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BLADE KOTELLY: What was the
objective of the assignment?
Charlotte?
AUDIENCE: To test your product.
BLADE KOTELLY: No.
No.
But I'm really happy
you tested my product.
That was great.
That was not the objective
of the assignment, though.
Not 100%.
Ben.
AUDIENCE: To see that
design is everywhere.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yeah.
That's part of it.
To see that design
is everywhere.
So you can see all
the things that people
have done as well in
terms of their critiques.
Christy.
AUDIENCE: To start
analyzing the design.
BLADE KOTELLY: To start
analyzing the design.
Absolutely.
And what are you
analyzing the design for?
OK.
We can do this.
What are you analyzing
the design for?
Kenny.
AUDIENCE: Do you
mean for what product
are we analyzing
the design or are
you thinking why
are we analyzing?
BLADE KOTELLY: Oh, let's
talk about the why.
Why are you analyzing design?
AUDIENCE: So we can
incorporate what
we're learning into things
that we design [INAUDIBLE]
and what we design ourselves.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
You're going to incorporate
the things you're
learning in terms of being
able to do an analysis
and work it in somehow
to when you're designing.
Isabella.
AUDIENCE: To understand
effective and ineffective
designs.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, to
see what designs work
and what designs don't work.
Now this is interesting.
You used one product.
There weren't two
different products.
You didn't say, well
this was a good design,
this was a bad one.
You said, within one product,
what was good and what was bad?
Other reasons why we
might have done it?
If you get really good at being
able to critique other designs,
you'll be able to be really good
at critiquing your own designs.
So what you'll do
over the semester
is learn a whole
bunch about this.
And at the end of
the semester, I
want you to look at the
same video you've made
and it see how you
could make it better.
Let's see what comes
to mind about that.
Do you have a comment, Joel?
JOEL SCHINDALL: No, just
watching the answers.
BLADE KOTELLY: OK, so here--
JOEL SCHINDALL: But
actually, I think
whoever answered early in
it-- an awareness of design
so that as you go-- this course
actually takes place not just
in the two hours
that you're here
but in the hours in a week minus
hours that you're here that you
spend the rest of your lives.
And we intend to project it
out there and have you actually
be aware during your
life of what design is.
That's what's going to
make you a better designer.
BLADE KOTELLY: OK.
So, we're going to get
right into the meat of this.
This is the 10-Step
Design Process.
This is the core of what
we're going to be teaching.
You'll use this process over
and over and over again.
It's a great process to know.
You might find that it
appears on pop quizzes.
You might find it
appears on pop quizzes.
And it might be something
that if you wrote on a card
and you put in your
wallet and kept with you,
you might be allowed
to use on a pop quiz.
Just saying.
It might be on many pop quizzes.
But it might not.
OK.
So we start with these
first beginning steps.
Number one, we want
to identify the needs
and really understand
the problem.
In our last class I gave
you a design challenge.
So this is the first step,
identifying the needs.
What is the problem we're
really trying to solve?
And if we can get
underneath that
we can design something in
a much more impactful way.
So let's talk about this
interesting example here.
I had a teacher as
an undergraduate
who designed a toothbrush.
Now, I'll show you a picture.
This is Napoleon's toothbrush.
Napoleon Bonaparte
used this toothbrush.
A long time ago.
If you bought a toothbrush
in the '60s or something,
you'd buy a toothbrush
that looked like this.
Does that look
familiar to people?
Yeah, OK.
He designed a toothbrush
that looked like this.
That's his design,
the Reach toothbrush.
Who's heard of the
Reach toothbrush?
OK.
And there are a lot
of different versions
that they wound up
making over time.
But that's the early
version of the toothbrush.
People brush longer
and more thoroughly
based on the design of
the toothbrush alone--
with no instructions.
Here's what happened.
If you have a toothbrush and
it's a flat head toothbrush
like the one we showed you
before here-- like that-- you
hold it, you start brushing
your teeth like this.
And you see people
can do this all day.
They can watch a
sitcom with doing this
to their front
teeth, no problem.
Very comfortable.
But if they need to brush
other parts of their mouth--
and they do-- they do this.
They take this.
I'm going to represent
the bristles with my thumb
and hold the handle like this.
They brush their teeth
like this and then
they get their rear molars
like this on the side.
And they want to get
the upper rear molars
on their sub dominant hand side.
Which means they do this.
Right?
I'm writing, so I do this.
So everyone, if you're a
righty, put your right hand up.
If you're a lefty,
put your left hand up.
Take your hand, make a fist
like that with your thumb
out, curve your wrist over,
and bring it across like that.
Now hold this.
Is that comfortable?
This is not a
comfortable position
for your arm to be in, right?
OK.
So as a result, people do this.
And if you watch them
do it, they do this
and they go, ugh,
they get bored.
And they stop brushing.
That's not good.
So this teacher, this professor
I had, to understand this,
he did some studies.
He had people stain
their teeth red.
And then, with no mirror,
he said, brush your teeth.
And people would brush it.
And then he'd look
inside their mouth
and see the red was all
of the front and all
stuck in that part in the back.
He said, that's no good.
So he designed this thing.
In fact, there's a ton of
innovations around this.
Different handle.
You see this side.
Your thumb sits in that
groove really easily.
In fact, you'll turn that
toothbrush 90 degrees
and your thumb will
rest right there.
You do it automatically.
You'll do it
automatically like this.
And this is thin over
here at an angle.
So it doesn't pull your
cheek out like this .
That's not very
comfortable, right?
OK.
So he did that.
The head was shaped differently.
Instead of doing a square
head, it's now tapered,
the bristles are
shaped differently.
So here's the question.
What was the underlying
problem he was trying to solve?
Kristen.
AUDIENCE: The fact
that people weren't
able to reach their
back teeth properly.
BLADE KOTELLY:
That was a problem
he was trying to solve but
it wasn't the underlying
problem he was trying to solve.
AUDIENCE: The fact
that people didn't
want to brush their teeth.
BLADE KOTELLY: The
fact that people
didn't want to
brush their teeth.
That's a problem that
he was helping with
but that wasn't the
underlying problem.
David.
AUDIENCE: People with bad teeth.
BLADE KOTELLY: People
have bad teeth?
People with bad teeth--
not the underlying problem.
[? Cosi? ?]
AUDIENCE: The design
of the toothbrush
hadn't changed in a while.
BLADE KOTELLY: The
design of the toothbrush
hadn't changed in
a while and we're
getting closer now to
the underlying problem.
Because we saw that Napoleon
had a toothbrush very
similar to the toothbrush that
you could buy in the '60s.
A small difference though, his
was they said silver-plated,
I think.
Anyone here own a
silver-plated toothbrush?
OK.
Yes, Dennis?
AUDIENCE: The functionality
of the toothbrush?
BLADE KOTELLY: The
functionality of the toothbrush.
He definitely wanted to
change the functionality
of the toothbrush but it
wasn't the underlying thing.
Louis?
AUDIENCE: Was it to simply
build a better toothbrush?
BLADE KOTELLY: It was about
building a better toothbrush
but that's not the
underlying reason.
[? Shuni. ?]
AUDIENCE: An
uncomfortable toothbrush
was leading to poor
brushing habits.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
But we're not getting
to the underlying
reason, what made him do this.
Emily.
AUDIENCE: Was it low
toothbrush sales?
BLADE KOTELLY:
Well, interesting.
It wasn't-- we're
getting very close now--
it wasn't low toothbrush
sales, per se.
But by doing that
he did make somebody
happy by increasing the
number of toothbrush sales.
AUDIENCE: People have loads
of cavities back here?
BLADE KOTELLY: Oh, cavities.
No, we're getting further away.
Cavities is cooler.
Sales is warmer.
Patrick.
AUDIENCE: The ability
to increase the price
on the toothbrushes
that are new?
BLADE KOTELLY:
Increasing the price
of toothbrushes that are new.
That's interesting.
Kind of.
Kind of.
It's actually-- they
would have been happy
if the toothbrushes
were the same price.
AUDIENCE: I mean,
but you're like,
trying to get people to
believe that it's worth
what you're paying for.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
For what though?
For this for that
particular toothbrush.
AUDIENCE: Yes.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
It's a little bit-- it's a
shade of meaning difference.
I think your close.
AUDIENCE: To design
the best toothbrush?
BLADE KOTELLY:
Well, he definitely
wanted to design
the best toothbrush
and he did at the time.
But we're now getting colder.
[? Cosi? ?]
AUDIENCE: So they
can make money?
BLADE KOTELLY:
Oh, to make money.
Yes.
To make money.
Absolutely.
For whom?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
BLADE KOTELLY: For who?
AUDIENCE: For himself.
BLADE KOTELLY: For himself.
No.
He's a designer.
Designers don't make
much money, it turns out.
Some do.
Some designers make money.
Not a whole bunch of
designers make money.
And they paid him a
fee to do this work.
They don't get residuals.
Like if you make a movie and
you're a famous movie star,
you get residuals.
Designers don't get residuals.
They should.
Definitely.
Ben?
AUDIENCE: Stakeholders?
BLADE KOTELLY: Stakeholders.
Yes, stakeholders, yes,
that's kind of close.
A little bit too far back.
But if you tell me
which stakeholders.
AUDIENCE: Company.
BLADE KOTELLY: Which company?
AUDIENCE: Did he just not
like brushing his teeth?
BLADE KOTELLY: I don't think he
cared about brushing his teeth.
He was hired by a company
who said, hey, John.
We make blank.
We want you to make
something that's
going to sell a lot of blank.
