Digital Portfolio
Changemaker Story
My story began last year, I was browsing the Internet and came across an interesting photo of an outdoor movie theater. Ever since seeing this photo, I’ve wanted to create a project of my own based off of that very idea ever since I came across it, but I never had the opportunity to go through with it, until the start of this year. In my class, Trep Studio, we were given the chance to pitch an idea to the rest of the class of what we wanted to work on all semester. This was my first time pitching an idea to the class and lets just say I was too nervous to go up. In my head I was thinking this is would be a great project, but I’d rather stay seated then pitch my idea and have the possibility of it being rejected by everyone. Courageously though, a friend of mine got up in front of the class to pitch the idea for me.
The next step was creating our groups. I was a little disappointed because after a half hour of waiting, I still didn’t have anyone in my group. So at this point, I had to choose whether or not I wanted to join a different group or continue with this project on my own. It was an idea that I wanted to do so badly and I didn’t want to give it up just because I didn’t have a group. After talking with my teachers, I decided I was going to start this project by myself. To my surprise, about an hour later though, a classmate asked if they could join me. Of course I said yes! I was excited to have a partner on this project!
After we had our group figured out, we had to create an account on Designkit.org and follow the methods they laid out for us. Our first method that we had to do was How Might We’s. After a couple hours of brainstorming, we finally decided on our How Might We that we wanted our whole project to go off of. Our How Might We is, how might we reuse materials to create a fun sustainable environment. One of my favorite methods that we had to do was Secondary Research. Secondary research was a good method to use to find out whom your group will be competing against, businesswise, find out if products have worked and what have not, maybe get ideas to improve something already made. This method helped us find out about Up-cycling. Up-cycling is reusing discarded objects or material in such a way as to create a product of a higher quality or value than the original.
Our goal is to reduce waste in the environment by creating something fun. We want to show people that recycling can be entertaining and there’s more to it than throwing bottles in a recycling bin. Ever since we discovered what our problem is, we had to brainstorm a bunch to figure out what our solution was going to be. Our first step was to define our audience. Who were the people we wanted to target? Why them? These are some of the questions we had to figure out. We came to the conclusion that our target audience is teenagers between the ages of 15-19. Obviously, anyone can use our product but we wanted to narrow it down to an audience that it would affect the most. After we pinpointed our audience, we started interviewing to get an understanding of what the wanted or if they would even be interested in up-cycling in an entertaining way. Interviewing was a success, the majority of students that we interview were interested in our idea and the problem we were trying to solve.
After figuring out the basis of our project, we needed to decide if our original idea of a sustainable outdoor theater was still the right fit, or if we could come up with an idea that will fit the problem we are trying to solve in a better way. Our whole design thinking process consists of brainstorming; brainstorming solutions to our problem, brainstorming ways to get our audience to connect with our ideas, get them interested in this problem we are trying to solve. We want people to understand what a big difference they can make just by recycling and reducing waste in our environment.
Finally, we can brainstorm solutions along the topic of sustainable entertainment. We started out by researching more in depth about up-cycling, and then thinking about activities such as eating at a restaurant, going to a movie, or organizing your things. We tried to figure out how to make these activities sustainable, but nothing made sense. So, we jumped back to our original idea of creating a sustainable outdoor movie theater.
We spent a couple weeks just trying to figure out what our theater will look like. We wanted to focus on the design of our product first, and then add the sustainability factor into it later. Throughout this time, we spent most of our time interviewing, figuring out what people wanted out of our product and whether or not the idea of making it sustainable was something they are interested in. The majority of our interviewees enjoyed our idea and said they would attend as long as it was affordable.
Finally, our product idea was being set in stone. We just needed to create our materials list and begin prototyping. We wanted our screen to be made from wood and for seating we wanted to get old car seats from Pull and Save. Our product is sustainable because our screen is made from recycled wood and our seating is old car seats that were just sitting in a car junkyard. We wanted to find someway to make our projector and speakers sustainable but with our budget and time limit, we couldn’t. Instead we are just barrowing these materials for when we present out product.
We came to the conclusion that people’s lives are so busy and chaotic that even if they care about doing something, they may not have the time. A lot of people can’t see the bigger picture in life because they are so busy. So they cant see or understand about recycling or waste clogging up our environment because it isn’t one of their top priorities in their life and it hasn’t affected them personally yet to make it a top priority. Our idea is, what if we can create a way for people to recycle without having them think they are recycling? Create products that help clean up our environment but are enjoyable to the public. Overall, our main goal is to recreate the idea of recycling and make the public aware that recycling can help save our planet.
