Innovation is doing new things...
Adapting to changing environments?
Scaleable design?
Rapid prototyping?
Learning from failure?
Vertigo (if you're lucky?)
All of these on offer in the last Innovation Challenge of the term, "The Newspaper Table Challenge".
The Challenge
Students were challenged to build the tallest table constructed from newspaper provided that can support a ream of paper. The height is measured from the bottom of the newspaper table to the top. The entire weight of the ream must be carried only by the newspaper. Participants, in their mixed teams of 3, had to adapt to the difficulties posed by the increasing number of newspapers they were given at various points across the challenge.
Scaleable design?
Rapid prototyping?
Learning from failure?
Vertigo (if you're lucky?)
All of these on offer in the last Innovation Challenge of the term, "The Newspaper Table Challenge".
The Challenge
Students were challenged to build the tallest table constructed from newspaper provided that can support a ream of paper. The height is measured from the bottom of the newspaper table to the top. The entire weight of the ream must be carried only by the newspaper. Participants, in their mixed teams of 3, had to adapt to the difficulties posed by the increasing number of newspapers they were given at various points across the challenge.
Skills Takeaway
While the core skills of teamwork and negotiation are present here, as they are across all Innovation Challenges, the Newspaper Table Challenge gives you three particular skills that can prove extremely helpful in future, professional situations:
1. Adaptability... particularly in relation to unforeseen changes in environment, situation and circumstance
2. Creating scaleable design... moving quickly from theoretical and abstract concepts to defined material products develops your ability to visualise effectively, apply ideas to real-life situations and to evaluate success
3. Learning from Failure... particularly in relatively long-term time frames, in which learning from failure, re-evaluating and re-designing in light of mistakes made and lessons learned. This skill is critical to all professional and personal aspects of life, teaching you, among other things, about resilience, empathy and determination.
Reflection
Students are invited to submit a reflection on their method and procedures relating to the challenge and their learning outcomes. Winning is not the purpose of the Innovation Challenges: learning is. Reflecting on the aspects of the experience will give you the chance to realise that every experience, every success and failure, offers a chance to learn, improve and develop. The best reflection receives an award, and will be posted beneath each challenge.
Winning Student Reflection - Ulrike Dahms
It is usually the innovation challenge that impresses me the most out of the whole fothergill society, as I can always feel immediate amazement as I leave the challenge. I can confidently say that my skills regarding to team work and problem solving have developed in all the little challenges we did throughout the year more than anywhere else, every time I failed I gain so much more than just the satisfaction of winning. But this time I “won” and the model we designed didn’t fail its purpose. Maybe that’s the reason why I felt slightly disappointed about the challenge. Now, that I am reflecting on the challenge though, I realise I again learned, even if they are thing which are not that obvious.
First of all, I believe that our project went that well because we all used the knowledge we learned over the year about team work, prototyping, simplicity and even working with a limited amount of resources really well. Funnily, I can still remember myself at quite the beginning of the year in the ‘Toaster Box Challenge’. If there was an award for the most unproductive it would have definitely gone to me at that point, unable to really communicate my idea to the group (Or maybe the idea was that bad that my team members ignored me just to not hurt my feelings (actually everything makes sense to me now)) and as soon as the time pressure increased I got a little bit crazy so that I couldn’t do anything anymore other than hysterically laughing.
But now I look back I am really pleased to see such a development and how I can approach those challenge in a more efficient and less self-destructing way.
Furthermore, the stability of our ‘newspaper-table’ impressed me as well. After it could hold a massive book (probably textbook of psychology) we even tried if it could hold little Barbare. And it did. Only after we put me on that table it got totally scrunched up, but to be fair, even a table of wood would, joking. Anyway, I never thought that the newspaper we throw away everyday could be useful for such things as well. The combination of this innovation challenge and the Fothergill Society Platform “The NHS and the Business of Healthcare” made me think of how much we could make a difference if we would see the great potential in our everyday objects. In his talk David O’Regan made clear to me how expensive our medical treatments are and also the implements needed. For a fraction of his talk he swerved to a fellow Dr. in India who told him how cheap they can operate mainly because they use implements made out of flip flops and it works. On the one hand this really fascinated me, on the other hand I was a bit worried on why don’t we use old things and improve them to new old things instead of wasting the resources to produce new things over and over again to just throw them away. Just because we can? I think we already made a good progress with recycling waste in general but I know we can do better. New is not always better and maybe our high developed western countries should take an example on how countries like Indie do the best with what they have. And I know Ackworth School has many creative heads formed by Miss Speake which will find a way to create incredible stuff out of stuff you would possibly but in the bin.
