Fostering Innovation and Creativity: Coupling an Inter-disciplinary Design Class with a National Design Competition in Rehabilitation and Assistive Devices

促进创新和创造力：将跨学科设计课程与全国康复和辅助器具设计竞赛结合起来

• 批准号: 1603892
• 负责人: T. Reid Bush
• 金额: $ 12.07万
• 依托单位: Michigan State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-15 至 2020-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1603892&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Fostering; Innovation; Creativity; Coupling; Inter

Students who have embraced, learned, and experienced the innovation process will be well prepared to become leading innovators. As part of this project, the PIs will expose students to the new product development process, implement activities to foster creativity, and apply these principles to designs of devices that support persons with disabilities. Further, to broaden the experiences of undergraduates across the nation, the PIs will sponsor a national design competition for the next three years at the annual Summer Biomechanics, Biotransport and Bioengineering Conference (SB3C) where projects from the design class will also be submitted. Companies like AT&T and American Express sponsor online creativity contests to inspire innovation, additionally, crowdfund platforms like Kickstarter have ideas compete to win funding. Organizations are using competitions to drive innovation and foster creativity within their own workforces; a similar approach is proposed here for undergraduate students. There are two primary goals for this work: 1) to foster innovation and creativity in an undergraduate design course at the PI's university through a new educational model, and 2) to provide three-years of support for a national design competition in the area of rehabilitation and assistive devices for undergraduates. The competition will help drive innovation in classes across the nation and then allow students and their mentors to showcase their products. The intellectual merits of this proposal are in the implementation of a new approach for teaching design innovation through fostering creativity by implementing independent discovery, creative thinking skills, a motivational component in the form of a competition, and demonstrating the need and benefit of having an inter-disciplinary team. The motivational component is tied both to the design class and to the national undergraduate competition presented in this proposal. The PIs will implement a new teaching model in an existing Biomechanical Design class with the goal of fostering creativity. This will occur through a four component approach including: 1) expertise through discovery, 2) creative thinking, 3) motivation and 4) an appreciation for team diversity. As part of the motivation component, we will hold an in-class competition, and also enter student teams into the national undergraduate design competition held at SB3C. In addition, the Undergraduate Design Competition in Rehabilitation and Assistive Devices is a national competition, open to all undergraduate design teams who have developed devices to support rehabilitation or provide assistance to individuals with disabilities. With support for this competition, undergraduate student teams and their advisors from across the nation will have a component of motivation for their course innovations. A cohort of faculty, selected by the PI, who have design experience, will review and score the abstract submissions. Based on these scores, the top six teams (approximately 30 students and their mentors) will be invited to attend the conference and present their device, design, and business case at a special podium session. All other entries will be invited to the conference as poster presentations. By promoting innovation and creativity in the classroom, students will be better positioned for the highly competitive job market; the students exposed to this class and the national competition will not only have an additional set of skills, but they will have a project with a functional prototype to demonstrate as an outcome. Also, societal benefits will occur through the production of a cohort of students who are mindful of the need for diversity in the innovation process, and who are aware of the needs for persons with disabilities.

接受、学习和体验创新过程的学生将为成为领先的创新者做好充分准备。作为这个项目的一部分，pi将向学生展示新产品开发过程，实施活动以培养创造力，并将这些原则应用于帮助残疾人的设备设计。此外，为了扩大全国本科生的经验，pi将在未来三年的年度夏季生物力学，生物运输和生物工程会议（SB3C）上赞助全国设计竞赛，设计班的项目也将提交。美国电话电报公司（at&t）和美国运通（American Express）等公司赞助在线创意竞赛来激发创新，此外，Kickstarter等众筹平台也有创意竞赛来赢得资金。组织正在利用竞争来推动创新，培养员工的创造力；这里为本科生提出了一个类似的方法。这项工作有两个主要目标：1)通过一种新的教育模式，在PI所在大学的本科设计课程中培养创新和创造力；2)为本科生康复和辅助设备领域的全国设计竞赛提供三年的支持。这项比赛将有助于推动全国课堂的创新，然后让学生和他们的导师展示他们的产品。这一建议的智力优势在于，它采用了一种新的方法来教授设计创新，通过实施独立发现、创造性思维技能、竞赛形式的激励成分来培养创造力，并展示了建立一个跨学科团队的必要性和好处。激励因素与本提案中提出的设计课程和全国大学生竞赛有关。pi将在现有的生物力学设计课程中实施一种新的教学模式，以培养创造力。这将通过四个组成部分的方法来实现，包括：1)通过发现获得专业知识，2)创造性思维，3)动机和4)对团队多样性的欣赏。作为激励的一部分，我们将举办一场班级竞赛，并让学生团队参加在SB3C举行的全国大学生设计竞赛。此外，大学生康复和辅助设备设计比赛是一项全国性的比赛，面向所有开发出支持康复或为残疾人提供帮助的设备的大学生设计团队。有了这项比赛的支持，来自全国各地的本科生团队和他们的导师将有动力进行课程创新。由PI挑选的一批具有设计经验的教师将对提交的摘要进行审查和评分。根据这些分数，前六名团队（大约30名学生和他们的导师）将被邀请参加会议，并在一个特别的讲台上展示他们的设备、设计和商业案例。所有其他参赛作品将被邀请参加会议作为海报展示。通过在课堂上促进创新和创造，学生将在竞争激烈的就业市场中处于更好的位置；参加本课程和全国竞赛的学生不仅会获得额外的技能，而且还会有一个带有功能原型的项目来作为成果进行演示。此外，通过培养一批意识到创新过程中需要多样性并意识到残疾人需要的学生，将产生社会效益。