CHAPTER ONE Design Thinking and Identifying a Problem Have you ever had an idea so great it could solve a problem for you or someone else Maybe your idea could make someone’s life easier or better Makers have these ideas all the time they even design and build some of them Being a maker is cool and can lead you into the world of professional designers called engineers And if you get good at electronics you may want to explore the field of electrical engineering Are you the type of person who wonders how electricity makes fan blades move Or how the batteries in a flashlight make the light come on You can use electric components to solve a problem in your own life One of the cool things about electronic experiments is that solutions can be simple or complex the difficulty will depend on your design and your experience level with electronics If you are new to electronics you may start by solving problems with a simple circuit and a switch Once you have a lot of experience with electronics you might build a sensor that transmits a signal over the internet 4
As you work through this book balance your electronics skills against the invention you want to create 5
The design problem we will use in this book is How do I keep my snooping sibling out of my stuff Do you wish you had a way to keep something private You know your stuff the things that you consider treasures private Maybe you have a diary drawings or a special toy that you’d like to keep private You could complain to your parents that someone has been snooping in your stuff again Or you could take matters into your own hands and invent a solution Engineers call this a design problem Everyone’s special stuff is different and will require different techniques to secure Makers engineers and problem solvers often use a specific way of organizing thoughts around solving a design problem In the world of designers and inventors this system is called design thinking A very innovative company called IDEO first created design thinking as a method of solving problems Now people all over the world use design thinking to improve inventions activities and even schools An important 6
Design thinking can help find ways to improve the things you use every day How might you improve a bicycle 7