Can you fill in the blank?
AUDIENCE: Toothpaste?
BLADE KOTELLY: Not toothpaste.
That's a great idea.
It's not toothpaste.
Emily.
AUDIENCE: Is it the
nylon, like the bristles?
BLADE KOTELLY: It is nylon.
It is the bristles.
Nylon is made by whom?
DuPont.
Nylon bristles started
coming out in, I think, 1936.
And they, DuPont
loves to sell nylon.
And they said, hey John, we
want to sell a lot of nylon.
Can you do something that going
to help sell a lot of nylon?
And they asked him to do this.
So what he did is he looked
around the world and he said,
what in the world
is made of nylon?
It's a lot of research
just to figure out
what's made of nylon.
What hasn't been redesigned in
a long time that's made of nylon
that I could redesign?
Hey, what hasn't been redesigned
in a long time, that's
sold all over the
world, made of nylon,
has existing manufacturing
capabilities,
so it's really easy to make
a small modification that
will sell a ton of nylon.
Answer?
Toothbrush.
So he made a toothbrush
and he improved the design.
And they made a tremendous
number of changes
to the toothbrush in the
first design he made.
And they kept releasing
them slowly over time.
So people get used to it,
buy more toothbrushes,
buy more nylon.
Cool, right?
So understand the
underlying reason.
If you said, I want to sell--
if someone said to you,
I want to sell a
lot of nylon, it's
hard to figure out what to
do to sell a lot of nylon.
And that was his approach.
So what's the real problem here?
Information phase.
What in the world exists
that can inform us
about this problem?
So what kind of things might
you do to understand a problem?
AUDIENCE: Google.
BLADE KOTELLY: You
can use Google.
Excellent.
What else might you do
to understand a problem?
AUDIENCE: Talk to people who
are suffering from the problem.
BLADE KOTELLY: Talk to people.
Do market research.
Excellent.
You might even look
at adjacent problems.
Problems that are
not exactly the same.
So if you're doing a
toothbrush redesign,
what other kinds
of things might you
look at to help
inform you about how
to design a better toothbrush?
Emily.
AUDIENCE: Hair brush design.
BLADE KOTELLY:
Hair brush design.
Absolutely.
Why?
AUDIENCE: Might have
similar problems
dealing with the product.
BLADE KOTELLY: Absolutely.
What else?
AUDIENCE: Dental floss.
BLADE KOTELLY: Dental floss.
So you might figure out
what dental floss does well.
In fact, there's a
dental floss device
that looks kind of
like a toothbrush.
It's got a handle.
It's got a little small piece of
floss and you use it like this.
So that's another way
of considering it.
Excellent.
Stakeholder phase.
This is really important.
What's wanted and who wants it?
Just because you
can make it doesn't
mean that people want it.
Who knows what a VCR is?
Great.
This example won't work one day.
OK.
So here's the question.
If I made a VCR, what functions
would it have to have.
I'll start you off.
Play.
AUDIENCE: Stop.
BLADE KOTELLY: Stop.
AUDIENCE: Rewind.
BLADE KOTELLY: Rewind.
And?
AUDIENCE: Fast forward.
BLADE KOTELLY: Fast forward.
What else?
AUDIENCE: Eject.
BLADE KOTELLY: Eject.
That's great because
otherwise the tape
is sitting stuck in there.
Wow, it's an awesome
tape I keep using.
I've watched "Tron" 145 times.
AUDIENCE: Open.
BLADE KOTELLY: What is it?
AUDIENCE: Open.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes, so we
have an eject mechanism.
Pause.
AUDIENCE: Power.
BLADE KOTELLY: Power.
AUDIENCE: Record.
BLADE KOTELLY: Power, yes.
AUDIENCE: Record.
BLADE KOTELLY: Record.
That's great.
AUDIENCE: Some of them
have the little displays
with like the time.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
I need a flashing 12:00.
Let's do flash 12:00.
OK.
So, a time.
Why do we have a
time display at all?
Why was there ever a
time display on a VCR?
AUDIENCE: So you know
long is the tape.
BLADE KOTELLY: Well, yes.
So we have some
sort of a method.
That actually is separate.
To position the tape,
I just use the counter.
It might go up to a thousand
or something-- or more.
The counter might tell me
a position of the tape.
What'd the time tell me?
Besides the time.
AUDIENCE: How long
you've watched.
BLADE KOTELLY: It could tell me
how long I've been watching it.
It might allow me
to do something.
AUDIENCE: Timed recordings.
BLADE KOTELLY: Timed recordings.
I could not have to be
home and I could set my VCR
to record channel
four-- because back then
we only had five
channels-- channel four
and that would record
that at 5:00 PM
when I didn't get
home till 7:00.
Big deal.
It was before DVRs.
Amazing.
What else?
OK.
I like that list too.
So, let's suppose I made a VCR
and it had all these features
on it but I took
away one feature.
I took away the ability
for you to record.
Show of hands, who thinks
that's still useful?
Who thinks it's useless.
OK.
Why is it still useful?
A VCR that cannot record.
AUDIENCE: Because
that ability is
pretty-- it's decoupled
from the other--
from the other functions.
BLADE KOTELLY: But why would I
want a VCR that doesn't record?
AUDIENCE: So you
can watch movies?
BLADE KOTELLY: So
I can watch movies.
When would I want to
watch movies, but not
be able to record things?
AUDIENCE: When you rent them.
BLADE KOTELLY: When I rent them.
Or when I bring them to
a ski condo or something.
I go to someone else's
place, we bring up videotapes
and then people can
watch the video tapes.
Right?
Great.
And what's the benefit of
not having that record head
in the machine?
Because it's a record
head and a playhead.
AUDIENCE: It saves you a
lot of money manufacturing.
BLADE KOTELLY: It saves you
a lot of money manufacturing.
You can pass that savings
on to the consumer.
Because these are two
different objects.
OK.
What if I took out,
instead of the record head,
I took out the playhead.
Who thinks that's useful?
Who thinks it's useless?
You're all wrong.
No, it's you're all
right, in a certain way.
Why do you think it's useless?
I can't play videotape.
Why is it useless?
AUDIENCE: Because you
can record something.
You can't watch it.
BLADE KOTELLY: As soon
as I record something,
I can't watch it.
Kind of a weird
thing to do, right?
Oh, I can't wait to watch
this thing when I get home.
I've recorded it.
Now what?
I have no idea.
But think of it this way.
What if I had a
business and my business
was a video
duplication business.
You gave me one videotape and
I'd make thousands for you.
You know at graduation
they shoot people
when they walk down.
[LAUGHTER]
BLADE KOTELLY: With a camera.
They shoot people when they walk
down and receive their diploma
and they shake hands.
So, they have you on videotape.
And what if people want
to order videotapes?
They want to duplicate them.
Or back when you used to
buy videotapes, as a kid
perhaps, you bought "Bambi"
and you wanted to get a copy.
Well, there's some room where
there's a machine and it plays.
And there are thousands
of machines that record.
Thousands.
They can record and rewind.
They can do nothing else.
They record and they rewind.
And that's all they do.
That's the whole thing.
And so it's a lot
cheaper for people
to buy thousands of those things
without the playhead or fast
forward or anything else.
You can really make it a
much less expensive product.
So, just because you can
do it and you can put it on
there doesn't mean you should.
So, stakeholder phase is
also a little bit bigger.
Who are the possible
stakeholders?
We talked about this
a little bit before.
I think Ben brought it up,
saying that the stakeholder can
be shareholders or
they could be people
who are related to the design
in some method, some aspect.
Whether it's-- in this class.
Let's take this
class, for example.
Who are your stakeholders
in this class?
Who's the primary stakeholder?
AUDIENCE: Ourselves.
BLADE KOTELLY: You.
You're the primary stakeholder.
Who's another stakeholder?
AUDIENCE: Parents.
BLADE KOTELLY: Parents.
Why?
AUDIENCE: Because
they're paying for it.
BLADE KOTELLY: Because
they're paying for it.
And they want to get
some value out of that.
Who else?
AUDIENCE: Staff.
BLADE KOTELLY: Staff.
Which staff?
AUDIENCE: All of you guys.
BLADE KOTELLY: All of us.
So we're all stakeholders.
AUDIENCE: You all want to
see this class be a success.
BLADE KOTELLY: No.
We want to see you be success.
It's different.
AUDIENCE: Aww.
BLADE KOTELLY: I don't
care about the class.
[LAUGHTER]
It's true.
AUDIENCE: I believe it.
BLADE KOTELLY: The class
could be a massive failure,
but if you're successful,
and we've helped
you do that, then
we've been successful.
That's our job, to
make you successful.
What other stakeholders
do you have?
AUDIENCE: MIT.
BLADE KOTELLY: MIT.
How's MIT a stakeholder?
What?
AUDIENCE: They're
putting us on their CW
so they get more
attention to MIT--
BLADE KOTELLY: Well, maybe so
they can get more attention
or maybe so they
can share the ideas
with people who can't be in
this room with all of you.
So maybe there are two
different stakeholders.
Maybe there's people that
want to get money from
and say, look at
this cool class!
I hope they think it's cool.
Or maybe there are
people who say,
I really wanted to
hear about that lecture
that I can't get to.
John's brother can't get
to this lecture today.
Wanted to.
Can't do it.
So he's a stakeholder as
well of the recording.
So lots of
stakeholders and we'll
be discussing this next class.
Now we do
planning/operational research.
What's realistic?
What limits us?
If we want to make
something, what limits
do we have whenever
we make something?
AUDIENCE: Cost.
