Carnegie Mellon University

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Rethink the Rink

March 24, 2020

Facilitating Innovation: A Rethink The Rink Make-A-Thon Memoir

By Seth Apol

Editor's note: This piece of content has been adapted from it's original form, with permission from the author, for the purposes of iii news. The full two-part memoir by Rahul Sekar, MIIPS Advanced '20 student, is available on LinkedIn via the links in the sidebar. 

Day 1: (March 9, 2020)

We were charged with redesigning NHL shoulder and elbow pads. NHL players shared their experience on shoulder and elbow injuries. Specifically, they also explained in detail what actions and motions opposing players make during the play that cause injury.

As the day came to an end, we organized into teams. One reason I chose to spend my spring break over a make-a-thon is to work with people who have a educational background different than me. I know that this is not going to be very comfortable and easy. Yet, it was the very thing I was looking forward to.

Days 2 & 3: (March 10-11, 2020)

To get inspiration for more design ideas and a new form (shape) for shoulder and elbow pads, I did a quick mood board with keeping the problem statement in the mind. A mood board is a tool industrial designers use for getting inspiration when they sketch new product concepts. It works just fine for quick product concept generations and inspirations!

As a team, we were tasked with generating 50 ideas in 1 hour. To make things simpler, we were provided pre-categorized ideas to make it easy to ideate (means idea generation).

Pro tip: The power of sketching while ideating. To save a lot of explanation, you gotta trust me with this: try sketching your ideas instead of just writing down in words. Why is it so effective? When you sketch, your mind thinks very differently from the way it thinks when you scribble! Another good thing is that sketching is a global form of communication. Everybody draws a circle the same way anywhere in the world. Having sketched your idea, you could save a lot of energy in communicating and explaining your ideas. As a fun activity, try sketching your bucket list or to-do list!

Bottom line: Always sketch your ideas.

Our team moved forward with a single concept for the shoulder pad design. We prototyped our concept to present with the 4 other teams at the end of the day. Just as sketching is the global form of communication, prototyping is the best form of communication when you innovate a physical product.

Day 4: (March 12, 2020)

Preparing for storytelling!

From the start, our team was cognizant that how we thought and arrived at our elbow and shoulder designs should tell a cohesive story.

Something to note here is that some conflicts are good for the team. It's bad if a team just keeps doing whatever their leader tells them to do. Sometimes, these little restraints are the team members' way of giving feedback: 'I too care about the project'. Team members should debate on whatever could bring meaningful outcome in the project. When do you know if the output is meaningful? 'It's when even if you debate and win an argument, you will not feel like: Hey! I won the argument, at the end. I am right." Instead, you will get a feeling that whatever you argued for will add value to the customers and users.

Day 5: (March 13, 2020)

It's the presentation day!

As the event came to a close, I was left with this one feeling: I couldn't wait to test my prototype in the actual game. All I wanted was to start prototyping our design concept and conduct real usability testing of the prototype with ice hockey players.

Closing thoughts: This 5 days make-a-thon was made possible by the collaborative effort of so many people. It's the collaborative effort that facilitated the success of the event. I am thankful for this wonderful opportunity and happy to have spent my spring break doing this!

I am hoping that one of the designs from this make-a-thon makes its way through production to guard the shoulders and elbows of ice hockey players!

- Rahul Sekar

 

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