Reflection: I learned a lot writing my changemaker story. For me, it was kind of a way for me to reflect on all the work my partner and I did over the semester. This was a hard paper for me to write. The problem wasn't the amount of words needed, the problem was trying to write about everything that happened and trying to make it flow. I had a hard time getting the words out of my head and onto paper.
My story began last year, I was browsing the Internet and came across an interesting photo of an outdoor movie theater. Ever since seeing this photo, I’ve wanted to create a project of my own based off of that very idea ever since I came across it, but I never had the opportunity to go through with it, until the start of this year. In my class, Trep Studio, we were given the chance to pitch an idea to the rest of the class of what we wanted to work on all semester. This was my first time pitching an idea to the class and lets just say I was too nervous to go up. In my head I was thinking this is would be a great project, but I’d rather stay seated then pitch my idea and have the possibility of it being rejected by everyone. Courageously though, a friend of mine got up in front of the class to pitch the idea for me.
The next step was creating our groups. I was a little disappointed because after a half hour of waiting, I still didn’t have anyone in my group. So at this point, I had to choose whether or not I wanted to join a different group or continue with this project on my own. It was an idea that I wanted to do so badly and I didn’t want to give it up just because I didn’t have a group. After talking with my teachers, I decided I was going to start this project by myself. To my surprise, about an hour later though, a classmate asked if they could join me. Of course I said yes! I was excited to have a partner on this project!
After we had our group figured out, we had to create an account on Designkit.org and follow the methods they laid out for us. Our first method that we had to do was How Might We’s. After a couple hours of brainstorming, we finally decided on our How Might We that we wanted our whole project to go off of. Our How Might We is, how might we reuse materials to create a fun sustainable environment. One of my favorite methods that we had to do was Secondary Research. Secondary research was a good method to use to find out whom your group will be competing against, businesswise, find out if products have worked and what have not, maybe get ideas to improve something already made. This method helped us find out about Up-cycling. Up-cycling is reusing discarded objects or material in such a way as to create a product of a higher quality or value than the original.
Our goal is to reduce waste in the environment by creating something fun. We want to show people that recycling can be entertaining and there’s more to it than throwing bottles in a recycling bin. Ever since we discovered what our problem is, we had to brainstorm a bunch to figure out what our solution was going to be. Our first step was to define our audience. Who were the people we wanted to target? Why them? These are some of the questions we had to figure out. We came to the conclusion that our target audience is teenagers between the ages of 15-19. Obviously, anyone can use our product but we wanted to narrow it down to an audience that it would affect the most. After we pinpointed our audience, we started interviewing to get an understanding of what the wanted or if they would even be interested in up-cycling in an entertaining way. Interviewing was a success, the majority of students that we interview were interested in our idea and the problem we were trying to solve.
After figuring out the basis of our project, we needed to decide if our original idea of a sustainable outdoor theater was still the right fit, or if we could come up with an idea that will fit the problem we are trying to solve in a better way. Our whole design thinking process consists of brainstorming; brainstorming solutions to our problem, brainstorming ways to get our audience to connect with our ideas, get them interested in this problem we are trying to solve. We want people to understand what a big difference they can make just by recycling and reducing waste in our environment.
Finally, we can brainstorm solutions along the topic of sustainable entertainment. We started out by researching more in depth about up-cycling, and then thinking about activities such as eating at a restaurant, going to a movie, or organizing your things. We tried to figure out how to make these activities sustainable, but nothing made sense. So, we jumped back to our original idea of creating a sustainable outdoor movie theater.
We spent a couple weeks just trying to figure out what our theater will look like. We wanted to focus on the design of our product first, and then add the sustainability factor into it later. Throughout this time, we spent most of our time interviewing, figuring out what people wanted out of our product and whether or not the idea of making it sustainable was something they are interested in. The majority of our interviewees enjoyed our idea and said they would attend as long as it was affordable.
Finally, our product idea was being set in stone. We just needed to create our materials list and begin prototyping. We wanted our screen to be made from wood and for seating we wanted to get old car seats from Pull and Save. Our product is sustainable because our screen is made from recycled wood and our seating is old car seats that were just sitting in a car junkyard. We wanted to find someway to make our projector and speakers sustainable but with our budget and time limit, we couldn’t. Instead we are just barrowing these materials for when we present out product.