BLADE KOTELLY: Cost.
Sure.
What do you mean by cost?
AUDIENCE: The cost
of manufacturing.
BLADE KOTELLY: The
cost of manufacturing.
What about software?
Does it cost anything
to manufacture software?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
BLADE KOTELLY:
What does it cost?
AUDIENCE: Time.
BLADE KOTELLY: For
the-- well, yes.
Let's call that the design
development portion.
But how about the
manufacturing of it?
Because if I
manufacture toothbrush,
I've designed and
developed it and now I
could have machines
that are stamping out
toothbrushes and putting
bristles all on stuff.
How about software?
Any cost of software?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
A lot less.
There is a cost, though.
Because I gotta pay somebody
to host it and somebody
to-- every time you
download software,
it costs a little bit of money
and that begins to add up.
So yes.
AUDIENCE: Cost of memory--
BLADE KOTELLY: Absolutely.
Yes.
So there are costs
involved that can limit us.
What else?
AUDIENCE: Time.
BLADE KOTELLY: Time.
What kind of time?
AUDIENCE: When you're in
the-- basically any stage,
you have a certain amount
of time to get this done,
so you've got deadlines to meet.
Plus, if you're
paying people to work
for you, the longer
they're working on it,
the more that turns
into money later.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
So there are lots
of costs involved.
I'm sorry, lots of
time costs involved.
So the time it
takes for something
to be executed upon to the
time we have to execute it.
In classes, you're
often limited by time.
If you had an infinite
amount of time,
you could learn the material
much more easily, probably.
What else are we limited by?
AUDIENCE: Finite amount
of raw materials.
BLADE KOTELLY: Materials, right.
And materials can come
in a lot of versions.
Resources can be
physical resources,
they can be people
resources, they
can be environmental resources
that we have access to.
Anything else?
AUDIENCE: Technical
capabilities.
BLADE KOTELLY: Abilities.
Knowledge.
We can be limited by knowledge.
So we have a team--
a brilliant team.
You're all brilliant people.
Who here knows the
process of opening
a restaurant that's successful?
OK.
So right now we're limited by
a certain level of knowledge.
If we all decided to open a
successful restaurant tomorrow,
but you are all
brilliant people,
so maybe we could figure
it out very quickly.
Maybe not.
Maybe we'd find
someone who's already
opened a successful
restaurant to let
us know all the
things we should know
and short circuit that amount
of failure time we have.
OK.
So, from there we go
into a hazard analysis.
And we're thinking
about here, what's safe?
Or what can go wrong?
So in classical design, let's
say it's a baby's high chair.
I might say, well,
if the baby can
slip underneath the high
chair, that's not safe.
So you gotta keep
that from happening.
If I'm designing a
stock trading system,
where online you get
to buy stock or maybe
call over the phone.
You say, buy 100 shares of
Microsoft at the market price.
What could go wrong?
AUDIENCE: Fraud.
BLADE KOTELLY: Fraud.
What kind of fraud?
AUDIENCE: Someone
impersonates someone else
BLADE KOTELLY: So we have
a security issue there.
We don't know if you are you.
What else can go wrong?
AUDIENCE: In terms of how
you design the website
or whatever else--
the interface--
if it's really easy
to make mistakes.
Say, an extra zero somewhere.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
What if I put a number in
and I don't put the dots
and I have two zeros.
It's a bit more than
a rounding error.
In fact, a friend of mine
just made a piece of software
where you can pay-- you
walk into a restaurant
and if they have the
software running,
you can walk in to say,
I'm here at the restaurant.
And then when you want to
leave, if a bunch of you
are all eating together,
so we're all eating
and we want to split
the bill differently,
and he ordered something,
the very expensive caviar,
and she ordered the very
expensive champagne,
and she ordered the
very inexpensive fries,
and she ordered the somewhat
moderately expensive chicken,
and I didn't order anything.
Well, we want to split
the bill somehow.
Well, they make it
very easy to do it.
But they were just testing it
in real life and for a server,
the server came over said,
let me see how to do this.
And he said, sure
let me show you.
The server entered in the
numbers for how much we had.
But it came out
to a huge number.
Much more expensive.
100 times more expensive.
Because servers, on these
point of sale systems
that they press in, they
don't enter the decimal point.
Because it's faster to
just type in the numbers
and enter two zeros.
So his system required that
you enter a decimal point.
And he realized, oh, gotta
change that behavior.
So what can go wrong.
We think about in
this hazard analysis,
which is lots of things.
And so when you're
designing something,
you want to think of
what can go wrong.
In software, we have bugs.
Bugs can go wrong and we
try to mitigate for that.
In physical design,
it can be unsafe.
Someone's hand could
be caught something.
They could pinch their hand.
It could cause injury.
From that, we do a
specifications phase to really
sit down say, OK.
What is required?
What's required of
this design without
any specific instructions
of how to design it?
What's required?
So in this phase,
we really sit down
to figure out what
we need to do.
But we haven't said
what to do yet.
We go on to creative design.
Who here knows
how to brainstorm?
Who here does not know
how to brainstorm?
OK.
Brainstorming is
really important
and we'll talk about
this a little bit later.
How you brainstorm
is important as well.
This is the part where
we begin to think
about all the different
things that are possible.
And if you're working
with a good team or people
you like a lot, it's
easier to come up
with really interesting ideas.
They may be terrible ideas but
they may be very interesting.
And that's OK.
From there, we start narrowing
down to conceptual design.
What are the potential
solutions that we can make?
So we might have a few different
ones that look pretty good.
But they may not work together.
We might say look,
we go down one path,
we can't go down the other path.
They are mutually exclusive.
Or if we try to do
both paths, they're
very hard to do together.
So we narrow down
the concepts and then
we say, OK, we're going
to pick something.
At this phase, you
might just say,
let's pick whatever
one we want to.
Or you might have a process
for picking a design.
You might ask
experts to help you
pick which approach to take.
You might do market research.
You might do a whole
bunch of other things
to figure out which
one you prototype.
And lastly, the last
step is verification.
And I don't mean
quality assurance.
I don't mean does it work
to the specification.
Of course we expect it to
work as we want it to work.
But I mean, do people like?
Can they use it?
Do they want to use it?
Is it emotionally and
intellectually compelling?
Does it makes sense?
Does it connect with
people on these two levels?
And that goes right down
to very small things.
To parts and cars.
Goes to things that are consumer
products and things that
are less obvious in terms
of being consumer products.
And we have an end solution but
is it an end solution, really?
What solutions or products
do you know that cannot be
improved upon?
Any ideas?
That's pretty good.
Maybe there is
something out there.
But I like the idea that
we can improve on anything.
So end solutions mean if there's
more room for improvement,
we go back and do the whole
process all over again.
Let's map this to
cooking dinner.
Who here has cooked dinner?
Who has never cooked
anything in their life?
Ah, it's worth cooking.
You'll like.
It will make you less hungry.
So let's start off.
We're going to
identify the needs.
What is the underlying
reason that we cook dinner?
AUDIENCE: Hunger.
BLADE KOTELLY: Hunger.
Because we're hungry.
What other underlying
reasons could there
be for cooking dinner?
AUDIENCE: Other
people are hungry.
BLADE KOTELLY: Other
people are hungry, yes.
AUDIENCE: Could be
a social occasion.
BLADE KOTELLY: A
social occasion.
AUDIENCE: To stay alive.
BLADE KOTELLY: To
stay alive, yes.
Maslow's hierarchy here.
AUDIENCE: Not to
take the dining plan.
BLADE KOTELLY: To avoid
a required dining plan,
you need to cook.
OK.
What else?
AUDIENCE: To win or earn money.
BLADE KOTELLY: To
win or earn money.
Do you mean, on a TV show?
Fantastic.
AUDIENCE: I like cooking.
BLADE KOTELLY: You like cooking.
It's an enjoyable experience.
It's fun to do.
It's creative.
What else?
AUDIENCE: Boredom.
BLADE KOTELLY: Boredom.
I'm bored.
What should I do?
Watch TV?
No.
Play video games?
No.
Cook?
Great.
Why else would we cook?
AUDIENCE: To come
up with new dishes.
BLADE KOTELLY: To come
up with new dishes.
To create, to
innovate on dishes.
What else?
AUDIENCE: To impress someone.
BLADE KOTELLY: To
impress someone.
Who might you want to impress?
AUDIENCE: Boyfriend
or girlfriend.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, a date.
A boyfriend or girlfriend.
Great.
Jackie.
OK.
So Jackie has a date.
And she's identified the needs.
She's gotta impress her date.
We go on to an
information phase.
What in the world
can help Jackie
determine how to
impress her date?
AUDIENCE: What does
he like to eat?
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, yes, so
she's lost her voice here.
And she said, what
does he like to eat?
Right.
What does the date like to eat?
Right.
That's what we want to find out.
So we're doing market
research to that point
to figure out the preferences
of our target audience.
Emily.
AUDIENCE: What the
date's allergic to?
BLADE KOTELLY: What's
that he's allergic to?
I would put that in
step number five.
AUDIENCE: Food in season?
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah,
food in season.
Yes.
We could be informed by
what food is in season.
And how would we find out
what food is in season?
AUDIENCE: Grocery
store or look online?
BLADE KOTELLY: You can
go to the grocery store.
Now, tomatoes.
Have you ever not been
able to find a tomato
at your grocery store?
But they're not in
season very long.
So the question is, if you
want to get something that's
in season and local perhaps,
you can go to grocery stores,
you could look online.
AUDIENCE: Farmers market.
