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Charrette Done!

It has finally ended…three days ago that is. The focus was on connections and making meaning. I’d just write about what we did, but after watching the other presentations I realize we went a different direction than the rest.

It began with everyone bringing in an object that was meaningful to them. I brought in my pocket knife. I’ve always loved knives for the same reason as I love bikes, their simplicity. This one was with me throughout my time in Peace Corps as well so it has helped me through some crazy times. My other group members brought in a disposable lighter, some old silver rings and a tea infuser. We were suppose to develop a shared meaning among other things. We wrote our answers on cards and turned them in. Key words from our answers were given back to us to make connections. Our  words included

  • Future
  • Peaceful
  • Accomplish
  • Movement
  • Emotional Outlet
We then brainstormed interesting words that our provided words prompted and randomly matched them.  After we had 5 sets we voted on the best matches and came up with
  • Future | Moon
  • Peaceful | Lights
  • Accomplish | Corruption
  • Movement | Mind
  • Emotional Outlet | Forest
Having these pairs we had to develop 5 designs with 30 minutes allotted to each. Our first design type was an Environment. This serendipitous moment, I think, lead the rest Charrette. These word pairs with that type of design helped our minds open up. In the end we had an environment that was a quiet secluded dome with lenses to focus to moonlight so that we could harvest air from trees 24/7 so that we could corrupt the world by selling clean air so that we don’t have to worry about actually cleaning the environment. We also had a logo for the graphic design, a distribution design for our system design, a special air bottle that collects exhales for a product and a deposit return system for our special air bottles.
We explained these in the fast pitch 1-minute per idea way and the feedback we got was to continue exploring Air. We decided that since we had already told the story of how this company could come to be and what the world could become if it exists. To move forward we felt that exploring as many of the intricacies that this world could have as possible would be the most fun and interesting. Our result was a video showing a world where there is a black market for exhales!
Other groups had projects such as Nick’s pop-up Playground, Ben’s Box business that existed somewhere between craigslist and a thrift store and other things like replacing a tile at the base of a toilette in a bathroom with one that says “Everybody Poops.”
A long post I know, sorry. At startup weekend now. The next will probably just as long.
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