The second week of Making Things began with a warm welcome from Professor Deana McDonagh from our School of Art + Design. She spoke to the class about authentic human behavior and finding opportunity through observation. She noted that innovative potential exists in home-made solutions and that disruptive technology is the key to life-changing events. Each team received a copy of Jane Fulton Suri's book, Thoughtless Acts?: Observations on Intuitive Design as a source of inspiration. Ms. Suri is a top executive at the world-renown design firm, Ideo.

The last half of the class was devoted to brainstorming and product ideation. Students identified opportunities for prospective things to make. During this process, the seven groups examined things currently available on Thingiverse, Ponoko, Shapeways, and Kickstarter as a means of inspiration. Each team was tasked with deriving nine different opportunities for potential things to make. We closed our class by sharing our ideas with each other and obtaining feedback from our colleagues. We will continue this ideation process next week, as we seek to narrow our ideas down from nine to three.

Drafted by the Shakin Bacon team (Benjamin Moy, Colin Korst & Rebecca Gluadell)