Friday Question 3/2 Where Do Ideas Come From? Creative Problem ...

The SCAMPER list of techniques is very helpful for those who want to make their first draft of an object, service, or product into something better. One can use SCAMPER to substitute their idea with something else, combine it with another idea, adapting it to whatever is possible, modifying or magnifying it to something better, put it to another use, eliminate something that may be wrong, or reversing it or rearranging it.

I will be using Judy?s invention, the SleepPen, to demonstrate how one of SCAMPER?s technique can be used. The technique I will be applying to the SleepPen is the modifying/magnifying technique. After reading Judy?s description on her SleepPen idea, I automatically thought of many possible things that can be modified to further enhance the pen?s true capabilities. The pen has a lot of ?space? for it to be changed around to make it a pen that will be greatly useful for a lot of people, not just students or business people.

One thing that can be modified is the ?taking the important notes? function. This function can be tricky if you think about it. What are important class notes? There is no definite meaning for important notes because it varies from person to person. One may think that every word the professor says is important, while the other may think that the words or sentences that the professor puts emphasis on, are the important notes. It call comes down to the person who?s using the pen. So how can we modify it? We can program that function into picking up certain speaking tones of the professor. If the professor is not speaking passionately about certain things, then the pen can skip over those notes and not write it down for the sleeping note-taker. If the professor is speaking like he?s really into the subject, then the pen should proceed to take down the notes. Or, this ?taking the important notes? function can also be modified further more! Users have the option to install a digital version of the notes that the professor will be speaking about. This version of the notes can be provided by the professors themselves, or provided by the textbook?s company. With this installed, if the user falls asleep or dozes off, the SleepPen will be able to follow along, and take down the most important notes according to the professor or according to the textbook?s version of notes.

Another thing that can be modified is the way the pen looks. According to Judy?s description of her SleepPen idea, we don?t have a clear picture of how the pen will look like. But I think we can modify the image of the pen according to some of the things she had said. If the pen has the option to record the speaker?s voice, the recording part of the pen should be situated at the tip of the pen. The way we hold our pen is at the base, towards the point of the pen, so if we put the recording part of the pen there, our fingers would be in the way of the recording, which would bring about muffled sounds or weird shuffling noises.

Also, how would the overall image of the pen look like? Will it look like a regular ballpoint pen, or will it look like a fountain pen type of writing utensil? If we modify the pen to look like a regular ballpoint pen, it may not hold a lot of the functions that the pen promises that it?ll do, like being a recording device along with being an automatic note taker, and also having the ability to sense that the user is asleep! For all those functions to work, a sort of small computer device must be inside the pen itself, so that the pen will perform all those things. So for all those abilities to fit into one, compressed object is hard. We must think of the SleepPen as a small computer device. So making the SleepPen look like a fountain pen would be the best bet. A fountain pen definitely looks bigger than a regular ballpoint pen, thus it?ll be able to hold the computer parts that will tell the pen what to do and so on.

This pen can also be further modified to fit the uses of the general public. One can add or take away certain functions to fit the needs of the user. So those who are visually impaired can request for the pen to do all the writing for them. They can ask the SleepPen company or salesperson to insert their personal details and other things into the pen, so when the time comes for the impaired to fill out forms or write, the pen can automatically do that for them. Or if toddlers are at the stage where they?re beginning to learn the basics of writing, this SleepPen is also very beneficial for them. The pen can be modified to include writing tutorials for the toddlers. So the pen will have a life of its own, it?ll be able to guide the child?s hand when writing a certain letter of the alphabet or writing a word. It will also repeat the word or letter that it just wrote, so that the child can see and also hear what they are writing. This function can be modified yet again to include help in foreign language as well. So this will be very helpful to those who are learning a new language, or for those who are ESL students.

This SCAMPER technique definitely made my imagination go wild.? Some of them may be hard to interpret, but the point of this SCAMPER technique is to get one?s brain working, to see which area of their object, service, or idea can be modified to work better than it already does.

Source: http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/marylouisepenaz/2012/03/05/friday-question-32-2/

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