ASHESI D:LAB MAKER’S SKILL SESSION
November 13, 2017
The session, which run on the 10th Of November 2017, featured GN Electronics Health Kiosk Team led by Nutifafa. They used the session to try to get acquainted o using the 3D printers in order to print future models of their project.
The session began by Nicholas, the lab technician, giving a brief overview of what 3D printing is. He ran through the various parts and what they did,mentioning the stepper motors, which are what help in the printing process. He then gave a brief overview of how the printer works. The 3D printer works in a three coordinate system, x, y and z. Three motors handle movement in the three directions. He sent us through the the steps of using the printer.
The session centered around calibrating the 3D printer and testing it out to design simple shapes. Join us next week, as we take this a step further, to design a model of the health kiosk.
CONTENT SERIES: CARD SORTING
November 13, 2017
This week’s content series centers around card sorting, one of the techniques of design thinking. This is a build up from last week’s topic, “Research Framing”, here’s a link to last week’s presentation https://ashesidesign.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/research-framing/ . Today’s presenter, Gumiso, is no stranger to YouTube content series presentation, today is her second time presenting.
Card sorting is a an exercise to try to make sense of a problem. The research stage ends with the researchers having random pieces of information. They now have to sift through it in order to make sense of the problem, to look at the bigger picture. That is where card sorting comes in. Card sorting is a form of making sense of chaos. “It is a simple technique in user experience design where a group of people are guided to create categories of problems.
There are two types; Open card sorting and closed card sorting. In open card sorting the participants create their own categories group the data into them. Closed card sorting, on the other hand involves the participants grouping the data in predetermined categories.
The main importance of card sorting is that it allows data to be grouped into themes, which provides a focus for the researcher to work on in the project. Gumiso then gave a practical demonstration of the card sorting exercise on the problem of unemployment.
That is all for content series today. Join us next week as we continue the series with Prototyping.
RESEARCH FRAMING
October 31, 2017
Presenter: Thomas Nana Kwantwi
Welcome back to another week of design lab fun-filled activities. Today’s content series was a special affair, a new format was rolled out, where a video presentation is done and uploaded onto YouTube. The pioneer of this format is Thomas Nana Kwantwi, a freshman, who presented on Research Framing.
Design thinking represents a revolution in in how people look at problems and solve them, and that is what excites the presenter, Thomas. He spoke about how the design thinking process was used in the gaming industry in the United states, where the game design went through various stages of customer testing before it came out.
Research and Re-framing: It is broken into two; the need for re-framing, and the research tools. The importance of research was to find different angles to view a problem. This brought about the three main views of looking at a problem:
Spy plane view: This involves working on a broader space, large range of possible outcomes, with the best solutions taking time to come out.
Bullseye view: Involves narrow path taking and on spot conclusion,
Helicopter view: Manageable space, Concise but informative, Not broad, not too narrow, this is what is generally used in the design thinking process.
Processing for reframing questions;
Before factors: what occurs before the problem sets in
During fators: What occurs during the problem
After factors: What happens after the problem
This is using the helicopter view. The above methods of re-framing questions are used in the helicopter view, to get the most information at the stage.
Thomas then spoke about the the methodologies used in research:
Ethnographic research: Developed as a method of research of cultures through total immersion in the target research population. The methods used for ethnographic research are:
Depth interview
Observational shadowing
Immersion
Experiment
Diary methods
Abductive Reasoning; Using logical reasoning to reach conclusions about a problem. The three types; Deductive logic, Inductive Logic, Abductive Logic. The best type to be used in design thinking is abductive logic because it leads to multiple solutions to a problem.
Find below the link to the video on YouTube:
ASHESI D:LAB MAKER SKILLS SESSIONS
October 12, 2017
This week’s maker skills session featured Mathew Ndekudugu, a freshman who is on the path to being a great innovator. Mathew and Christian Bagaya are currently working on a product which regulates body temperature Mathew realized that there was a problem of coping with the extreme heat and cold on the African continent. So, he carried out extensive research to find out the current solutions to that problem. He looked to Western countries and Japan, where they had some products in line with what he wanted to do. He saw that they had jackets with fans in them. But those jackets were too bulky, so he and Christian are trying to find some innovative ways of making the product smaller and more affordable.
