. Secondly, we make two small holes on the top of the cardboard box and pass rope through it in order to fix cardboard box up outsides the wardrobe. Therefore, we can simply put the shoes insides the cardboard box and save more space for us.
For socks, sometimes, we buy the bottle of drinks in the supermarket or convenient shop. We will simply throw the bottle to the rubbish bin after drinking. Therefore, it inspires us to use the bottle to hang the socks up. Firstly, we puncture the bottle for two small holes. Secondly, we use wooden chopsticks taken in the canteen of the school to pass through the bottle. Thirdly, we make a hole under the cardboard box and fixed the bottle through the hole under the cardboard box. Finally, we use clothes-pegs through wooden chopsticks to hang the socks up. In this way, we can fully make use of the cardboard box and create more space.
Besides, we place a small mirror insides the cardboard box to make it like a toilet box. We also place an alarm clock at the top of cardboard box in order to make full use of it.
Individual Thinking and Inspiration and Group Process
One member of our group, Ngai Pok Keung, a year 2 student, is living in the Cityu residence. In his first year living in the hall, some clothes were stolen when he dried his clothes at the roof of hall. Then, he decided not to dry his clothes outside his room. However, the room is not big enough to dry all of his clothes. So, he suggested the idea whether can we think of some tools to help drying clothes in hall residence.
Afterwards, we met in several times to brainstorm about what creative ideas can we think of the material of shoes box. Each time we meet, we progressed forward step by step. Finally, we decided to use what we made.
What are enablers and inhibitors? How to do in individual and group?
The thing enable and inhibit we be creative is our thinking process. While we think out of norm, break the rules. The creativity comes. But if we are limited by the rules, by what we used to be, creativity never be us. For example, in this Blog, how do we make fun on the cardboard box? In the very first moment, we are all thinking it is just a box and so that cannot come out with so much idea. It is an example we are limited by rule. But while we try to observe the special of the box, we find out much feasibility. Such as the hole of the box can mixed with a bottle where would create a stand to place the chopstick.
When we are along, it is better that we just simply write down all the idea on the paper, no matter it is seems possible or not. And then practice it to find out which is possible. It is a good way to capitalize one the enablers and overcome the inhibitors individually.
When we are in group, brainstorming and discussion can be used. These two processes can stimulate the ideas. As there are more people thinking, the consideration will be much more detailed. And the chance to fail will be decreased.
Individual vs. Group
Each individual would have their each ideas and thinking. However, no matter how creative is that person, group thinking is always better. So, we group our ideas together and see whether what can be done creatively.
A lot of ideas and creativities would be hidden in your mind of brain. However, most of them are hidden that you may not be able to remember it easily and you are always unfamiliar with those information hidden in your brain. So, when we are having discussion, others will stimulate our hidden memory. As a result, we would be more creative if we have intensive interactions with other people.
Creativity Tools - An Introduction..
Lateral thinking recognizes that our brains are pattern recognition systems. Do not function like computers. It takes years of training before we learn to do simple arithmetic - something that computers do very easily. Unfortunately, we get stuck in our patterns. We tend to think within them. That is why it is mentioned above your hidden memory that out of your patterns will be stimulated by group process.
SCAMPER
SCAMPER is a checklist that helps you to think of changes you can make to an existing product to create a new one. The followings are the meaning of them:
• S - Substitute - components, materials, people
• C - Combine - mix, combine with other assemblies or services, integrate
• A - Adapt - alter, change function, use part of another element
• M - Modify - increase or reduce in scale, change shape, modify attributes (e.g. colour)
• P - Put to another use
• E - Eliminate - remove elements, simplify, reduce to core functionality
• R - Reverse - turn inside out or upside down, also use of Reversal
Although it is always better if you have a check list for your work/job, however, we would consider creativity as a king of flair. It means that you cannot control you do thing creatively by using a check list. So, we disagree with the idea by using a check list to promote creative.
Creative Uses of Cigarettes in Anti-smoking Ads
In the web page, you can see many anti-smoking Ads. Each of the Ads is presented by a photo or a graph. It is a fantastic way to present your creative thinking. Creativity is difficult to be present to others by using only words or some vague tools. So, I would suggest you to use photos or graphs to create your creativity.
What is the metaphor of our project?
The metaphor of our creative project is “the need is the mother of innovation.” What does it means? It means that satisfying needs of users is the main objective of designing our project. We think that it is meaningless to design an object without satisfying any important needs of users. We would like to enhance the convenience in our daily lives without imposing great cost to users. Therefore we have used paper boxes as the main material, which are disposed and could be easily collected and reused everyday.
How did this metaphor helped concisely convey our inspirational story?
Our metaphor is the core of our project. All the ideas and design would thus be around this core. Due to this metaphor, we firstly thought about what the needs were to be satisfied by our object. In this process, we had thought up too many needs in our daily lives, so we decided to focus on needs of students who are living in the student residence. We chose this target group because around us there are many classmates living in the student residence. We could then bring the immediate benefits to them.
What have been given up?
As we mentioned before, the core of our project is “the need is the mother of innovation.” We tried to satisfy the needs of classmates living in the student residence. As a result, some designs which can satisfy needs which are not common in living the student residence would be given up. For example, we have ever thought up that a paper box could be used to contain newspaper, but most of students living in the student residence would not buy newspaper, thus we eventually gave up this uses.
We also tried to use aluminum cans as the main material of our material. However, our object had some cutting on our material. We found that if we have cutting on aluminum cans, its edges would be too sharp, and so it can possibly hurt the user. To eliminate this risk, we decided to use paper boxes instead of aluminum cans as the main material of our object.