BLADE KOTELLY: A farmer's market
where the farmers who are local
come over there
and they'll let you
know, we've got
lots of kohlrabi.
Rabi Who here has
ever used kohlrabi?
Who's ever heard
the word "kohlrabi?"
OK.
So it's one of those things that
farmers' markets have lots of.
What else?
AUDIENCE: What's affordable?
BLADE KOTELLY:
What's affordable.
I might put that under
our planning research
and operational research there.
Jackie.
AUDIENCE: What do
you know how to make?
BLADE KOTELLY: What do
you know how to make.
Knowledge.
That's what would be limited
by in planned research.
But what else can inform our
decision can also be that.
Which is, I happen to make
these four things really well.
So, that's part of my research.
What else?
What else might we
look to, to help us
with planning a date for Jackie?
AUDIENCE: Whether he or
she is vegetarian or not.
BLADE KOTELLY: Whether the
date is vegetarian or not
could inform us.
So some market research.
AUDIENCE: What
kind of date it is.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah,
the kind of date.
We're going back to step one.
Tell me about this.
AUDIENCE: It could be a very
important occasion as far as
like engagement.
Or it might be
like a first date.
BLADE KOTELLY: A first
date, an engagement.
And they might be different.
So the first date may not have
caviar and a diamond ring.
It might.
Might be pushing it
a little bit much,
if you want the date to
go more than five minutes.
OK.
So, yes.
So first day and an anniversary
date might be very different.
AUDIENCE: What tools
you have to cook with?
BLADE KOTELLY: Tools
you have to cook with.
Yes.
I might put that again
under planned research
but information phase as well.
AUDIENCE: What
Jackie likes to eat.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, yes,
what you want to yourself.
Jackie enjoys pasta
and hates hamburgers.
What about some resources that
are available for research?
Ann.
AUDIENCE: You can get a cookbook
to see what types of foods
go well together.
BLADE KOTELLY: Cookbooks.
Absolutely.
And she said to
look at cookbooks
to see what kinds of
foods go well together.
Most cookbooks
don't tell you this.
Interestingly, most
cookbooks tell you
how to cook a specific
dish, but don't tell you
what to cook it with.
Some very good cookbooks do.
I recommend Mark Bittman
if you're cooking
and you're in college.
It's a great cookbook and
tells you what to pair with it.
What did you say?
I heard something else.
AUDIENCE: The internet.
BLADE KOTELLY: The internet.
Absolutely.
And what might we Google?
AUDIENCE: The price of
stuff at stores, recipes,
what goes good with
it, everything.
BLADE KOTELLY: So we have
we have recipes we could
Google, the price of
stuff at the store.
Let's bring up Google
for a second here.
OK.
So, let's bring this over
and type in, price of stuff
at the store.
Just slide it over-- Great.
And slide it over to the
right a little bit, please.
[LAUGHTER]
Jackie.
Do you like beer?
Like beer, Jackie?
Because if you do, this is
a great thing to Google?
OK.
What else might we Google?
Thomas.
AUDIENCE: What does
my date like to eat?
BLADE KOTELLY: Let's Google
what does my date like to eat?
On the board, 100 people
surveyed, top answers.
10 foods you should never
eat on a first date.
Phenomenal.
The person's not
sure if they can
eat chorizo that is still not
expired for another month.
I'm glad they posted it on here
and it's the second result.
What else should we Google?
AUDIENCE: Delicious food
that's easy to cook.
BLADE KOTELLY: Delicious
food that's easy to cook.
It's auto completing.
This is great.
Which I guess, John
has already been to.
John is in charge or
does a lot of work
with the food at his
fraternity house,
and that makes a lot of sense.
What else might
we Google for what
you should cook on a first date.
How about, what should
I cook on a first date?
I have no idea what's
going to come up.
AUDIENCE: Be careful.
Be careful.
BLADE KOTELLY: Actually, go
back to what should I cook on.
Let's go back to what
should I cook on.
And hit space.
A, letter A. Romantic
dinner, first date, and date
come up at the top three
suggestions by Google.
That's pretty cool.
OK, let's go back to
that slide, please.
Yes.
So this is pretty cool.
OK, we're getting a
lot of information
right now from Google.
And we're up here to
stakeholder phase now.
Who are the
stakeholders involved?
AUDIENCE: Jackie.
BLADE KOTELLY: Jackie.
Who else?
AUDIENCE: Her date.
BLADE KOTELLY: Her date.
Who else might be
stakeholders involved?
AUDIENCE: People that sell food.
BLADE KOTELLY: People that
sell food, absolutely.
Yes.
AUDIENCE: Her parents.
BLADE KOTELLY: Her parents.
If they don't like
Jackie's date at all.
Make the pineapple upside cake.
But mom, I can't make that.
Make the--
AUDIENCE: Maybe anybody that
shares the kitchen with Jackie.
People sharing the kitchen.
There could be
other stakeholders
because maybe Jackie
lives with other people.
And she's like, hey can you
be out of the kitchen tonight?
I'm Like, no, I've got
a really important date.
I'm making dinner.
Two people making dinner
dates at the same time.
BLADE KOTELLY: OK.
Planned research.
What could we be limited by?
What could Jackie be limited by?
AUDIENCE: Cost.
BLADE KOTELLY: Cost.
Right.
So maybe the beluga
caviar is prohibitively
expensive for the date.
Daniel.
AUDIENCE: Experience.
BLADE KOTELLY: Experience.
Cooking experience.
I can boil water but I
can't make a bechamel sauce.
OK.
AUDIENCE: Equipment.
BLADE KOTELLY: Equipment.
Yes.
I have a pot to boil water
in but do not own a toaster.
Making toast is harder.
Not impossible, but harder.
Yes.
AUDIENCE: Time.
BLADE KOTELLY: Time.
Oh my god, the date's
in half an hour.
I haven't started dinner.
I haven't been to the store.
Calling Dominoes.
OK.
What else could
you be limited by.
AUDIENCE: Her date's
dietary restrictions.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes, and
I like that, actually,
dietary restrictions
in that phase.
Stephanie.
AUDIENCE: Ingredients that
you can't find at the store.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah,
yes, ingredients
that you can't
find at the store.
So sometimes certain-- you
have to go to special markets
to find certain kinds of special
spices or something else.
And if you can't get
that at your local store,
then you may not be
able to get it all.
Or maybe you have to fly it in
or mail order it or something.
OK.
This is good.
Hazard analysis.
What could go wrong when cooking
dinner for a romantic evening?
Rod in the back.
AUDIENCE: Allergies,
food poisoning.
BLADE KOTELLY: Allergies
and food poisoning.
Should she cook the chorizo?
I don't know.
Looks kinda iffy.
Allergies, yes.
AUDIENCE: Faulty equipment.
If you have a bad stove.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes,
faulty equipment
could cause a fire or something.
That's really bad.
AUDIENCE: Setting the
entire chicken on fire.
BLADE KOTELLY: He sounds like
he speaks from experience.
AUDIENCE: Personal injury.
BLADE KOTELLY: Personal?
AUDIENCE: Injury.
BLADE KOTELLY: Injury, yes.
So when cutting onions,
look at the onion
and don't try to make cool eyes.
Stop.
Bleeding is not considered cool
on a date if you can avoid it.
AUDIENCE: Quantity of food.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes, quantity
of food, absolutely.
This is a very real issue
that really happens on dates.
I'll tell you a story when
I'm not on camera sometime.
AUDIENCE: Your date
doesn't show up.
BLADE KOTELLY: Oh, yes.
She's not speaking
from experience.
But yes, the date
doesn't show up.
That is sad.
That can be a very sad thing.
AUDIENCE: Or you have a
pset due the next day.
BLADE KOTELLY: Or you have
pset due the next day.
Not a good day for
a romantic evening.
What else?
AUDIENCE: Forgetting
to set a timer.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
That's an easy thing to go
wrong-- not setting timers.
Yes.
In fact, yesterday I
did not set a timer.
I put a thermometer
inside the chicken
and I said, great, when
the thermometer reads 162,
I'm going to pull the
chicken out, no problem.
I proceeded to enjoy the company
my friends and drink the wine
and went, oh my god, came
back over here, went oh, 175.
Darn it.
Yes.
I should have set a timer.
That would have been helpful.
AUDIENCE: Unlabeled
food ingredients,
such as salt and sugar.
BLADE KOTELLY: Confusing
two similar in appearance
ingredients like salt and sugar.
Thomas sounds like he speaks
from experience in this one.
Yes.
Not so good in
coffee, salty coffee.
But I believe popular
in some places.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
BLADE KOTELLY: I'm sorry?
AUDIENCE: Fire drills.
BLADE KOTELLY: Fire drills.
Something's that are a little
bit beyond your control.
OK.
So this is good.
Good hazard analysis for that.
Specifications.
From there, we try to figure
out what we're going to do.
We might make a shopping list.
We might make a list of what
we're doing for the recipes.
We go on to design it.
And then we have to figure
out, do people like it or not?
Verification.
How do we test to figure out
if people are going to like it
or not?
Ben.
AUDIENCE: Take a small bite.
BLADE KOTELLY:
Take a small bite.
Take many small bites.
Over the course
of the meal, they
say a good cook keeps tasting
it before you serve it.
What else could you do?
AUDIENCE: Get someone
else to taste it.
BLADE KOTELLY: Get someone
else to taste it, yes.
When?
Do you say, psst, come over
here, John, come over here,
I'm about to serve it to Jackie.
No, when?
At the time?
AUDIENCE: Earlier.
