| October 31, 2005 Vol. 77,
no. 10F
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| IMAGINEERING
:Berkeley Innovation members brainstorm
ways to make it easier — and less gross — to take
out the trash. (Photo Credit: Rachel Jackson)
|
The what-if-you-could
club
Berkeley Innovation helps engineers tap into their creative side
Berkeley Innovation always begins with an annoying problem. This particular
evening, the issue is taking out the trash. Fourteen members of the
two-year-old club congregate in a loft-like space in Hearst Mining Building.
They’re given large pieces of butcher paper and color markers.
“For tonight’s brainstorm, we’re doing something
new called ‘Nine Windows,’” ME graduate student Jonathan
Hey tells members. “Creative people tend to think naturally in
time and space, so this is to remind you to do that.” The group
breaks into teams to brainstorm: What are the problems and solutions
associated with taking out the trash before, during, and afterward,
around and within the trashcan, and the trash itself?
Soon members (half of whom are engineers) are scribbling on the butcher
paper, making sketches or writing out their thoughts. The energy in
the room rises, people gesture and laugh, they lean over the paper,
and ideas begin to flow.
Berkeley Innovation’s goal is to produce innovative solutions
that improve student lives in and around Berkeley. While the club is
fundamentally about making ideas happen, it also emphasizes learning
the process of creating good ideas. As on this evening, it periodically
holds brainstorming sessions just to practice brainstorming. Sometimes
those ideas become full-fledged projects. The group’s biggest
project to date has been a tracking system for campus shuttle buses,
which is now in the prototype testing phase.
“In engineering courses, you focus mainly on product analysis
and construction of products. I wanted to learn to understand user needs,
the not-so-technical side of design,” says ME junior Vivek Rao.
“That’s why I joined.” Rao is currently heading up
a project to redesign dorm recycling bins. He surveyed dorm residents
and spent time there to fully understand their recycling needs.
Part of what makes the club unique is its “anything goes”
environment; imaginations range far and wide, unbound. At tonight’s
brainstorm, there’s an idea to install a carnivorous trashcan,
a garbage-eating animal, so you don’t have to take out the trash.
There’s a garbage chute from kitchen to dumpster. There’s
trash that dissolves in water, trash that can be nuked in the microwave,
a trash “purse” to make it easier to carry out the trash.
One of the ideas that received lots of “oohs” and “aahs”
was a self-compressing garbage bag that compacts the trash and makes
a small, neat bundle to carry out. All these ideas in just over an hour.
“I joined because it is one of the few clubs on campus that actually
produces something,” says Charlene Choi, an MSE/ChemE junior,
after the brainstorm. “It’s fun and applied.”
For more information, go to http://innovation.berkeley.edu.
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