Week 9 Reflection
On Wednesday my friend and I discussed a tool that could possibly be produced within the next 20–30 years that can aid minimalism. Our idea was to combine a tool that could help you understand the underlying structure of waste materials and give you a break down of what materials it consisted of. While doing that, it would also tell you the best way to reuse or discard it. Having such a cheap tool on a personal level would change the way we interact with waste material and can really help us achieve the goals that were stated for 2050. I think that if such product existed, many other products in other businesses would also be out there so there would be a higher chance of such change.
On Friday, we took another approach and talked about how might we improve our education system. We started by setting ourselves goals that we might achieve in the next 20–30 years and used these benchmarks to figure out systems of tools and ideas that could improve the educational system. One thing our group thought a lot about was the need for a better testing system that was normalized within the country and on a global level. We also discussed how important it is to have large set of incentives for students to understand how important learning is for their future. A lot of students may lose hope after their test scores and we still need to show them that the education itself is the prize.
I think that this week was a really good application week. We had a chance to use the tools we learnt to develop products and ideas about future scenarios. I think this also will help me understand what my finalized project could look like and will guide me through my process of bringing it together.
I think the exercises this week helped me really well to understand how important it is to hear other voices and bring a combined voice of the designers to create ideas and products. As a design practice, listening to your colleagues and reaching a common idea when thinking about future products and ideas is crucial to successful design.