His prototype, which consisted of them using ice cubes and a fan to generate cool air and allow it to circulate, was not available but he gave a vivid description of it. He was asked a lot of questions by the audience, about his customer research, other technologies and the practical application of the product. He said they spoke with people who were enthusiastic about the product, but decided to start testing it out in Ghana first, before rolling into other African countries. He was also advised to look into the technology used in heating blankets and its possible application in the product.
Mathew has come up with a great idea and a great product, so join us next Friday, 6th October, as we help him build a prototype for it . This has been another maker skills session brought to you by the Design lab.
ASHESI D:LAB MAKER SKILLS SESSIONS (PART 2)
October 12, 2017
Students joined the Ashesi D:Lab on Friday the 6th of October 2017 at the engineering workshop for the Maker skills session. We joined Matthew and his partner Christian as they showed us what they envisioned their product to be.
The lab assistant, Nicholas, first took us through some safety tips to adhere to whiles using the workshop. He stressed the importance of being aware of your surroundings at all times. He also spoke about the protective clothing it was advisable to wear at all times in the workshop, gloves when working with some cutting machines, and the face gear which was advisable to wear at all times. He then demonstrated how some of the machines worked. He was especially excited to show us the C.N.C mills, which are able to accept measurement as data and use those measurement to build a shape from a metal placed in them. He then told us there are more resources available in the workshop to aid students who have projects which required building stuff, so we should make use of them.
After Nicholas was done, Matthew and Christian displayed the prototype of their product and showed as the general concept of how they wanted it to work. They envisioned the final project as being a jacket with an inbuilt temperature regulation system, which circulates hot or cold air, based on the weather. The cold air was going to be produced by hydrogen gels, which is a naturally cool compound whiles the hot air was going to be produced by nichrome wire which had electric current passing through it. They gave a demonstration of how the fans were going to circulate the air, and to be honest it worked really well.
After Matthew and Christian finished with their presentation, Fafa pitched a project he and another team had been working on, in hopes of getting new members on board from among the participants in the maker session. His project was a health kiosk which would have equipment in them for individuals to check their health vitals. Now these have the long term aim of reducing the time which was spent in lines in hospitals, waiting for vitals to be checked.
We wish Matthew and Christian all the best as they begin to design the product, the D:Lab will continue to support them with resources and consulting sessions. Join us next time as we assist another maker realize their vision.
DESIGN LAB CONTENT SERIES: USING YOUTUBE TO POSTS TO MOTIVATE GOOD PRESENTATIONS
September 28, 2017
This week’s D-Lab content series featured Two amazing personalities who each spoke about their experience doing a social media presentation, on YouTube to be precise. They were Yoofi and Gumiso.
Yoofi:
He came by the content series to give us some tips on how to be good presenters, especially on social media. He first began by stressing the importance of preparation for your presentation. Since he gave a live presentation he realized that he could not leave room for errors, so he took his research seriously. He also highlighted the importance of using slides in a live YouTube presentation, to which a participant, Fafa, asked whether it would not have been more engaging to use a board and marker. He replied by saying a board and marker is good for in-class presentations, but it was not recommended for a video presentation because it may not be visible in the video. He was also asked about the selection process to which he replied that since they were the pioneering group, they were just selected in class, but subsequent ones were more open.
One takeaway from Yoofi’s talk was that social media presentations were an excellent way to grow one’s social media presence, it could be added to your profile on LinkedIn, increasing one’s chances at building connections.
Gumiso:
Gumiso spoke about her experience presenting in a YouTube video. She had a wonderful time doing her presentation. Her interest in presenting came up during her time as a participant in the D-Lab Content Series. She watched the design lab fellows come and present week after week and that inspired her to try it out. She presented on the concept of card sorting.
She took her experience from in-class activities and previous content series to aid her in the presentation. She was asked how one could also be chosen to present and she replied saying “You just have to show interest and be enthusiastic in your participation in D-Lab events”.
Gumiso and Yoofi showed us that anyone could be a good presenter as long as they had the interest and the confidence. This has been another content series brought to you by the Design Lab.
USING DESIGN THINKING TO PURSUE YOUR PASSION: JOBE WUYEH
September 10, 2017
The D:Lab Content series kicked of the semester with a presentation from our own Jobe Wuyeh ‘19 on the topic “Using Design Thinking To Pursue Your Passion”. Jobe, a senior at Ashesi loves applying design thinking concepts to everyday problems. He has a deep passion for farming and has started to use design thinking methods to solve problems. Jobe, with some of his friends are running a venture, GamFruits, based in his home country.
