I’m trying to learn for my Engineering class and I’m stuck. Can you help?

24 Hour Innovation Investigation- Alternate Assignment Submission

Students who are not able to participate in the 24 Hour Innovation Investigation will work individually through various activities to have a similar experience on their own time. These experiences are used as the basis for the term project, and are essential for students to complete prior to the start of the term project.

As you work through the process, you should document your work on the pages that follow these instructions.

Task 1: Identifying and Verifying a Problem

Transportation is one of the critical infrastructures in the United States and the world. Highway systems are used to transport goods and products, local roads are traveled by pedestrians and bikes, and we have advanced our efficiency with air and sea travel. As technology begins to intersect transportation, there are multiple pain-points associated with it.

1.Individually, identify and create a list of at least 15 different pain point associated with transportation. These topics should be pain points that you personally are interested in trying to solve or reduce. They can be on any scale and related to any aspect of transportation, including services that use transportation or directly related to transportation itself.

Now, identify the top 2 pain points on your list that you are interested in. You should focus on challenges you believe are solvable with an engineering solution. While you think these are important to solve, there is no guarantee anyone else agrees and is willing to spend money on the solution. We must verify that other people agree these are worth solving.

2.For each of your top pain points, create a list of different types of stakeholders who would care about your problem or solution. You should identify a minimum of four different stakeholder groups, representing at least two different types of stakeholders (i.e. public, private, nonprofit, gov., agency, etc.)

3.Now, pick one of the stakeholder lists that you believe you can find people to interview from all of the different areas. This will be the project you pursue for the remainder of the assignment. You need to prepare to interview at least 10 people from at least 2 different types of stakeholders.

4.Create a list of at least 5 questions that you plan to ask each stakeholder group. Some questions may be asked to all stakeholders, while some may be unique to that category.

a.Your questions should be unbiased and aimed at gathering information on how they feel about the problem.

b.Do not ask them how they feel about specific solutions, but rather what characteristics they would require of a solution, or how much they would be willing to pay for a solution.

c.Now, go interview! Document your interviews and the answers from each group. You can use online survey tools, phone interview, video interviews, etc. to collect your data! This is about people though, it isn’t online research.

d.When interviewing, don’t be afraid to ask for more details! Those details may help you later on!

Task 2: Brainstorming Solutions

Summarize your interview data into customer musts and wants for a solution. Then, look over the feedback- what aspects of the problem are most concerning for the stakeholders? Do all stakeholder groups feel the same way about the problem? These questions should get your brain turning and ready to brainstorm potential solutions!

5.Brainstorm at least 10 different solutions ideas that might solve your problem, considering the stakeholder feedback. Use the mindmap described in Lesson 2 of the Innovative Client-Centered Solutions through Design Thinking to structure your idea.

6.When done, apply “Yes, and” technique (Lesson 2 from the EML Module: Innovation Client Solutions) to each idea. Reflect on at least two of your “bad” ideas and see if there any changes you can make to the idea to make it a better idea.

7.Reflect on all of your solutions and select the top 3 based on feasibility and impact potential. For each of these three, identify more details of what each solution would look like. Aim for an approximately 75-word description of each solution.

Task 3: Stakeholder Feedback on Solutions

As before, we often bring our own biases into the engineering design process. We are most comfortable with our own experiences, and have to push ourselves to think like someone else. Let’s once again verify our ideas are good by checking with our stakeholders.

8.Create a short list of 3-4 questions that you could use to assess if people not only like your idea, but would be willing to pay for it. Keep in mind that this may not mean they are directly buying it, but possibly are getting taxed or paying more to a company such that the solution is incorporated by someone else.

9.Go interview at least 6 people from at least 2 different stakeholder categories on all 3 of your top ideas. Document your results, and reflect.

Task 4: Flesh out your top idea

After reflecting on the customer interviews, did the stakeholders like your ideas? Which idea was the best? What would need to be changed or modified to meet their new needs? Most ideas start as basic “blobs” that have to be refined into a more detailed representation. You might need to describe what it looks like, a process chart showing various steps, or even develop a physical representation to explain how people would interact with the physical solution.

10. Pick the top solution from customer feedback. Try to answer any of the questions that arose from your stakeholder feedback. Revise your solution description to incorporate these changes.

11. Create an “artifact” that represents your solution. This could be a sketch, a flow-chart, a physical prototype made from play-doh or things on your desk, etc. The goal is not to have it look good, but to make explaining your idea easier to the audience.

Task 5: Prepare your Pitch

An important part of the design process is your ability to convey your ideas clearly and “sell” them to someone. You already practiced this by sharing your ideas with stakeholders. However, most ideas have to be pitched to funders, either internal within a company with a project manager who approves new projects, or possibly to a group of angel investors if you are trying to turn your idea into a startup.

12. Video record yourself giving a 2 minute pitch. You don’t need to prepare slides unless you want to, but you should show your artifact during the presentation. In general, use the following format:

a.What is the problem?

b.Why is it a problem- who does it affect?

c.What is your proposed solution? Provide details

d.The “Sell”- finish with a closing statement that explain why your solution is the best one to solve the problem over other ideas.

Student Documentation of Makeup Assignment

1. Identify at least 15 pain points related to transportation

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

2. Identify the top two painpoints and create the stakeholder lists.

Top Painpoint #1:

Stakeholder List #1:

Top Painpoint #2:

Stakeholder List #2:

3. My selected pain-point for interviewing is: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. My interview questions are (minimum of 5, may be more if unique to stakeholder groups):

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Summary of results from interview:

Person 1 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 2 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 3 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 4 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 5 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 6 Name/Stakeholder Category:

Person 7 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 8 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 9 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 10 Name/Stakeholder Category: _______________________________________

Notes/Summary of interviews:

5. Brainstorm at least 10 ideas via the mind-map technique:

6. Use “Yes, And” to improve at least two bad ideas:

Bad Idea #1: __________________________________________________________

Could be improved by: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bad Idea #2: __________________________________________________________

Could be improved by: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7. Identify your top 3 ideas and prepare a ~75-word description of each with more details

Idea #1: _________________________________________

Description:

Idea #2: ______________________________________________

Description:

Idea #3: ____________________________________________________

Description:

8. Create a list of assessment questions to ask your stakeholders to determine if they like the ideas.

Question #1:

Question #2:

Question #3:

Question #4:

9. Now, go interview at least 6 stakeholders

Person 1 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 2 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 3 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 4 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 5 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Person 6 Name/Stakeholder Category: ________________________________________

Summary of solution feedback from stakeholders:

10. Based on stakeholder feedback, what was your top solution? Revise that description of your idea based on any details stakeholders requested or asked about:

Top Idea: ____________________________________________________

Revised Description:

11. Create an artifact that represents your ideas. Include here as a picture:

12. Record your pitch. Upload to Youtube as an “unlisted” video and provide the URL for faculty review:

URL of pitch: ___________________________________________________________