Starting Out

It will help you to know that inventiveness can be learned and improved.  Don’t worry if   you don’t feel too inventive now.  Some people are born very creative, but all of us can become MORE creative.  Creative thinking is a combination of skills which need to be practiced.  These skills have rarely been taught or even required in schools, so most of us aren’t aware of them and don’t realize we have them.

For instance, in 2 minutes think of as many uses for a rubber band as you can,  How could it be used by a giant, fleas and a bank robber?

If you thought of a half dozen ways to employ a thin circle of rubber, you have proved your inventiveness!

It may be difficult to begin creating “cold” and easier once the juices are flowing.  For instance, ask one half of the troop/group to think of any noun and say it aloud; say, “bug”.  Ask the other half of the girls to come up with any verb, say, “crunch”.  Now everyone must brainstorm an invention that will crunch bugs.  There are no limits to what can be imagined!

There is nothing hard or complex about these activities.  They are designed to be fun and use everyday materials and experiences.  What might be scary is their open-endedness.  There are no “right” answers and it is not important whether the products look good or are really useful.  The point is not what the girls create, but whether they learn HOW to create.  Learning a process, like sewing, is not harder than learning about products, like clothes.  But it is different and may take longer.  In the end, it is much more powerful.

 So learn and teach the process of inventing-its stages and techniques.  As you and the girls become more familiar and comfortable with the process, you will be more successful at it.  Success will mean that you all can: find problems and their parts, experiment, design, think of multiple solutions, make things, use tools, and explain how things work.  Remember that the girls must tackle problems themselves in order to learn how to solve problems.  Give up your role as answer-provider and give them some time to be messy and confused.  The stage of “not knowing what you’re doing” is vital and can’t be skipped.  We can only get better at finding our own ways.

Your attitude is crucial.  Let the girls see that you are learning too, and aren’t afraid to try new things or to explore thing you don’t understand.  Encourage them not to be frustrated with mistakes, and to try things more than once.  Be a role model for supportive ways to greet undeveloped ideas so that they may develop into good ideas.  At this age, girls are forming their attitudes about science, math and engineering.  Whether or not they now enjoy making a robot may affect their whole future.

Activity Hints:

A1.  Use your own gadgets or take the girls to a store to look.  Some examples: tea infuser, honey dripper, baster, garlic press, toggle bolt, and curtain rod holder.  Do not tell the girls what something is until they can think of no more questions or observations about it.  Then what must it be used for?  Let them try each out it possible.

A3.  Easy items to uncover are:  clock, faucet, doorknob, typewriter, car engine, toilet tank, telephone, or doorbell.  Possibilities to rip open that do not need to be put back together:  old baseball, damaged videotape, worn-out sneakers, broken appliances.  Like boys, girls need to be allowed to investigate and pry into things.  They need to see that things do no operate by magic.

A4   All items listed under #3 would work well here too.

B1   Sample tasks:  making a sandwich, brushing teeth, getting dressed, and setting the table.  The variables that can be changed are: materials/equipment, their arrangement, the space, and the interaction of people.

B2.  Examples:  windows too tall to reach, door sticks, pencil sharpener fills up with messy shaving, no place to put keys so that they don’t get lost.

C3.  Different cultures and social groups develop their own ways of doing tasks which we all have in common.  Discover these by visiting various communities: historical (museum demonstrations such as cooking over an open fire); ethnic, religious or racial (Greek bread or Ukrainian eggs for Easter, a Jewish Passover Seder); physically or developmentally disabled (rehab center that might have a kitchen usable by a person in a wheelchair).

C4.  Examples:  a water powered stereo, a giant ice cube maker, an all-in-one utensil that combines spoon, fork, and knife.

D3.  Instead of thinking about what these boxes look like, talk with the girls about how they are used and the problems with them.  Examples:  if your necklaces get tangled, make a tall jewelry box in which necklaces can hang on separate pegs; if you can’t  reach the mailbox, design one where mail falls out the bottom when you pull a string.

D4   Explain the term “marketing”.  Ask the girls to think about who they want to buy this product, and talk about where these consumers shop, what they buy, why they like those things, how much money they spend, etc.  The girls should be able to say how their ads appeal to these characteristics.

            Example:  Mouthwash ice cream, perfect for after –dinner or a late snack.  Appeals to those who want to save time and to those who want a sweet that’s good for you, so sold in expensive specialty stores.

D5.  Consult the bibliography for major inventors.  The internet is also a good spot to find more information on inventions and inventors.

Bibliography

Bailey, Joseph.  Small Inventions That Make a Big Difference, Washington DC:  National Geographic Society, 1984

Caney, Steven, Steven Caney’s Invention Book.  New York:  Workman Publishing, 1985.

Harris, Lattimore, Silverman & Wittels.  Inventions and Discoveries.  Dominguez Hills CA:  Educational Insights, 1986.

Panati, Charles.  Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things.  New York:  Harper & Row, 1987.

Stanish, Bob. The Unconventional Invention Book.  Carthage IL:  Good Apple, 1981.

Sylvester, Diane.  Inventions, Robots, Future.  Santa Barbara CA:  The Learning Works, 1984.

Leader’s Guide Designed by Sheila Garred, 1990.

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