Reflecting on IDEO CoLab’s Makeathon
Walking up, it dawned on me that I had no idea what the day had in store for the next 8 hours. I ran possible scenarios in my head, but I never could have predicted the final outcome. After checking in, we did not have much time to settle in before the IDEO CoLab team had all 50 applicants on our feet cheering each other on through a rock-paper-scissors tournament. You could feel the energy in the air — a fitting precursor to what would follow that day.
The Introduction
CoLab is IDEO’s platform for collaborative impact. Periodically, the CoLab opens up applications for individuals to join them. Selected individuals from various backgrounds are then invited to the San Francisco, Boston, or London office to participate in a 1-day design sprint. I had the privilege of joining the CoLab’s action-packed and high energy Fall 2018 Makeathon in San Francisco. The purpose? To create provocations and prototypes that explore applications of emerging technology using IDEO’s human-centered design process.
Following our energetic rock-paper-scissors tournament, everyone was grouped with 3–4 teammates who had expressed similar interests in their applications. I was grouped with Soo, Kritika, and Stephanie (it wouldn’t take me long to find out I got lucky with great teammates who have amazing capabilities). Our area of interest — Collaborative Cities.
There was a short introduction to IDEO and the plan for the day. We were given a brief amount of time to introduce ourselves, our skills, our interests, and learn more about our fellow team members. Then, each team was given a unique prompt and jumped right in.
The Prompt
How might we make it easy to govern and coordinate on a neighborhood level to improve our daily lives?
Our ideas raced: What defines a neighborhood? Is it purely physical? What about communities with common interests but without physical proximity? What other technologies have introduced governance AND coordination between people? Are there barriers to entry? How do you make new neighborhoods? … and the list goes on.
We took our time to explore the meaning of the question. It seemed overwhelming to resolve.
The Brainstorm
Our group had ideas from food waste sharing among residential and commercial operations to electrical vehicle (EV) spot sharing in city environments and even pay on demand energy grid systems with local solar installations. Luckily this is where the experts came in, the IDEO CoLab Team themselves.
We were tasked with finding the users’ journey. The experts helped us to be as specific as possible: choose one area and drive home the experience (mind you, the ‘solution’ needs a working prototype in less than 6 hours). We chose to focus on parking, specifically with electric vehicle parking and charging.
This turned into many, many how might we’s (HMWs) that could be addressed. Slowly, we narrowed our focus to two HMWs:
How might we help EV spot owners receive value for the resources they can provide (space and electricity)?
How might we help EV spot seekers find charging in a timely manner?
The possible solutions seemed endless.
The Idea
EV charging stations are expensive, they are static, and sharing becomes difficult due to the need to move parked cars (nobody is waking up at 2 am to move their car or leaving work in the middle of the day). Could we set up a system for neighbors to collaborate moving vehicles? Maybe we could automate this move? Could we create a sharing platform based on time of day and priority? What about shared EV vehicles themselves?
We disagreed. We argued over what we were trying to solve. We were lost in confusion. We decided to break up for 15 minutes to come up with individual solutions, as many as possible and as crazy as possible.
We came back together and went around in a circle dropping our post-it notes onto our HMW board. Conversation spurred from one idea to another. Suddenly we emerged from our confusion to a transparent solution:
What if we created a shared, moveable EV Charger?
We looked at each other ‘huh — that seems feasible’ ‘Can we prototype it within the next ~4 hours?’ ‘Probably.’
And just like that — a serendipitous, new idea emerged to decouple the value of the individually owned parking space, ability to charge a car in timely manner, and ownership of an expensive system.
The Prototype Build
Time to get our hands dirty. We wanted to immediately jump into building, but the CoLab Team reminded us to identify which parts of our solution need representing in a prototype. The moveable battery? Probably not important to prototype considering it would just be a glorified battery on wheels.
After a short discussion, we converged on what we wanted to build:
- A miniature parking lot with cars and system for how the moving charger can dock
- An application that allows users to book and share the system
- IoT tower converter that communicates with the application whether a car is present and plugged in (maybe even show car battery stats?)
This is where we put our heads down to work. We divided up tasks and helped each other when we got stuck. It was hectic. It was fun. We could see the idea becoming a reality. Halfway through, we touched base to ensure we were all headed in the same direction — we were. Unfortunately since we were rushing to create, I forgot to take pictures so I have almost no documentation other than this:
We finished up our prototype with 10 minutes to spare. Our next thing to do was to show it off. The CoLab Team explained that this was not a venture pitch to sell an idea but a science fair to provoke what the future may become!
The Science Fair
A community owned, moveable EV charger (similar to Roomba but the size of a Tesla power wall) that can dock to small IoT ‘tower converters’. Spot owners can purchase just the IoT ‘tower converter’ to join the community for their respective parking spaces.
Additionally, a platform that allows the community to book, interact, and communicate charging for everyone’s EV. This system includes an incentive system with ‘carma’ points that will translate to discounts on your electrical costs.
Our final prototype in all of its glory:
The app shows the process of finding a time slot to charge under tight time constraints. Even if there is no slot available at the time, the system allows users to reach out to the community to ask for help. If the community individual chooses to help, the helping individual is gifted with value (shown as ‘carma’ points). This whole procedure can occur while all participants are away from their car.
Additional points discussed were:
- Ability for the system to realize full charge overnight and move to another EV automatically
- Optimize charging of multiple parked EVs
- Ability to set priorities, e.g. I am not driving this weekend so my charging priority is low
- Automate responses, e.g. if someone asks for help and my car is over 80% charge then automatically let them take charger
It would be improper to not discuss some of the other groups’ prototypes as well. The prototypes were stunning and created the ability to not only talk about or imagine the future, but to truly feel the future. Some examples were: an introductory crypto hardware wallet for high school students, a hat to notice when you’re in flow state and lock out other distractions, talking furniture that helps create an emotional attachment, lawn mowing/sharing service and more! (P.S. I’m sorry if I did not mention your prototype, I was only able to see about half of the total creations)
The Conclusion
Overall, the day was amazing. I cannot find the right words to describe the feeling of the future. It is just something one needs to experience.
A HUGE thank you to my amazing teammates who jumped into this day with such high positivity and energy. Of course, thank you to the IDEO CoLab Team for hosting and assisting us through the process of building prototypes. It seemed that someone always stepped in with crucial advice each time we needed it.
To learn more about IDEO and the IDEO CoLab, please visit: http://www.ideocolab.com/