BLADE KOTELLY: Earlier.
How much earlier?
An hour?
AUDIENCE: Enough so you
have time to fix it.
BLADE KOTELLY: Enough time
so you could fix it later.
What else could you do?
AUDIENCE: Call mom and ask
if it's supposed to be brown.
BLADE KOTELLY:
Mom, the chorizo's
not looking very good.
Yeah.
Purple, green, yeah.
Use it?
OK.
AUDIENCE: You could,
if you wanted to,
do like a practice
dinner beforehand.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, yes.
A practice dinner beforehand.
Let's see if you can make
this stuff and how it tastes
and if you like it.
That's exactly right.
OK.
So I've given you a design
process that I'll tell you,
you can use for making
anything-- anything you ever
make ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,
ever, ever-- ever.
In all your engineering
disciplines,
you can use this exact
same process all the time
for anything you want to make.
We've got it to cooking dinner.
Let's have you try
it on your own.
Let's try this.
Here's your design challenge.
Map the steps of throwing a
surprise party for your best
friend.
You're going to map
the first five steps.
I want you to work
in groups of three--
the people in your vicinity.
I'm going to give you about
five minutes to do this.
First five steps as
completely as you
can to throwing a surprise
birthday party for your best
friend.
Here we go.
All right, so right
now the students
are trying to figure how to
map the steps to throwing
a surprise birthday party
for their best friend.
And they'll take about
five minutes to do this.
Over those give minutes, they'll
try to map each of the steps
individually.
And we're going to do a debrief
and figure out what they said.
But now, if you want to,
try doing it yourself
and see if you can come up
with a really good solution.
And see if they get some
ones that you don't get.
All right, let's find out what
you said to solve this problem.
So you've had five
minutes to try
to figure out how to
solve the first five
steps of this problem.
To figure out how to
throw a surprise birthday
party for your best friend.
What is the underlying problem
that we are trying to solve?
AUDIENCE: They don't have
plans for their birthday
and we want to make it awesome.
BLADE KOTELLY: She said we don't
have plans for the birthday,
and we're trying
to make it awesome.
Or they may have
plans for the birthday
and we're still trying
to make it awesome.
What are the other aspects
of the underlying problem?
AUDIENCE: It's a surprise.
BLADE KOTELLY: It
should be a surprise.
Stated in the problem
statement but also true.
What else?
Underlying problems,
underlying objectives.
AUDIENCE: Throw a fun party
for all those involved.
BLADE KOTELLY: To throw a
fun party for those involved.
Let's talk about those
involved-- who are they?
Anybody.
In the back.
AUDIENCE: And the actual
person whose birthday it is.
BLADE KOTELLY: And
the actual person
whose birthday it is, yes.
What else?
That's it?
No other reason to
throw a birthday party?
AUDIENCE: So that
you get one later on.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, it's for
you to get one later on.
In psychology, we call it
the reciprocity effect.
Good.
OK.
So, we've identified the needs.
Information phase.
What can inform us about how
to throw a surprise birthday
party?
AUDIENCE: How old
they're turning?
BLADE KOTELLY: How
old they're turning?
What do you mean by that?
AUDIENCE: Probably don't throw
a clown party for a 50-year-old.
BLADE KOTELLY: You don't throw
a clown party for a 50-year-old.
I happen to know
some 50-year-olds who
might enjoy that, but it'd
be kind of weird, right?
OK.
So maybe you do.
Gotta pick your
50-year-olds very carefully.
[? Affinity? ?]
AUDIENCE: When
their birthday is.
When their birthday is.
BLADE KOTELLY: When
their birthday is
would inform it, absolutely.
AUDIENCE: Just a
quick question, does
surprise party automatically
mean it's a birthday party?
BLADE KOTELLY: This is a
surprise birthday party.
I'm sorry, yes.
In this case it did.
I didn't put that on the slide.
Yes, you're right.
AUDIENCE: When they're free.
BLADE KOTELLY: When they're free
would influence it, absolutely.
What else can inform us about
throwing a surprise birthday
party?
AUDIENCE: If they
like surprises or not.
BLADE KOTELLY: If they
like surprises or not
absolutely will
inform us about how
to throw a surprise birthday
party for someone who
doesn't like surprises.
AUDIENCE: What they like to do.
BLADE KOTELLY: What
they like to do.
For example?
AUDIENCE: If they like to
go out bowling or something,
you can throw a
surprise birthday party.
BLADE KOTELLY: Right.
To appeal to their
hobbies and likes.
Great.
What else?
AUDIENCE: What kind
of friends they have.
BLADE KOTELLY: What kind
of friends they have.
How do you mean that?
AUDIENCE: It informs who we're
going to invite to the party.
BLADE KOTELLY: Informs who
we're going to invite, yes.
AUDIENCE: Size and nature
of the social circles.
So you could have small
gatherings or big gatherings.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
So how big the party should be.
What else could inform us?
AUDIENCE: Past parties
that you have been to.
BLADE KOTELLY: Past
parties you've been to.
Personal experience, where you
say, this was an awesome party.
This party sucked-- we are not
going to do one of those again.
Right.
Absolutely, past experience
is hugely important.
AUDIENCE: What can you
do to distract them?
BLADE KOTELLY: What can
you do to distract them.
How do you mean?
AUDIENCE: You have to
trick them into showing up
in a room full of
people at some point.
You need a plan.
BLADE KOTELLY: You
need a plan, yes.
OK, good.
So that's information phase
that can inform us about it.
But we forgot one of
our most valuable tools
that we talked about before.
AUDIENCE: Google.
BLADE KOTELLY: Google!
And what might you Google?
AUDIENCE: How to
throw a surprise
party. [INTERPOSING VOICES]
BLADE KOTELLY: How to
throw a surprise party.
And do you think
you'd get any results?
A ton.
You'd get a ton.
Google has all the
information that would appear.
OK.
Stakeholder phase.
Who are the primary
stakeholders?
AUDIENCE: Guest of honor.
BLADE KOTELLY: Guest of honor.
AUDIENCE: Everyone invited.
BLADE KOTELLY: Everyone invited.
AUDIENCE: You.
BLADE KOTELLY: You.
Who are secondary stakeholders?
AUDIENCE: People who live
in the place you're hosting.
BLADE KOTELLY: The
many people who
live in the place
you're hosting,
the neighbors that call
the cops all the time,
and therefore the cops
are also stakeholders.
OK.
Planned research,
operational research.
What are we limited by?
AUDIENCE: Money.
BLADE KOTELLY: Money!
Great.
So if we don't have
a lot of money,
we can't buy the expensive beer.
What else?
AUDIENCE: Again, time.
BLADE KOTELLY: Time.
When's their birthday?
Tomorrow.
No way.
Tomorrow.
What am I going to do?
Going to throw a surprise
birthday party in one day
is going to be
really hard to do.
Right.
OK.
How much time do have exactly.
What else?
AUDIENCE: Your best
friend's schedule.
BLADE KOTELLY: Your
best friend's schedule.
Yes, because they
could be traveling
or our of the country or working
night shifts or something
like that, right.
OK.
What can go wrong at a
surprise birthday party
for your best friend?
Veronica.
AUDIENCE: The person
doesn't show up.
BLADE KOTELLY: The
person doesn't show up.
Absolutely.
David.
AUDIENCE: Person finds
out ahead of time.
BLADE KOTELLY: The person
finds out ahead of time.
AUDIENCE: None of
the guests show up.
BLADE KOTELLY: None
of the guests show up.
It's you and the person,
you're like, surprise.
AUDIENCE: Going
back to the cops.
BLADE KOTELLY: Going
back to the cops.
AUDIENCE: Having them come.
BLADE KOTELLY:
Having the cops come.
Yes.
Ben.
AUDIENCE: If you scare
them into heart attack.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
You don't want to
scare your friend
if they have a heart condition.
That's good.
Cameron was that yours?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, weather.
BLADE KOTELLY: Weather.
So don't have an
outdoor party when
it's going to be threatening
to have a thunderstorm.
Or in January in Boston.
Not a good time for an
outdoor barbecue-- just isn't.
Kristen.
AUDIENCE: You accidentally send
someone to the wrong location.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, yes, someone
goes to the wrong location.
Thomas.
AUDIENCE: You have
invited some people
that your friend is
on bad terms with.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, yes.
The old ex-girlfriend issue.
I thought you were together.
We haven't been
together for months.
I didn't know that.
So I'll tell you a little story.
So my best friend
in high school--
we're best friends
and I'm throwing
him a surprise birthday party.
And my best friend was notorious
for not showing up to things.
You make plans a
week ahead of time,
you confirmed a few
days ahead of time,
it's Friday night-- ghost town.
Just not there.
And no one knows where he is.
He just was kind of casual.
This happened all the time.
And we all knew this.
I said, OK, I'm going to
make sure he shows up.
So I said, look-- he's
really into art and design--
there's this great exhibit
coming up for an M.C. Escher
thing they're doing at
this museum in Boston.
And there's someone
speaking and I'm
going to buy tickets
to it for your birthday
and they're really
expensive so can we
clear the date,
make sure it's OK.
He goes, yeah, it's fine.
Great.
So it's like two months out.
Two months.
So a month later, I'm
like hey, looking forward
to that exhibit thing?
He goes, oh, yeah.
Do you have it in your calendar?
I do have it in my calendar.
It's like the only thing
he had in his calendar.
It's good.
It's now like a week out.
Hey, dude.
Next Friday we're going to
the M.C. Escher exhibit.
Right on.
It's great.
Perfect.
It's Monday.