To complete my reflection I can say, this innovation challenge gave me an opportunity to apply the skills I learned so far and the triumph over my fellow Jacob ‘Hodor’ Sowter (must have been quite embarrassing to see me and your sister win Sowter huh?). But what is probably even more important it made me think far more outside those 2 hours and maybe this challenge will be the trigger for me to change the world and create a cardiac pacemaker out of old Ackworth School’s tennis balls. Who knows?
Students are invited to submit a reflection on their method and procedures relating to the challenge and their learning outcomes. Winning is not the purpose of the Innovation Challenges: learning is. Reflecting on the aspects of the experience will give you the chance to realise that every experience, every success and failure, offers a chance to learn, improve and develop. The best reflection receives an award, and will be posted beneath each challenge.
Winning Student Reflection - Ulrike Dahms
It is usually the innovation challenge that impresses me the most out of the whole fothergill society, as I can always feel immediate amazement as I leave the challenge. I can confidently say that my skills regarding to team work and problem solving have developed in all the little challenges we did throughout the year more than anywhere else, every time I failed I gain so much more than just the satisfaction of winning. But this time I “won” and the model we designed didn’t fail its purpose. Maybe that’s the reason why I felt slightly disappointed about the challenge. Now, that I am reflecting on the challenge though, I realise I again learned, even if they are thing which are not that obvious.
First of all, I believe that our project went that well because we all used the knowledge we learned over the year about team work, prototyping, simplicity and even working with a limited amount of resources really well. Funnily, I can still remember myself at quite the beginning of the year in the ‘Toaster Box Challenge’. If there was an award for the most unproductive it would have definitely gone to me at that point, unable to really communicate my idea to the group (Or maybe the idea was that bad that my team members ignored me just to not hurt my feelings (actually everything makes sense to me now)) and as soon as the time pressure increased I got a little bit crazy so that I couldn’t do anything anymore other than hysterically laughing.
But now I look back I am really pleased to see such a development and how I can approach those challenge in a more efficient and less self-destructing way.
Furthermore, the stability of our ‘newspaper-table’ impressed me as well. After it could hold a massive book (probably textbook of psychology) we even tried if it could hold little Barbare. And it did. Only after we put me on that table it got totally scrunched up, but to be fair, even a table of wood would, joking. Anyway, I never thought that the newspaper we throw away everyday could be useful for such things as well. The combination of this innovation challenge and the Fothergill Society Platform “The NHS and the Business of Healthcare” made me think of how much we could make a difference if we would see the great potential in our everyday objects. In his talk David O’Regan made clear to me how expensive our medical treatments are and also the implements needed. For a fraction of his talk he swerved to a fellow Dr. in India who told him how cheap they can operate mainly because they use implements made out of flip flops and it works. On the one hand this really fascinated me, on the other hand I was a bit worried on why don’t we use old things and improve them to new old things instead of wasting the resources to produce new things over and over again to just throw them away. Just because we can? I think we already made a good progress with recycling waste in general but I know we can do better. New is not always better and maybe our high developed western countries should take an example on how countries like Indie do the best with what they have. And I know Ackworth School has many creative heads formed by Miss Speake which will find a way to create incredible stuff out of stuff you would possibly but in the bin.
To complete my reflection I can say, this innovation challenge gave me an opportunity to apply the skills I learned so far and the triumph over my fellow Jacob ‘Hodor’ Sowter (must have been quite embarrassing to see me and your sister win Sowter huh?). But what is probably even more important it made me think far more outside those 2 hours and maybe this challenge will be the trigger for me to change the world and create a cardiac pacemaker out of old Ackworth School’s tennis balls. Who knows?