We came to the conclusion that people’s lives are so busy and chaotic that even if they care about doing something, they may not have the time. A lot of people can’t see the bigger picture in life because they are so busy. So they cant see or understand about recycling or waste clogging up our environment because it isn’t one of their top priorities in their life and it hasn’t affected them personally yet to make it a top priority. Our idea is, what if we can create a way for people to recycle without having them think they are recycling? Create products that help clean up our environment but are enjoyable to the public. Overall, our main goal is to recreate the idea of recycling and make the public aware that recycling can help save our planet.
Reflection: I learned a lot writing my changemaker story. For me, it was kind of a way for me to reflect on all the work my partner and I did over the semester. This was a hard paper for me to write. The problem wasn't the amount of words needed, the problem was trying to write about everything that happened and trying to make it flow. I had a hard time getting the words out of my head and onto paper.
Reflection: At first, I was dreading doing the Business Model Canvas because I saw no point to it. But, once my partner and I actually sat down to do it, it wasn't that bad. I think the purpose of this assignment was to get everything in one spot. It was a way to get all the information we needed for the launch of our product in one spot.
Method Spotlight
One of the best parts about Secondary Research is you gain insight about the history behind your design challenge. Secondary Research is a process that should continue throughout the whole entire design challenge that you chose. This is one of the most crucial steps. Whether you are going out to interview somebody or figuring out the next step in your process, it’s best to know the details behind your project. You would not want to interview somebody who knows more about your topic than you do, or start designing something that has already been created, would you? The information you find from secondary research is knowledge you need to know for most of the other methods otherwise it is going to be a lot harder than it should be to complete those methods. Secondary research is also a good method to use to find out whom your group will be competing against, businesswise, find out if products have worked and what have not, maybe get ideas to improve something already made!
My partner and I started Secondary Research early on. We knew we wanted to design something that was sustainable, but entertaining at the same time. After researching a ton about up-cycling, reuse discarded objects/materials to create a product of higher value, and activities such as eating at a restaurant, going to a movie, organizing your things, and going through other methods, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to create a sustainable outdoor theater. Now this is when our research really to kicked in. We discovered other companies within this field such as One Way Theatre and the Auto-View Drive In and even people creating outdoor theaters on their own. We discovered products/materials, such as PVC pipes, old car seats, and a used white tarp. This is a product already created, so we are still trying to decide how to put our own twist on it.
Without Secondary Research, we wouldn’t of had all the information we needed to know in order to interview people well or even continue even further in our design process. Secondary Research helped us discover the background around our topic and help prepare us for what’s ahead.
Reflection: I absolutely loved writing the method spotlight. I picked a method that I knew a lot about and the words just flowed. I think the purpose of this assignment was to practice our writing, obviously. But also a way to get a better understanding of whatever method you chose to write about.
One of the best parts about Secondary Research is you gain insight about the history behind your design challenge. Secondary Research is a process that should continue throughout the whole entire design challenge that you chose. This is one of the most crucial steps. Whether you are going out to interview somebody or figuring out the next step in your process, it’s best to know the details behind your project. You would not want to interview somebody who knows more about your topic than you do, or start designing something that has already been created, would you? The information you find from secondary research is knowledge you need to know for most of the other methods otherwise it is going to be a lot harder than it should be to complete those methods. Secondary research is also a good method to use to find out whom your group will be competing against, businesswise, find out if products have worked and what have not, maybe get ideas to improve something already made!
My partner and I started Secondary Research early on. We knew we wanted to design something that was sustainable, but entertaining at the same time. After researching a ton about up-cycling, reuse discarded objects/materials to create a product of higher value, and activities such as eating at a restaurant, going to a movie, organizing your things, and going through other methods, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to create a sustainable outdoor theater. Now this is when our research really to kicked in. We discovered other companies within this field such as One Way Theatre and the Auto-View Drive In and even people creating outdoor theaters on their own. We discovered products/materials, such as PVC pipes, old car seats, and a used white tarp. This is a product already created, so we are still trying to decide how to put our own twist on it.
Without Secondary Research, we wouldn’t of had all the information we needed to know in order to interview people well or even continue even further in our design process. Secondary Research helped us discover the background around our topic and help prepare us for what’s ahead.
Reflection: I absolutely loved writing the method spotlight. I picked a method that I knew a lot about and the words just flowed. I think the purpose of this assignment was to practice our writing, obviously. But also a way to get a better understanding of whatever method you chose to write about.
Reflection: