Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

Check out a fun tool that helps get your creative juices flowing and into a design-thinking mindset - useful in many careers, especially engineering! Protobot generates a product idea by matching a random product category with a random constraint.

Try it

On your own:

1. Go to Protobot.

2. Set a timer for 10 minutes.

3. Select “Randomize” and do as many as you can in 10 minutes. Feel free to skip through the ideas.

4. For each idea, explain your design and include a quick description of a person who would use it.

5. As a bonus, draw a “napkin” sketch of your ideas. Include a link to it that is “public”.
   

Or, in pairs or a small group:

1. Go to Protobot.

2. Take turns selecting “Randomize”. The person who selects decides if the group will sketch or act out the idea. Set a timer for 2 minutes.

3. Compare the different ways you interpreted the idea.

4. After a few rounds, provide 3 examples that your group did and, in the text box, explain how the people in your group interpreted the idea.