General Information

Development of this course was supported by a joint award from the National Science Foundation, the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1992. One purpose of the award was to simulate collaborative learning experiences among students and faculty from a variety of backgrounds. A major objective of our proposal was to prepare modules for dissemination and use in other courses; each module would involve students in an actual invention or design activity supplemented by readings, discussion and reflections on the problem-solving process. Therefore, the course is a kind of continuing experiment, offered every spring since 1992 with different modules and activities. We are grateful to the Lemelson Foundation for supporting a number of these changes, and for encouraging our students to take their invention ideas beyond the classroom. We will be trying a number of ways of assessing how well the materials are working, and will ask for your assistance in this endeavor.

Texts and Other Supplies

• Norman, Donald (1993) Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine. NY: Addison-Wesley. REQUIRED
• Additional readings will be made available, the majority of which are on the web and are linked off the syllabus.

In addition to these texts, you will each be allowed to spend no more than $20 for materials in any one module. We have some materials for the first, telephone module which you will be allowed to use: wire, batteries, magnets, etc. Sign-up with Evan Edwards to get access. We have a limited budget to purchase additional higher-priced materials for students that want to build prototypes for modules (depending on funding availability from the Lemelson Foundation ).

Objectives

In addition to specific information in readings and cases, we would like you to learn at least some of the following:

• Successful styles or methods of invention and design
• That innovation is an iterative process
• How to keep an invention notebook
• How to reflect on, and improve, individual and group problem-solving processes
• How to present and defend both the group's product and the process by which it was created

Questions to Consider

• Are design and invention mysterious, or can they be studied and taught?
• Is design an art or a science?
• Has the design process changed significantly since the 19th-century?
• How do we make products commercially successful?
• How does the idea of new technology apply in different countries such as Third World countries 

Course Structure

Overall, the course revolves around three active learning modules that pose an invention or design problem students are asked to work together to solve. The first module, based on the invention of the telephone, attempts to teach you how to invent. The second module models the design of a Third World Country (Tier 4 Market) consumer product.  The third module gives you a chance to apply what you have learned in the first and second modules by continuing your new technology or inventing new idea of your own that can apply to a Tier 4 Market. You will incorporate ethical or environmental sustainability components in the design for the third module.  Thus three related themes flow throughout the course: Environmentalism, Entrepreneurship, and Ethics.

Resource Page

Most, if not all, of the links to the class can be found on this page. As a supplement to the course syllabus, there is also a TCC315 Resource Page containing all of the class links and other relevant links and resources that may prove useful throughout the semester. Here you will find extensive information on invention & design as well as information regarding the two Active Learning Module projects. These links are continually being updated--please let us know when you encounter dead ones!

Major Assignments: Active Learning Modules

1. In the telephone module, this will be a patent application and prototype for an improvement on Bell's original telephone patent. The telephone module will also require a caveat as a preliminary report on your invention activity.
2. In the second module, you will develop a prototype of a consumer product for a Tier 4 Market and business plan for this project preparing for a Preliminary Design Review.
3. In the sustainable technology module, the end product will be a proposal to the Lemelson Foundation for funding for your invention project.

• Students will also be required to keep a journal throughout the semester. This journal should document your problem-solving process, responses to readings throughout the semester, and your group process; this notebook can be collected AT ANY TIME!  Text in the journal should be of your personal thoughts, and not just an encyclopedia entry of what happened.  "First we did this, then we did that, and finally we did this.  The readings said this, that, and the other" is not what the journal is intended for. It instead should cover what you thought about the readings - or how you agree or disagree - what you think about the group work process, and what your thoughts on inventions and designs are.
• Please make note that Group Memos that will be due EVERY THURSDAY. These memos include your group progress, action items, and future work.