Hey, Friday night, we'll
get together like 6:00-ish,
we'll go and get some
dinner or something.
Then we'll go-- yeah
it sounds great.
Cool.
Great.
Wednesday.
Got two days.
Two days away!
Cool.
Right on.
Thursday.
Tomorrow!
Friday night, 6
o'clock, his house.
I go there, what happens?
AUDIENCE: He's not there.
BLADE KOTELLY: No, he's there.
It's amazing.
I'm blown away.
I'm like, he's actually there.
Incredibly cool.
So we do our whole thing.
We go.
We go to the thing.
We go to the house.
We walk inside, open the door.
I go around the
side of the door.
Everyone's waiting here.
He comes up around the door,
everyone goes, surprise!
And he's like, what?
I said, dude it's your
surprise birthday party.
Surprise!
And he's like, I thought we
were going to an exhibit.
No, no, that was all fake.
But you bought the tickets.
No, they're not real.
And he was sad.
What we learned from
our hazard analysis,
our post mortem, don't make
the other event sound more fun
than a surprise birthday party.
OK.
All true.
Next.
So, I've said you can
map this to anything.
Well, let's be a little
bit more serious here.
A little more serious about
the engineering aspect here.
You have four minutes
now to map it to this.
Making a car fueled
by a nuclear reactor.
Same groups.
Four minutes.
If you happen to be
a nuclear engineer,
you have a head start.
OK.
Right now, they're doing
the same exact thing
except for they're
mapping something
more engineering based.
And the idea is
that they can start
to apply something that
seemed very easy and informal
to something a little bit
more of their engineering
curriculum.
It's not a big stretch
in this case here.
They're going to
get lots of practice
throughout the
whole semester being
able to apply this to a variety
of different environments
and produce things
using this process.
But here I wanted
to show that there's
a mapping that exists
between stuff that seems very
unrelated to engineering, like
throwing a birthday party,
and some very
engineering related.
Let's see what
they come up with.
All right.
Let's find out what
you thought about how
to solve this problem.
Mapping the steps
to making a car
fueled by a nuclear reactor.
What is the
underlying objective?
Or what could the
underlying objective be?
AUDIENCE: Finding a
new means of fuel.
BLADE KOTELLY: Different fuel.
AUDIENCE: Building a car that
never needs to be refueled.
BLADE KOTELLY: A car that
never needs to be refueled.
AUDIENCE: Cleaner energy.
BLADE KOTELLY: Cleaner energy.
AUDIENCE: Job market
for nuclear engineers.
BLADE KOTELLY: A job market
for nuclear engineers.
That's very good.
I like that.
What else?
AUDIENCE: Faster car.
BLADE KOTELLY: Faster car.
Zoom!
What else?
AUDIENCE: Cleaner
for the environment.
BLADE KOTELLY: Cleaner
for the environment.
Yes.
What else?
OK.
Step number two,
what can inform us
about how to build-- where might
we look to understand about how
to build a car fueled
by a nuclear reactor?
AUDIENCE: Other vehicles
fueled by nuclear reactors,
like submarines.
BLADE KOTELLY: Like
submarines that
are fueled by nuclear
reactors, yes.
Understand how a
submarine works.
Jackie.
AUDIENCE: Current car designs.
BLADE KOTELLY:
Current car designs
could inform us about
what we could do.
AUDIENCE: How you could research
possible nuclear accidents.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, look
at nuclear accidents.
I'm going to put that under
the hazard analysis section.
But yes, absolutely.
Charlotte.
AUDIENCE: Small module
nuclear reactors.
BLADE KOTELLY: Small?
AUDIENCE: Module.
BLADE KOTELLY: Module
nuclear reactors.
She knows a little
bit about this.
AUDIENCE: I just got
hired to work them.
BLADE KOTELLY: She got hired
to work on them, great.
You could actually
research the thing
that you might want to use.
AUDIENCE: Professors.
BLADE KOTELLY: Professors.
Yes.
You could talk to professors
who deal with these things.
AUDIENCE: What regulations exist
on nuclear reactors in cars.
BLADE KOTELLY: Regulations
about nuclear reactors in cars
or other kinds of
transportation.
AUDIENCE: Find out what
aspects of cars people
don't want to change.
BLADE KOTELLY: What
aspects of cars people
don't want to change.
Sure.
AUDIENCE: Who will
want to use it.
BLADE KOTELLY: Understand
the potential market
of people who might want to
have a car that never needs
refueling, Stakeholder phase.
Who are the stakeholders?
Ben.
AUDIENCE: Everyone
who's Course 22.
BLADE KOTELLY: Everyone
who's in nuclear engineering.
Who else?
AUDIENCE: NRC.
BLADE KOTELLY: The
NRC who are the--?
AUDIENCE: Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
BLADE KOTELLY: Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
So, government.
Government.
Who else?
AUDIENCE: Everyone within
a 50-kilometer radius.
BLADE KOTELLY: Everyone
in a 50-kilometer radius
of you driving your car.
Rod.
AUDIENCE: Oil companies.
BLADE KOTELLY: Oil companies.
Yes, they are a stakeholder.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Because if you have a
really great car that
doesn't need to be fueled
ever, they're like, excuse me,
pardon me, would you
mind not making that?
AUDIENCE: Countries
that mine uranium.
BLADE KOTELLY: Countries
that mine uranium.
So, they're definitely
stakeholder because they've
got uranium.
Dale.
AUDIENCE: If we haven't said
it already, car manufacturers.
BLADE KOTELLY:
Car manufacturers.
Yes.
Who else?
We haven't said one
particular constituent group
that I think are very important
in this particular calculus.
Maybe not.
AUDIENCE: Mechanics.
BLADE KOTELLY: Mechanics.
Wow, yes.
Boy, how do you fix that?
No idea.
Why not?
Didn't go Course 22.
Really?
What'd you do?
Course 18.
What else?
AUDIENCE: You.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
AUDIENCE: The nature of the
fact that you're designing them.
BLADE KOTELLY: The designer.
Or the person
who's the consumer.
AUDIENCE: Anyone who buys a car.
BLADE KOTELLY: Anyone
who buys a car.
Right.
Absolutely.
Anyone who buys a car-- electric
cars, non-electric cars.
Anyone else?
That's a good list.
Planned research.
Operational research.
What are we are limited by?
AUDIENCE: Fission or fusion.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, the choice
between fission or fusion.
AUDIENCE: Current
roads and whether we
can have nuclear
reactors on them.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
Whether we can
actually have this
on our current infrastructure.
David.
AUDIENCE: Disposable spent fuel.
BLADE KOTELLY: Disposable
spent fuel, yes.
Charlotte.
AUDIENCE: Have to
have low enriched--
you'd have to have
low enriched uranium.
You can't have highly
enriched uranium.
BLADE KOTELLY: OK.
So we're limited by our ability
to get low enriched uranium.
Yes.
I'm glad we have you here.
AUDIENCE: What's the
cost of making them?
BLADE KOTELLY: Cost.
Absolutely.
The cost of making a
nuclear powered car.
Jake.
AUDIENCE: Different laws
on street legal vehicles.
BLADE KOTELLY: On?
AUDIENCE: Street legal vehicles.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
Government laws on
street legal vehicles
and what you can and can't do
with a vehicle to begin with.
[? Yu? ?]
AUDIENCE: Price that
people are willing to pay
for a car that
doesn't refueling.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
What would you pay
for a car if it never
needed fuel ever again?
It's a good question, right?
Would you pay a million dollars?
No.
Do you think you're paying
a million dollars now
in gas over the
course of your life?
AUDIENCE: Your car
won't last that long.
BLADE KOTELLY: Your car
won't last that long.
OK.
Foiled again.
What else?
AUDIENCE: Whether
people would buy it
because it's a nuclear reactor.
BLADE KOTELLY: Whether
people would even buy it.
It's nuclear reactor.
I don't want to get that car.
But it never needs fuel again.
I don't want that car.
Well, why not?
Because I don't want
to glow, I don't know.
What else are you limited by?
AUDIENCE: How available
the raw materials are.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes,
availability of raw materials.
What could go wrong?
What could go wrong in a
nuclear powered automobile?
AUDIENCE: Two cars
crash into each other.
BLADE KOTELLY: Two cars crash.
That doesn't seems so wrong.
So far, it sounds OK.
Or are we talking about fusion?
What do you mean by that?
AUDIENCE: Finding
out what happens--
BLADE KOTELLY: Oh, what
happens to the nuclear reactor
during a car crash.
What was that movie--
was it the new Batman?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
They had a nuclear
thing in a truck
and it kind of like,
boom, boom, boom, boom.
You're like, oh no,
that seems so bad.
But everything
worked out just fine.
Batman saved the day.
OK.
What else?
AUDIENCE: Can it be modified
to serve another purpose.
BLADE KOTELLY: Such as?
A what?
AUDIENCE: Like a more
dangerous purpose.
BLADE KOTELLY: A more
dangerous purpose.
So yes.
You could have terrorists who
take advantage of the fact
that you have a
nuclear powered car
to create a nuclear
powered bomb.
I saw that in "Batman."
I know.
I saw.
Everything I ever
needed to learn,
I learned from
watching "Batman."
Cameron.
AUDIENCE: If it's
a fission reactor,
where does the waste go?
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, waste.
Yeah, what do you do
with waste disposal?
Right.
Ben.
AUDIENCE: Exposure to radiation.
BLADE KOTELLY:
Exposure to radiation.
Yes, absolutely.
Charlotte.
AUDIENCE: Control and
proliferation concerns.
