Idea Generation Part 2
Electric Kettles
“How Might We?”
- How might we make Electric Kettles last longer?
- How might we make Electric Kettles multifunctional?
- (How might we make Electric Kettles work for food?)
Set Up
The participants in my idea generaion include:
- Nikunj, my roommate and friend from high school, a sophomore in Computer Science
- Toby, a junior also coincidentally majoring in Computer Science who I met at church
- Jack, a friend from high school, sophomore in Physics
- Mica, a junior in Mechanical Engineering who I invited just before the session
- (Brielle, one of my interviewees, an Acting BFA major, who unfortunately couldn’t make it)
My brainstorming session took place on Sunday at noon instead of Saturday as previously scheduled due to extra informaion about eveyone’s availability. This occurred on the fourth floor lobby in the East Wing at Middlebrook Hall, which was well and naturally lit. The warmup session consisted of Wordball and reverse Wordball, Story String, and “Once-Upon-A-Time.” The whole time I had the soundtrack to “The Lord of The Rings” playing. There was no chocolate.
Prior to the session, I generated nearly 100 pieces of paper to write on by cutting printing paper into quarters, then using scotch tape to . I’m too frugal to go out and purchase actual post-its. We used black sharpies and pens to write and draw with.
The session ran in total from 12:00–2:00 pm. The first 15 minutes was explaining the brainstorming process and producing extra paper just in case, then a warmup session lasting for 30 minutes (a little long, but we were having fun), followed by 40 minutes of brainstorming ideas based on the two prompts, then 10 minutes of taping the ideas onto a wall and 10 minutes of voting, after which they left and I spent the final 15 minutes organizing the results.

Warm Up
I like to compose music for fun, so…
Melody Game
Everyone takes turns putting in notes one beat of a measure per person until a full 4-measure phrase has been composed, at which time the group composition music will be played out loud.
This warm-up game requires a music notation software (such as MuseScore) and 4–8 players. The game shall be played in 4/4 (four beats in a measure) on a treble clef with only quarter notes and eighth notes. Flats (b) and sharps (#) are allowed. Each person should take no longer than 10 seconds to place notes in a beat. The game should last about 2–3 min. The quicker it goes, the more random and wacky the final music will be, and therefore more fun.

Musescore Basics:
- make sure the “N” in the upper left is on before adding notes
- use arrow keys to move notes up and down
- quarter note hotkey is [5], eighth note hotkey is [4]
- only one beat (either one quarter or two eighths) per person per turn
I (Killian) am experienced with Musescore if you need help.
Brainstorm Session
After 40 min of brainstorming, all four of us generated 78 ideas in total.
I must admit that I did not follow the rubric very closely when doing the brainstorming session; there was a lack of progressive revelation, and we did not keep track of whose ideas were whose. I did modify one of the prompts a little bit (“HMW make EKs work for food” to “HMW make EK’s multifuntional”) in the middle of the session to help broaden the ideas since everyone began slowing their pace. I later prompted everyone to come up with anything generally related to electric kettles or heating water.
For the voting process, I gave everyone 3 Novel votes, 3 Feasible votes, and 3 Valuable votes, for a total of 27 votes over four people. Mica had to leave early, so only four of the five of us voted. I then sorted the ideas by number of votes, then when it came to picking top tens, I included all the triple-voted and double voted ideas, then personally chose the best single-voted ideas (informed by comments I overheard during the voting).


Top 10 Ideas from Brainstorming

- rubber patches on outside for grip and insulation
- flip over and transfer heat from bottom
- a strainer that fits inside
- water rotation for uniform heating
- nonstick inner surface
- hard boil egg attachment
- separator with holes, only water heated directly
- detachable base to use as stovetop
- hot stick, can be placed in a cup to heat the contents
- modular kettles, replaceable items
Top 10 Ideas of All Time










Honorable mentions
Electric cooler, electric pot/pan, ultimate water distiller, temperature and time knobs, module to use for tea bags or K-cups, escaping steam plays music that you write on it, flipping upside down and cooking with the base
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Timeline:
