CreativityGenerating multiple solutions to a design problem requires creativity - playing with imagination and possibilities, leading to new connections and outcomes.

Psychological research has found no correlation between intelligence and creativity. People are creative because they make a conscious effort to think and act creatively.

Thoughts on Creativity

From Conceptual Blockbusting by James L. Adams

Properties of Creativity you can Cultivate

•Curiosity and tolerance of the unknown•Openness to new experiences

•Willingness to take risks

•Ability to both observe the details and see the whole picture

•Ability to concentrate and focus on the problem until it is solved

•No fear of problems

Teamwork

Creative solutions to technical problems are not solved by individuals but by teams of people representing different technical backgrounds bringing different perspectives to the problem.

Brainstorming is a proven technique to enhance the generation of creative ideas. It is the process of generating many ideas with the hope a few good ideas can be developed into a workable solution.

Rules of Brainstorming

•Accept everything

•Welcome the outlandish

•Stress the importance of quantity

•Build on and combine ideas

•Record everything for later evaluation

A great source for developing Creativity

• Conceptual Blockbusting by James L. Adams

• I only have one copy—each team gets it for 1 week?

• Gather in your teams for some brainstorming exercises

Ball in Pipe Problem• A 6” steel pipe is embedded in the

concrete floor of a room. The inside diameter is .06” larger than the diameter of a ping pong ball (1.5”) that is resting at the bottom of the pipe.

• You are 1 of 6 people in the room• List as many ways you can think of

removing the ball without damaging the pipe, floor, or room

• The following materials are also available:

Materials in Room

• 100’ of clothesline• A carpenters hammer• A chisel• A box of Wheaties• A file• A wire coat hanger• A monkey wrench• A light bulb …you have 3 minutes!

What thinking process did you use in working on the puzzle?

• Verbal? Visual? Mathematical? Kinesthetic?

• Conceptualization is the process by which one has ideas. It’s only one facet of problem solving, but the more creative concepts you have to choose from, the better.

• You can consciously try to work in areas you normally avoid

The natural response to a problem…

• get rid of it as quickly as possible• take the first answer that comes along• pursue this one (often faulty) answer to

the bitter end • Avoid spending the time and mental

effort needed to conjure up a richer storehouse of alternatives

• Result: a “Rube-goldberg” collection of complicated partial solutions

  Passing man (A) slips on banana peel (B) causing him to fall on rake (C).   As handle of rake rises it throws horseshoe (D) onto rope (E) which sags, thereby tilting sprinkling can (F).  Water (G) saturates mop (H).  Pickle terrier (I) thinks it is raining, gets up to run into house and upsets sign (J) throwing it against non-tipping cigar ash receiver (K) which causes it to swing back and forth and swish the mop against window pane, wiping it clean.

Other Rube Goldberg info

• Engineering competition: – http://www.marquette.edu/engineering/pages/Rube/

• Honda ad– http://stlplaces.com/honda.html

– http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/hondacog.asp

One Coin That's Not Like The Others

• How can you take eight coins, and determine which is the bogus, heavier coin, with just two weighings using a balance scale?

Conceptual blocks

• Mental walls that block the problem solver from correctly perceiving a problem or conceiving its solution.

• Everyone has them • Most of us are not aware of the extent

of our conceptual blocks. • Conceptual blocks are a kind of mental

inflexibility

Connect the 9 dots with only

3 (connected) straight lines

Perceptual Blocks

• Seeing what you expect to see; stereotyping • Difficulty isolating the problem • Tendency to delimit the problem too closely

• Inability to see the problem from various viewpoints

• Saturation – mind does not record details of much familiar information ex: telephone pad

• Failure to utilize sensory inputs (graphical and physical media)

• Tesla able to view and run his machines mentally, check for wear

Relativity, by M.C. Escher

Transportation Problem

• You have a fox, a chicken and a sack of grain. You must cross a river with only one of them at a time. If you leave the fox with the chicken he will eat it; if you leave the chicken with the grain he will eat it. How can you get all three across safely?

Emotional Blocks • Fear to make a mistake, to fail, to risk, or look

like an idiot (even animals get embarrassed)– You can shift into analytic mode to go beyond fear

• Judgment vs Generation – feeling superior through criticism

• Excessive zeal; over motivation to succeed quickly;– can only see one direction to go (ours)

• Inability to tolerate ambiguity; overriding desire for security, order, no appetite for chaos

• Cannot relax, incubate, "sleep on it." – The need to start tackling early

Hens• if a hen and a half lay an egg and

a half in a day and a half, how many hens does it take to lay six eggs in six days?

Cultural Blocks • Acquired by exposure to a set of cultural

patterns. Sometimes they get codified into law, and are not challenged as society changes.

• Taboos—solutions that require ripping up a dollar bill, destroying one card in a deck of cards

• Fantasy and reflection are waste of time, lazy, even crazy

• Playfulness is for children only • Reason, logic, number, utility, practicality are

good; feeling, intuition, qualitative judgments, pleasure are bad.

Primary vs Secondary Creativity

• Secondary Creativity -- Science as technique where uncreative people can create and discover by working along with a lot of other people and being cautious and careful and so on.

• Primary Creativity – creating something with no precedent, for example Crick and Watson’s DNA double helix, 1960’s U.S. space effort. Messy, intuition, dreams, visualization, etc.

• Funding is much easier for secondary creativity endeavors -- primary creativity is much more fun!