BLADE KOTELLY: Control and
proliferation concerns.
What does that mean?
AUDIENCE: If you
create nuclear waste,
and you can't
control it, someone
can take it and turn
it into a nuclear bomb.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes, OK.
So how do we keep that
thing from happening
that could be used
negatively and prevent that.
What else could go wrong?
AUDIENCE: Do it yourself people.
BLADE KOTELLY: DIY.
How to build a nuclear
reactor at home.
Yes this may require a few more
tools than most people have.
OK.
So are you beginning
to see how we
can start applying this process
to things of engineering base
as well?
Right, that you have to make?
And now, you may not be making
a nuclear powered reactor
car right now, but
Charlotte, you're
working on these
small reactors, right?
And what could they be used for?
AUDIENCE: So the market
shares that number
one, reactors are really
expensive and they're very big.
And if you don't need
1,200 megawatts of power
and you don't want
to spend $7 million,
you can get 250 megawatts
of power for $1 million.
BLADE KOTELLY: OK.
So you could make a small
reactor and use it to do what?
AUDIENCE: Basically,
you create electricity
and then distribute it cheaply.
BLADE KOTELLY: So
cheap electricity.
And where would you
want to do that?
AUDIENCE: All over the world.
BLADE KOTELLY: All
over the world.
In even a company,
potentially like
Apple where they have that
new campus being put up.
They have their own
power energy place
and they might, potentially, put
a nuclear reactor there, right?
They could power their
whole thing and then
supply the energy back to the
grid, if they chose to do that.
OK.
Joel, did you have a--?
JOEL SCHINDALL: Yeah.
This process we're going
to use again and again
during the course of the term.
But I wanted to just
point out a few things
to set a little bit
of context for you.
First of all, I think
there's an image
that designers just kind of
go into this special sort
of a daze and they come out
with a wonderful invention,
a great dress, a beautiful room
layout or something like that.
And I want to point out that
it rarely happens that way.
The design is work and effort
and looking at relationships
and going again and again.
And looking at what's
wanted and what's needed
and what's the context of it.
And actually what
we described here
is not that different from
what you do as engineers
when you study engineering.
It's breaking down the
problem into parts,
looking at the relationship
between those parts,
and optimizing the system,
just like you optimize
an engineering system
that's designed
to generate electricity or
build a bridge whatever branch
of engineering that you
might be involved in.
So actually you've got
the kind of training
to be able to do good design.
Second point I want to make--
the numbers, one, two, three,
four, five.
We all know how to count.
So it sort of leads you
into thinking you do one
and then you do two and then you
do three and then you do four.
And again, not that way
if you recognize that.
Actually, good design, you're
actually doing it in parallel.
You get about up to number five
and you're doing the hazard
analysis, you realize some of
the things, the assumptions
you made early ain't going to
work that way because they're
dangerous to your health
or other people's health.
You go back to step one.
So actually, this is a very good
linear way of representing it.
But in the actual
implementation of doing it,
you're going to move in and out
of all those different phases.
And then the third
thing I want to say
doesn't quite apply here
but I spent a lot of time
in the satellite industry.
And in the satellite
industry, you
go through a very careful
analysis up front of the design
that you've come up with.
Make sure that it's
reliable, that everything's
going to hang together.
And then, later on,
down around here,
you wind up making
a few changes.
Things are just a
little bit different.
You modify this.
You modify that.
And almost every serious
failure that occurs
is because after you
made those changes,
no one kind of went back
to the beginning and said,
well did this perhaps change
the assumptions under which we
based our design and move
us onto a different track?
So again, you always have to
be aware of those things--
just kind of a
perspective to put on it.
BLADE KOTELLY: Rita.
AUDIENCE: So say I'm Course 20
and I was hired by a Course 22
company to be a project
manager and I don't even
know of the existence of
some of these problems that
could come up.
How do you go about
figuring that out?
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, yes.
How do you solve a problem
when you don't know much
about problem space.
That is a good
question which we're
going to hold for
now because of time.
But we will address it
because you will all
be working on problems
over the semester which
you may no knowledge about.
And so the question is how
do you acquire that knowledge
and how do you figure
out what you don't know.
It's a great question.
I want to talk briefly
about innovation.
This is a huge thing.
The course called "Engineering
Innovation and Design."
I have a very particular
thought about innovation
that I want to share with you.
This is a diagram from a
very famous design consultant
and how they explain innovation.
Now, I think I see
where they're going.
They talk about the business
on one side, technology
and people.
And they say, look, innovation
happens in different places
here.
Process innovation
occurs between business
and technology.
Functional innovation
occurs over here.
Emotional innovation occurs over
here, like building a brand.
And then they have
experience innovation.
And this is this thing
that's very, very special.
They say yes, when we
combine understanding
of the business, the
technology, the people.
Do we build something
that people want?
Is it able to be built?
And will it create a business
that can sustain itself?
Then we have achieved great
experience innovation.
Now it's not a bad model.
And it's not untrue
that innovation
occurs in these places.
But I think it's
not a useful model.
I think in that zone here, you
build things that are useful.
They're useful.
But they may not be innovative.
So here's my thing
about innovation.
There's something out there.
There's something.
And you're required
to do something
and yet you have this
other tension pulling you
because you desire to
do something else that
seems in conflict.
I'm required to create
a nuclear powered car
but-- I desire to create
a nuclear powered car,
but I'm required to adhere
to laws of government,
which is causing
a lot of problems.
I am required to make an
artificial heart valve
and I want to make
that but what I realize
is that there's a problem
because in this requirement,
I have something that spins
and it creates friction.
And the friction causes
blood platelets to form
and causes clotting.
And I desire to have no clotting
happen even though I have
this spinning object
in a heart valve.
Tension.
I'm required to
pass the class but I
desire to go out
drinking with my friends.
These are in tension.
OK.
So when you have this and
you start stretching this,
by resolving this, this is
where innovation occurs.
Innovation is the result
of resolving your need
to do something with your
desire of how it can be done.
The designer's job
is to reconcile
the seemingly irreconcilable.
The designer's job
is to reconcile
the seemingly irreconcilable.
It's not that you can't do it.
Maybe you think you can't do it.
It appears that you can't do it.
But you gotta think about it
differently or think about it
from a new angle.
Or get some new
information to resolve
the seemingly irreconcilable.
And that is what your
job is your whole lives
is to try to figure out the
solution to these problems.
If they were obvious,
people would just do them.
But when they're not
obvious, and they
cause this tension,
this pain, this
is where the innovation occurs.
And where you get
people who do things.
Like a company called Levatronix
who took that spinning thing.
And they said, well,
we know if they're
touching it causes friction.
Instead, they used
magnets to levitate it
so there's no friction at
all inside of a heart valve.
Do you want to talk about
the heart valve for a second?
JOEL SCHINDALL: There's a
small company out in Walton
called Levatronics.
And part of their charter was to
build an artificial heart that
could be used at least
temporarily as substitution
until a real heart was
available for transplant.
And you know, the
usual way that you
build a pump is a
rotary pump that
produces just a
constant pressure.
But everyone knows that
the heart beats like this.
And everyone assumed
that the body
needs that heart beat in order
for the biological processes
to work as they're supposed to.
Turns out, that's not the case.
Turns out that if you pump
blood smoothly through the body,
it works.
You get oxygen from the lungs
to the parts that need it.
And you actually can have a
working rotary heart pump.
So Levatronix thought, well,
this would be a great thing
to build except that the
spinning pump shaft has
a bearing at either
end of the shaft
and there's friction in the
bearing which creates heat,
the heat creates
blood clots, the blood
clots break off and go to the
lungs and that's an embolism
and the person dies.
So the question was, well,
looks like you can't do it.
So talk about reconciling
the seemingly irreconcilable.
It turns out that
you can magnetically
levitate the ends of the shaft
so that they don't actually
touch the bearing.
And you have a
frictionless bearing.
Now, it's not stable.
It takes an external
electronic circuit
in order to be able to sense the
little latitudinal motions that
come up in the shaft.
But we're pretty advanced
in our technology now.
We can sense the position of
the shaft and you can fix that.
And Levatronix has actually
been selling that product
for the last four or five years.
It's saved lives.
It works.
It reconciles the seemingly
inconceivable-- well,
inconceivable--
but irreconcilable.
And that is what I would
call a real out of the box
innovative idea.
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Is this
the company that they
were written about
in "Popular Science?"
They were having people who had
these smooth hearts going in.
And they were going into doctors
and freaking the doctors out
because they didn't
have a pulse?
JOEL SCHINDALL: It
certainly would fit.
There were a few articles
about Levatronix.
I don't know that specific one.
But yeah, that's right,
they don't have a pulse.
So when you say that to be
alive, they must have a pulse,
perhaps that's not a
necessary precondition.
BLADE KOTELLY: OK.
So I want you all to work in
pairs for just a few minutes.
I want you to come
up a list-- let's
see who can come up with
the longest list in three
minutes, what group can come up
with the longest list in three
minutes, of either things
you've experienced personally
or things that you know about
where people had to reconcile
the seemingly irreconcilable.
To solve a seemingly impossible
design problem at the time.
You have three minutes.
All right, let's find out.
OK.
Who put down one thing or more?
Wow.
Pretty good.
Two.
Three things.
Four things.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
10.
OK.
15.
20.
25.
OK.
21.
22.
How many did you get?
AUDIENCE: 22.
BLADE KOTELLY: 22 things.
22.
Both 22?
AUDIENCE: 21.
BLADE KOTELLY: 21, OK.
Who only got five or fewer?