He comes from Gambia and he told us a little about his time growing up, sharing stories of his childhood and how his family nurtured his love for farming. In his native country, Guinea, he encountered problems, which at the time, he did not know how to resolve. He viewed problems as adversities. He questioned why rice was imported into his country when they had the resources to produce it for themselves. He also wondered why the young people in Guinea mostly shied away from farming and searched for ‘greener’ pastures elsewhere. According to him, all that changed when he came to Ashesi.
At Ashesi, he learned that problems were not adversities as he formerly thought, but rather opportunities for innovation. He embraced the design thinking concept as a tool to solve problems around him. According to him he made the error of trying to fix the problem quickly, but through design thinking workshops and FDE classes he realized that for one to solve a problem, one first has to understand it. He therefore came to the conclusion that “the purpose of design thinking was to generate solutions to stand the test of time”. With that in mind, he decided to work on a solution to the problem in his home country.
After initially thinking that people shied away from farming just because of the meagre income associated with it, Jobe realized that that was not the whole story. Remember, he wanted to create a solution that would stand the test of time. He pivoted and realized that the main problem was farming has been totally ignored in the educational system, and in some cases it is now viewed as something negative because it was used as a form of punishment. Jobe decided to focus on increasing food security, producing and selling healthy foods and making farming lucrative for young people. His solution was a farm which centered around producing food, providing an opportunity to kids in school to have some practicals on the farm and provide a platform for farmers to air their grievances. So, it was after he had gone through the design thinking process before he was able arrive at such a comprehensive solution.
So, he had this cool idea, but what could he do about it? He was fortunate to meet Mrs. Esther Armah, who gave him a piece advice which shaped his solution further. She said if you have something to do, you should ‘do what you can, with what you have, where you are’. This was important to him because his solution was for a problem he wanted to solve in his home country but he didn’t his being in Ghana stop him. He was unable to go to the Gambia to start implementing his solution, without affecting his education. So, he looked inwardly and asked himself, “What can I do now?”. That was when he realized he could build a website, so he built one which served as a platform to recruit members for Gamfruits and to raise funds also. We wish Jobe and his friends well and we hope Gamfruits does very well.
This has been another week of D:Lab content series, hope you enjoyed it. See you again next week.
D:LAB MOBILE SUMMER PRESENTATION AND HANGOUT 2017 AT INNOHUB
July 17, 2017
The D:Lab organized its annual D:Lab Mobile Summer Presentation and Hangoutat InnoHub, East Legon last Friday 14th July, 2017 . Students shared insights and wonderful thoughts on the projects they are working on this summer.
The event space was sponsored by InnoHub, a Business Accelerator and Impact Investment Platform that helps SMEs with high growth and high impact potential to become investment ready, sustainable, and scalable in order to achieve profitability and social impact. Learn more about InnoHub here. We had the CEO of InnoHub, Nelson Amo grace the occasion.
Event details
What? D:Lab Mobile Summer Presentation and Hangout
When? Friday, July 14th 2017 from 2:00-4:00 pm
Where? InnoHub, East Legon.
STUNNING VECTOR GRAPHICS WITH ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR
February 24, 2017
Did you know that a majority of the posters made in the D: Lab were created using Adobe Illustrator?
This Friday Youssouf Da Silva, gave simple tutorials on how to use this tool to visualise our creativity.
Adobe Illustrator is one of the world’s most popular professional vector software. Adobe Illustrator can be used in creating icons, sketches, typography among other vector art.
CGI MODELLING & MOTION GRAPHICS
February 17, 2017
This session exposed students to the world of CGI Animation with two makers from Bloom !nteractive, Mohamed Hanif Abdulai ’15 and Edmund Nsiah, a CGI artist.
3D MODELING WITH SKETCH UP
February 10, 2017
In prototyping and product development, it is very useful to 3D model your ideas as a first step to creating your test prototype which could even be a 3D printed model. 3D Modelling with SketchUp Make is a useful skill in visualising product ideas and this was the essence of the session led by Carl Agbenyega.
