Top 10 Portfolio

Top 10 Portfolio Rahul rudra

Board Game

The first project that we completed was to make a children's tool that could help them learn. One of the most essential lessons from this project was to go through the design thinking process of prototyping. This means making a rough version of a product, so you can have a better understanding of it and improve on it accordingly. The project really challenged our ability to formulate a new useful idea that could practically be used. We had to over come any obstacles we faced and adapt in order for our prototype to be successful. The group I was apart of decided to create a game board that would help little children become more familiar with occupations that they may be interested in.

30 Day Challenge: Mandala

The last major project that was assigned for this class was the 30 day challenge. In this assignment we were tasked to do a creative task everyday for 30 days. I decided that for 10 days in a row I would draw mandalas. As the 10 days went on I found myself struggling to make new creative mandalas until i decided to implement some of the creative thinking tools that we learned in class. This changed the way I thought I should draw mandalas and also made it much easier. The picture above demonstrates the implementation of abstracting in my mandala.

Tessellation

During our lessons for recognizing and forming patterns we drew tessellations to show how these creative tools could help us. To recognize and form patterns is to notice something that reoccurs or create something that does. This helps people identify what is in demand for a product or what will be. The tessellation is an example of a more creative side of forming patterns. Either way it is used, it is essential to innovation.

Straw Tower

During one our early morning classes our teacher split us up into groups, gave us straws, and gave two members of every group a card. Inside each card was an instruction telling the person that they had a disability but to not tell anyone. In my group I received a card and was instructed not to see. The task was to build the tallest tower we could using the straws. It was designed to help us understand empathy. Empathy is understanding how others feel and putting yourself in their shoes to understand them more. This task help do this because my partners had to eventually learn that I was assigned not to speak and work with me, despite my disability.

Creative Process

The creative process is explained differently by many but there are a few explanations that are more commonly heard of. When we were going over our creative tool of observing, we discussed the creative process. We learned about many creative processes like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. My grouped was assigned to research B. F. Skinner's creative process. He found that when a behavior is encouraged it is likely to be repeated and vise versa. This ties in perfectly with observing because you need to observe these processes in order to try to describe them.

Speaker Series 1

The first speaker series we went to was quite strange. It was held inside of a gym and we were instructed to complete certain activities. One of the main activities was to either guide someone with their eyes closed or to be guided by someone else while your eyes are closed. The importance of this was to show the importance of trusting the person you are working with. This is because if you are able to do that, you and your partner can work much better as a team. I enjoyed going to this event mostly just to see people bumping into each other but also because it was interesting to realize that the lesson being taught was true. During the beginning of the activity I found myself stiff and hesitant to participate but as I grew more comfortable, I became more loose and it was much easier for my partner to guide me.

Week 11 Video

When we approached the lesson of imaging there was a video that we were supposed to watch about what happens to our brains when we go through the process of imaging. Imaging is imagining a product or an art piece or any object without it actually being there. I would consider myself to be a person that enjoys math and science very much. Understanding the way the world works and why it functions the way it does intrigues me because it gives you answers to questions that you may have thought to be impossible to be known. For this reason I found myself to enjoy this video very much.

Abstracting

Most people can look at an art piece and be able to identify if the artist was abstracting or not, however could most people successfully do it themselves? I never gave much thought to it until we had to take a animal and abstract it several times, using less a less lines each time. Abstracting is taking an object and breaking it down to its essential components or focusing in on one of them. While doing this task i found it hard to use less lines each time and still having it look like the animal. Sometimes implementing a creative tool is the only way to become comfortable with using it.

Speaker Series 2

During the second speaker series we sat in a lecture hall and were given a presentation. Although an activity like this is usually kind of dull, the content of the lecture is what brought it to my top ten. This is because before this lecture I was completely oblivious to the fact that universities had facilities called "incubation" centers that help businesses out on the ground floor. During the presentation, they mentioned that being selected for the incubation center increases the chances of your product being successful by something like 70%. This really interested me because I have had really serious thought about being a part of a startup and if universities are actively looking for students that are innovating it is something that I will definitely look into.

Project Prototype

This ties back with the first project that was assigned to us, to create a toy for a child. Ideating is design thinking process the involves coming up with ideas to solve a particular problem or create a new product. This process was heavily enforced during the beginning of the project because we had to come up with a toy. this was by far the most difficult aspect of the project. It taught me that when you are planning out a project it is important to take time into consideration because it can affect what is in the scope of possibility.

Throughout the course we have learned many ways to be more creative and how to use tools to help us when we are stuck at a problem. Because our class was switched around, we had to complete the final project during the first half of the semester. We had to make a prototype without diving deep into many of the creative tools that we learned about. I feel like learning all the new creative tactics have helped increase my creative ability. It would have been interesting to see if maybe we were assigned to do the project in the second half of the year, they might have been different? Instead we did the 30 day challenge at the end of the semester and there are noticeable uses of the creative tools within it. This shows how much your creativity can grow just by learning more about it.

Conclusion

Learning can be described as the act of gaining knowledge through being taught, teaching yourself, or experience. Learning is obviously a key aspect in being creative and innovative. It can help you tackle problems that you haven't faced by applying previous knowledge. Learning affects your critical thinking, knowing not to do certain things based off of their predicted outcome. It also plays a role in ethical decision making because if you learn something is harmful to something else, you should probably avoid doing said thing. Innovation and creativity pull from all different aspects of life and teachings, implementing them into your work is what will improve the quality and variety of what you do.

Appreciate

Credits:

Created with images by Hallenser - "scary lightpainting" • augie_malson - "IMG_0877" • Lenalensen - "metal mandala ornaments" • cogdogblog - "Tesselation Texture?" • Ly Thien Hoang (Lee) - "Bottle Of Straws" • TeroVesalainen - "idea innovation imagination" • Buecherwurm_65 - "lecture articulated male figures" • ManelTor - "Neuron Plasma" • Steve Snodgrass - "Abstract 1.2" • Accretion Disc - "Lecture" • mbaylor - "Doll Diaper" • spamforpic - "go-kart racing drive"