Five or fewer.
Tell us one of them.
AUDIENCE: Portable media players
BLADE KOTELLY:
Portable media players.
Tell me what you mean by that.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
BLADE KOTELLY: Yeah, go ahead.
AUDIENCE: Basically
making something
that is small and functional.
BLADE KOTELLY:
That would do what?
AUDIENCE: Playing
any kind of media.
BLADE KOTELLY: Right.
OK.
So it's like the idea of putting
all your music in your pocket,
right?
That seems impossible to do
at some point in time, right?
And now you're like, of course,
all my music's in my pocket,
all my videos are in my pocket,
everything's in my pocket.
Got big pockets.
OK, yes.
So things like that.
That's an excellent one.
In the back, yes.
AUDIENCE: Infrared thermometers.
Infrared thermometers.
BLADE KOTELLY:
Infrared thermometers.
Yeah.
How to be able to get the
temperature of something
at distance.
Well, you got 21 of them.
We're going to work
our way up to you.
OK people who got 10 or fewer.
Groups that got 10 or fewer.
OK.
Tell us, Daniel.
AUDIENCE: Selling a product
without a salesforce.
BLADE KOTELLY: Selling a product
without having a salesforce.
Right, that's an amazing idea.
Like, what do you
do when you don't
have anybody doing the selling?
How can you possibly do that?
And said, ah, I've
got the internet.
I'm Jeff Bezos.
I can sell everything the world.
AUDIENCE: A self-driving car.
BLADE KOTELLY: A
self-driving car.
Yeah.
It seems impossible.
GM is working on this and
putting a lot of effort
into this.
In fact I've had a conversation
recently with someone
who thought there's
no way we're going
to have self-driving cars
in the next 15 years.
They think well, maybe for
special lanes, special places.
But I think we're going to see
a lot more self-driving cars
with breathalyzers on them.
[PUFF] You are not driving home.
Get in the backseat.
You pass out.
You wake up at home.
OK.
Amazing!
Who else?
10 or fewer, yes.
AUDIENCE: Oh, no
sorry, I had more.
BLADE KOTELLY: You
had more than 10.
OK.
Who had 10 or fewer?
AUDIENCE: Nuclear fusion.
BLADE KOTELLY: Nuclear fusion.
Can we do it?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, just
can't sustain it.
BLADE KOTELLY: Just
can't sustain it.
Interesting.
So we're so close.
But we desire it.
What else?
How about 15 or fewer.
I'm sorry, were we at 15?
15 or fewer.
AUDIENCE: The invention
of the light bulb.
BLADE KOTELLY: The
invention of the light bulb.
So people thought, boy, how do
we get light without candles?
Right.
How can I stay in
light without candles?
Who invented the light bulb?
AUDIENCE: Not Thomas Edison.
BLADE KOTELLY:
Not Thomas Edison.
That was a correct answer.
Swan did.
Swan did in England.
Smaller version.
Swan invents the light bulb.
Edison's like, ugh, you.
And he spends a
lot of time trying
to figure out how to
get around this patent.
But we all call them Edison
bulbs and not Swan bulbs.
Do you know why?
AUDIENCE: Because he
made them really big.
BLADE KOTELLY: Because
he made them really big.
How did he do it?
So clever.
So in this whole thing,
we talked about process,
we talked about stakeholders
and all these different people
who are involved.
And Thomas Edison had
a very smart staff.
And the staff had a
very big-- we call it
systems thinking perspective.
They said, well
look, candles are
used or things that supply
light and heat, gas lamps,
are used on the
side of fireplaces
in a very expensive homes.
Particularly in Boston.
They said, here's an idea.
We're going to take
these light bulbs things,
we're going to run wires
right through the tubes that
currently kept gas,
we'll turn the gas off,
and we'll put a little
meter outside of your house
that will measure how
much of this electricity
you're using for
your light bulb.
It's all brand new, right?
So everyone's
like, whatever, OK.
And so they did it.
It's cool because it won't
burn down your house.
And they put these bulbs in
and they ran the wires through.
Because they, said,
if you don't like it,
we'll pull out the
wires, turn the gas on,
everything just works.
So it's easy low
switching costs.
Easy to start trying it out.
Low risk.
If you don't like
it, you can go back.
No problem.
Money back guarantee.
And a way of measuring it.
And that's why he became
hugely successful.
OK.
Great.
Other inventions from
people who got 20 or fewer.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
SR-81 Blackbird.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yes.
The SR-71 Blackbird.
Yes.
Something that would
go incredibly fast.
How fast does it go?
So fast we don't even know!
I think it's still classified.
And it goes so fast and
flew so high that it
couldn't be caught on radar.
You couldn't even see.
You didn't know it
existed at the time.
AUDIENCE: The design
compromise was about the fuel
because it's not
sealed at ground level.
BLADE KOTELLY: Ah, yes, so the
design compromise specifically
here, is that at ground
level, it just leaks fuel.
Because when it goes so
fast, it gets really hot.
And we all know from
your thermal class
that things expand when they
get really hot, like metal.
And it would expand and all
of a sudden not leak fuel
when it was flying really fast.
But on the ground it
is just dripping fuel.
Pretty crazy, right?
What if your car ran like that?
I'd love that.
I could drive fast all the time.
I'm sorry, Mr. Policeman.
I had to drive fast.
I'd be leaking fuel
all over the ground.
AUDIENCE: Alternating currents
BLADE KOTELLY:
Alternating currents.
Tell us.
What was the--
AUDIENCE: They were
looking for a way
to distribute and
transmit high voltage.
Enough electricity to keep the
[INAUDIBLE] and direct current
would break.
Would not-- it wasn't--
BLADE KOTELLY: Didn't work.
OK.
AUDIENCE: Motion
pictures or movies.
BLADE KOTELLY: Movies.
Yeah.
Movies.
I want to see in front of me,
stuff happening like I'm there.
How do I do that?
I just have to put you
there, in front of a train,
speeding towards you
at 100 miles an hour.
Or put a camera and I
project on a big thing.
And it's so big,
it's so exciting,
that people in the
audience were aghast.
They gasped when they
saw people moving.
What else?
Actually, coming
off of that-- color.
We don't think about
color too much.
All we think of is
black and white.
But we want it in color.
And that was a huge
process change.
And how about 22 items or fewer.
We'll give you a chance.
Go ahead, Patrick.
AUDIENCE: The printing
press was a big one.
BLADE KOTELLY: The
printing press.
Yeah, huge deal.
What was the issue?
AUDIENCE: They were
having to have scribes--
BLADE KOTELLY: Yeah, you
have to copy everything
by hand which leads to lots of--
AUDIENCE: Carpal tunnel.
BLADE KOTELLY: I don't
know if they really
cared about the carpal tunnel
syndrome thing back then.
They might have cared.
But lots of errors.
Lots of errors and translation
errors and tons of errors.
And what else was
the issue there?
AUDIENCE: Slow.
BLADE KOTELLY: Slow.
It's very limited.
So if you had a book, it's a
very big deal to have a book.
And probably in the future
it will be a big deal
to have a book again because
we'll all be reading PDFs.
And from-- is this
your group who go 22?
Yes.
OK, yes.
AUDIENCE: Paper cups.
BLADE KOTELLY: Paper cups.
AUDIENCE: How do
you use something
that isn't waterproof
to actually hold water?
BLADE KOTELLY: Right.
So paper will let
water go through it
at some point when it saturates.
And The question is how
do you make it waterproof.
Right.
So these are all
incredible innovations
that occurred from paper cups to
something like SR-71 Blackbird.
And what I want to do is show
you, quickly, a short video.
This is a really
interesting thing
because the year
it was made was?
JOHN: 1987.
BLADE KOTELLY: 1987.
Take a look at this.
OK, So I won't show you
the whole thing here.
If you'd like, we
can send you a link.
This is something
Apple made in when?
JOHN: 1987.
BLADE KOTELLY: And
in it you'll see
there's a date that
actually occurs.
And the date is?
JOHN: One year before
Siri is launched.
BLADE KOTELLY: Yeah.
OK.
So it's right around
Siri's launch.
And now we can do almost all the
things you see in this video.
You'll see there's
a camera up there.
He has a video chat with her.
They're looking up things.
He's correcting his spoken
spelling of something
which Google does all the time.
With enough context, they
correct things, sometimes
even accurately.
He's getting his
information here.
He's reading appointments.
This is all something
that's happening now.
This was the idea they wanted
so desperately to create.
Something that allowed
you to do something
in the most natural way,
but with technology.
And we're basically there.
So for your homework, I
want you to do something
that maybe none of you have
ever done before, your homework.
No, the--
OK.
I want you to design a game.
I want you to make a game.
There's not many
requirements you have.
But it's a two player game.
Maximum cost of materials
must be under $5.00.
You can find materials.
You don't need to
spend any money.
But the cost of materials
if someone were to buy them
and make your game,
has to be under $5.00.
It must include an
element of chance.
Must somehow contain chance
by whatever method you want.
And must be able to be taught
to someone else within three
minutes.
AUDIENCE: Do we actually have
to make it or just design it?
BLADE KOTELLY: You need
to design it and make it.
You design it and make it.
I suggest you even try it out.
We might try some
of them in class.
We might try some
of them in class.
AUDIENCE: This is due what day?
BLADE KOTELLY: I don't know.
It's on your syllabus.
I think it's due on--
JOHN: Next Monday.
BLADE KOTELLY: Next Monday.
It's due next Monday.
Yes, I'm not going to give
you two days to design a game.
OK.
Thank you very much, everyone.