CONTENT SERIES – CARD SORTING
February 6, 2017
How everyone perceives information is different and our brain puts the different information it is presented with into different categories. Card sorting is one tool we can use to actually see how our brains divide different kinds of information into different classes.
“Card sorting can be applied to all disciplines, be it planning for daily activities, or that you want to find out how people think your content should be organized and to get user insights before making certain decisions.”
The speaker, Gumiso Chisi is an ambitious and goal orientated lady who believes in equal opportunities. She also believes that economics shapes today’s world and will continue to shape the future. To her, economics and creativity are an important combination, thus, her love for design thinking. “It seems that design thinking spans across every discipline and should be a number one starter pack to any project. When I am not engulfed in planning my future business endeavors I cook and bake, read novels, swim or listen to music.”
During the session, different teams of students were given a set of cards and had to put these into categories which were appropriate.Though the same cards were given to each team, they came up with were completely different categories with different names.”It is not easy and some of the words seem not to fit into any of the classes we have created” said one of the students, when asked to describe how the process was like.
CONTENT SERIES -“OBSERVATION VS. INTERPRETATION”
January 30, 2017
What? The Design Thinking Content Series powered by the Ashesi D:Lab
Speaker? Francisca Adu
Francisca Adu, a freshman spoke about the importance of observation and interpretation as part of the design thinking process. She highlighted the fact that, identifying a problem which is the gateway to problem-solving actually starts with observation and the ability to tell what the information gathered means. She wants to impact this knowledge in other people so that they will be more critical about their environment as the solution to problems is all around.
She says “I’ve always been passionate about the concept of Economics and its disciplines. At Ashesi, I aspire to obtain a degree in Business Administration so that I can support many aspects of businesses in Ghana, especially solving complex business problems in accounting, finance, marketing and human resource that would be useful into boosting economic growth in the country. If I’m not busy being fascinated by economic issues, I’m either dancing or watching series.”
She belives design thinking is very important and can help absolutely anyone to be more creative at not just solving problems but performing little task on a daily basis. Design Thinking is part of the Foundation of Design and Entrepreneurship course students take to help boost their problem solving skills. This mostly takes place in the design lab which is a creative space where students can explore even outside of class; come up with projects and basically develop their creative prowesses. Sessions like the Content Series gives students the opportunity to tell people about a topic or idea they find interesting while the maker sessions help students to do hands on activities like building applications and solar powered batteries.
Francisca says”I really appreciate the design thinking process because it’s challenged me to be broad-minded when finding solutions to problems and how to be innovative and creative in this process. What is even more fascinating about this process is that you’d always arrive at a consensus that would serve as a stepping stone for the subsequent processes.”
CONTENT SERIES: OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS VS CLOSED-ENDED QUESTIONS IN DESIGN THINKING RESEARCH
January 23, 2017
Melinawo Vowotor’s bio: I belong to Ashesi University’s second batch of aspiring engineers. I am currently in affiliation (CEO) to an FDE venture called “Frozen Inc.” that seeks to find sustainable ways of preventing the losses of food incurred during power outages. I love sports, movies, photography and especially music and Game of Thrones! I believe design thinking is the foremost approach to handling any situation be it a problem to solve or a dilemma to tackle, and that the school of thought surrounding it encourages me and other like-minded people to challenge ourselves and face the problems all around us.
GLOBAL GAME JAM ’17 @ ASHESI
January 20, 2017
From the 20th to the 22nd of January, freshman Kevin Kwasi de Youngster led the Global Game Jam 2017 event at Ashesi. The Global Game Jam is an international event and by far the largest, where game enthusiasts come together to develop a game over a weekend. To make things more interesting, participants had to make the game based on a theme that was disclosed at the start of the event. This year’s theme was ‘waves’. The Ashesi team worked on an arcade game, Tagetti. Download and play Tagetti here.
FIRST EXPEDITION TO THE ASHESI FARM
January 20, 2017
Content:
To kick start the Farm Modelling Project, the farm team will be taking a trip to the Ashesi Farm. Come and join us as we explore the future of this project for the semester.
– Ashesi Farm
OPENING UPDATE AND PARTY SESSION FOR FELLOWS
January 18, 2017
This event was a closing event for the fall semester’s activities and opening party for the spring semester! Fellows gave short presentations on their achievements over the fall semester.
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