Problem Bank Background Information
(Note: The following information was included in our application for the InfyMakers Awards Contest)
(Note: The following information was included in our application for the InfyMakers Awards Contest)
Short Summary
The “Problem Bank” is an innovation that allows schools to use 3D Printing as a catalyst for student empowerment and community action. School members post problems and students create authentic solutions, becoming engaged and experienced changemakers in the process.
Project Description
In 2013, a group of my Brookwood 8th graders and I became one of the first school groups to create a 3D printed prosthetic for a child: My 3-year old son, Max. This was a profound experience for all involved, and one that created a hunger for authentic designing experiences throughout our school. In response, in 2014 I created an educational innovation to provide unlimited real life designing and problem solving opportunities for students called the 3D Design Problem Bank. In this approach (http://bit.ly/2esIm3u), people from our school community post problems in need of a designed solution to a dedicated website and students enter into a relationship with problem posters to iterate functional solutions, becoming inventors and engineers who gain deep experience in creating actual solutions to authentic problems along the way.
Interestingly, there have been a number of smaller innovations that I have made along this journey that have allowed our school to turn this innovation into a powerful tool for empowering and engaging our students and has proven invaluable in terms of helping other educators, many of whom saw an article that I wrote on this work for Make Magazine (http://bit.ly/2fCRGUW), set up their own Problem Bank. These include such things as a diagnostic tool that allows students and potential posters to decide if a given problem is a good fit for this work, novel ways to allow our students to quickly refine solutions to allow them to move more frequently through the design cycle, and ways to leverage this work to help students become “changemakers”, not just in their school, but also their lives, communities, and world.
Seeking to broaden the impact and reach of this innovation, we have also now successfully moved this work out of our school and into our community. Our D-Zign Kidz initiative has 6th graders working with seniors at a pair of local affordable housing residences on 3D printed assistive devices. Our students problem find with their senior design collaborators, prototype solutions with them using Play-Doh, and return with 3D designed iterations they have created for their senior friends to critique. A WGBH Design Squad Global video of our project (http://bit.ly/2dg8Etp) has inspired other schools to create similar programs and I believe that the potential for this approach, including the possibility to globally scale this idea to connect students around the world, is unlimited.
What is the problem this innovation solves?
In spite of the clear need for improved STEM and design thinking education, many schools continue to struggle with ways to make these subjects relevant, meaningful, and engaging for students. Additionally, many students do not feel invested in their schools and communities and are consequently disaffected and disconnected. The Problem Bank innovation addresses these problems. By providing students with opportunities to collaborate with community members, apply creative and critical thinking skills, and use an emerging technology to address problems in their world, students are empowered, challenged, and more effectively prepared to meet the challenges that await them in the future.
Who are the Target Users?
Although the Problem Bank idea was originally intended for schools looking to provide their students with tangible, real life problem solving opportunities, this has turned into an idea with unlimited scaling potential, constrained only by people’s lack of understanding of the types of problems 3D printing can solve, lack of belief that people in their community can indeed create these sophisticated solutions, and access to printers. In short, I would love to see a community Problem Bank associated with every 3D printer on earth and a huge network that connects them all. Coming Soon (hopefully) …A Global Problem Bank!
How will this project genuinely improve the lives of its users?
There are three ways in which this initiative positively impacts the lives of those involved:
Process – There are multiple benefits to students learning to use the iterative design cycle to solve problems and then have multiple chances to put these skills to use in authentic situations. The 3D Problem Bank helps students become invested in their community, learn transferable design, STEM, and problem solving skills, and develop an “empowered mindset” through which they are not only able to effect positive change in their world, but interested in and passionate about doing so, too.
Products - Emerging technologies such as 3D printing provide students with the power to create sophisticated, functional solutions. When students create implementable solutions to a school problem or design assistive device that someone can actually use, the power of young people to make a difference is made manifest.
Connections – Putting students in a position of teaching others about 3D printing and then having them work collaboratively to identify problems and iterate solutions compels them engage in deeply social and empathetic relationships, empowers them to take responsibility for creating solutions, and turns problem solving into a social activity replete with growth opportunities.
How was this innovation built?
Simply put, I initiated the 3D Design Problem Bank by creating a Weebly website and using this to:
1. educate our community about 3D printing solutions
2. solicit problems from community
3. provide students with a set of authentic problems to solve
4. provide a platform to showcase student-designed solutions
5. help others set up their own 3D Design Problem Bank
Additionally, the 3D Design Problem Bank requires that a school or organization have access to computers, 3D CAD software, an internet connection, and a 3D printer – although, it is my hope that this innovation soon transcends 3D printing and technology, allowing organizations to involve students in the creation of solutions for any type of community problem.
I do believe that I have created some innovative approaches and pedagogical techniques that, although not materials or technologies, have allowed me to the substantially improve the Problem Bank idea over time, allowing it to become an increasingly refined and effective method for engaging students in this authentic design work. These include:
- the use of empathetic interviewing techniques
- prototyping techniques using “conventional materials
- a 10 point “diagnostic tool” that allows students and community members to determine if a given problem is a good fit for this type of project
- innovative methods for dramatically reducing the amount of time and material students need to create iterations to test and thus allowing them to quickly move many times through the design cycle. These include the setting of print time/solution mass limits to encourage students to keep designs small and simple and the discovery of a method we call “slice printing” that encourages students to 3D print low height “slices”, footprints, or single components of solutions to refine measurements and specifications before moving to full solution prints.