When we first started doing this activity, as expected, we began listing the most expected answers. Although I could not think of many, if not any creative answers, my group members were able to quickly think of new, creative and often absurd solutions to the given problem demonstrating that there is no wrong answer when it comes to divergent thinking. Because of this, I was soon able to work on my group members' ideas to create new solutions. Furthermore, because our group collaboratively decided to have one person scribe, we had to utilise open communication to be able to share our ideas.

From this task, I was able to get more used to thinking outside of the box, adapting to the nature of creative thinking in a group setting in a container time frame leading to the utilisation of spontaneous ideas.

Laptop + ruler: Make the side of the laptop a ruler

Laptop + pencil case: Laptop with a storage compartment/drawer on the bottom of the computer that you can open.

Use the material of the pencil case as padding to protect from physical damage

Animal: Bee

• The microwave will sound like a buzzing bee

• Side tables that look like wings which can be folded up

• Instead of a rectangular window on the door of the microwave, there are 2 eye shaped windows

• A stand which looks like a flower

two eye-shaped windows on the microwave door

the base of the microwave is a flower ()

the spinning thing inside the microwave is designed like a honeycomb

The first of the two tasks completed this lesson was random input which we learnt was having one object and randomly adding a different object to create a new product. Using 'laptop' as our main object, our goal was to create new products by adding on other objects that we could see. Initially, my partner and I considered changing the programming of the laptop to suit our object, however after 1 random input, we decided to broaden our view to the physical features of the laptop allowing us to create more ideas.

The second activity we completed was 1 + 1 = 1 where we were tasked with picking a random household item and animal and combining them to create something new. Because of the first activity, my partner and I decided to change the household's physical features to make it look like our chosen animal.

Although we could have also explored other characteristics of these objects such as the material and texture, these activities further allowed me to practice thinking outside the box and to keep trying to find ideas when I would think there were no ideas left, showing how there are always more ideas and solutions to any given problem.

• Animal raft

• Storage

• Kite

• Plant pot

• Shield

2. Drink Bottle

• Wallet

• Plant pot

• Tissue box

• Pencil case

• Hand sanitizer

• Water gun

3. Ping-Pong Ball

• Weapon: Gun ammo

• Math counters

• Golf

• Decoration

• Arts and crafts

• As packing peanuts

For this task, we learnt the process of design thinking, including empathising and the importance of empathy when it comes to designing solutions for a specific target group, allowing us to create more effective solutions.

While looking at my partner's general timeline, I found that there was a quite obvious problem during her lunchtime experience. She wasn't able to eat her lunch until the very end of lunch. However, she did not state why she did so I didn't know whether this was by choice or from external factors. This was soon cleared up during the interview where I was able to collect a more detailed timeline of her lunchtime experience which revealed many factors that caused her to delay eating her lunch such as feeling unsafe from people playing games such as handball and people playing with a soccer ball as well as getting kicked out of the school building for eating, revealing many problems for people who want to find a place to simply sit and eat their lunch without being disrupted.

Using this information, an empathy map was created (which is attached to this post), including a possible solution for this problem which is dedicating some classrooms during lunch to be a 'club' where people can sit and eat without having to deal with people playing sports outside or the cold weather (this is also the solution I used for my final pitch).

Finally, using this empathy map, I completed the insight statement for my partner, using empathy to identify the significance of the problem.

Because I already had an idea in mind from part 1, the how might we questions I created (attached to this post) are very narrow, with them all basically implying the same idea or solution. However, using these questions, I was still able to think of many solutions during the 50 in 5 brainstorming activity. After, by using convergent thinking, I decided on my initial idea in part 1 for my pitch.

Throughout these lessons we did not encounter any major challenges, however, because we decided not to use tripods, some of our footage is a bit shaky meaning we may need to retake some of them.

We were also lucky enough to find a real possum on school grounds while recording allowing us to quickly find ways to incorporate and utilize this opportunity into our video.

Overall grade: A

I believe we did alright in this assignment. Despite our collective film and editing skills, I think our solution was effective in solving our problem and our presentation of this solution was also effective for conveying our idea to the audience. I agree with Mr Mewett in terms of our lack of research, however, we were not able to find many real statistics on possums and their impact on communities because this problem is often overlooked because it is realistically not a major or pressing issue compared to crime rates or construction issues.

Our video could be improved, mainly in terms of the video itself. One of the areas we lacked was editing and videography. We did not have this as a primary concern because videography was not in the rubric. However, increasing the video quality may have increased our collaboration grade. More research should also have been included to make the problem seem more prevalent. We could have made a google form to share to people who may have the same problem as a form of statistics since we couldn't find any online.

I believe we could have improved our pitch in various aspects overall. I believe we could have further elaborated the nuances of our solution and problem, more effectively allocating our time, however, compared to spin off project, I am sure we improved on the research aspect of the assignment.

For the upcoming weeks leading up to the innov8 expo, we plan to revise the solution, readjusting it to be better suited for our target audience and create more visual representations of our solution.

We are still deciding how we will be making the prototype of our machines considering the resources we have access to and time constraints. We plan to make the prototype the following week.

We also began developing our app to accompany our website. At first, we wanted to make an actual app however after some consideration, we decided to make the app on google sites while using canva for graphics because we were both more familiar with these than random app making apps.

As of now, we are on track to completing our objectives by the expo, however, we are still deciding on some nuances of our service such as if we are planning to retrofit existing gyms or create our own.

Because of this, we were able to finish and finalise most components of our presentation and were able to begin writing our 1 minute and 3 minute pitches which were easily accomplished by simply shortening our marketing pitch scripts.

We both tried to have clear communication, trying to utilise our different tones / speaking styles by allocating parts of the speech depending on which parts would best fit our speaking styles. For example, we collaboratively decided to let Alyssa explain the problem while I explained the solution.

Many people also did not recognise that we offered an app and website separately, so we adapted by adding those specifications in our 1 minute pitch.

Although we did not get into top 3, the expo was a unique experience allowing us to show and improve our 5Cs, using communication to convey our message as well as critical thinking when answering questions.