Quite interestingly, most of people in our group had something made of paper – two paper planes and one paper birds. Talking about those paper-made objects, how those planes and birds fly in the sky, suddenly we came up an idea of researching how those paper planes can fly further. Looking at two paper planes that have two different styles, we considered what is the component that make a paper plane fly further, higher, or longer in the air. Also from another item, tie-dye shirt, we thought about tie-dye using paper. So we planned on making a video on a new design of paper planes that will fly further and/or higher. Then from there we talked about picturing, changed our subject to how to shoot photos. We had explored a lot of ideas such as building a real model of plane, make a plane game and others. From this I think the invention process/discovery process should be as follows:

first, a group of people/a person come up, talking/thinking about one specific things that all of the people have an idea about. We rarely make something out of nowhere; we often have to have something based on to create something new.

second, there must be a goal to reach/a problem need to be solved. For example, our paper planes are meant to be played, maybe used to compete whose can fly furthest. It might sound childish but it is a goal. Then we can improve our skills in making a paper plane, finally invent a new style for it to fly further/higher.

Also I believe interest is an important factor. That could be a factor companies with goal, sometimes not. Say I accidentally made a paper plane in a different way than the one I used to make. Then I found it flies shorter but higher. Could be without a goal, this subject is researched and hopefully something new is coming out from it.

Then the invention cycle repeats. However I would say interest would affect discovery more rather than invention, when it comes to invention a problem is likely to be solved. Will we solve our problem? We shall find out.

In order to bring something made by ourselves, in my group, two of us made paper planes, while I made an origami crane. Our first group meeting started with introducton, during this part, we knew each other’s specialties and started conceiving our own “invention”. Making a small computer game or a piece of music would be hard, so after intensive discussion, we decided to make a video. The creation process was really brainstorming that it let us come up with many crazy ideas and then debate them again and again.

The paper planes and origami crane gave us a direction that we should to do something about flight, but what contents should be in the video was hard to reach an agreement in four of us. Everyone has a different angle. Akash first proposed that we  video a show tell people how to make a paper plane fly higher and longer, which made me think about talking to the people in Aerospace major to introduce more theoretic knowledge. Then we thought about the primitive sequence of the whole video, in which we would do three tests for the paper plane to best illustrate the improving process. Certainly we do not want the video to be a documentary about airplane; we wanted it to be an “invention”. So Rohip came up an idea that he wanted to involve photography in our video base on his interest. So “how to photograph a flying paper plane in a good angle” became our final topic.

However we realized this idea may not have too much practical utility, for a few people care about paper plane and photography at the same time. We may go on discuss this video to make two things get connections. Anyway, this was a good start for group work.

In class we began our collaboration with all of our homemade items. These included a pair of doves, a necklace, a duck tape wallet, and a gourd. After some discussion (most of mine was through email and Facebook), we decided to let others’ ideas support ours. We each approached two people and asked them to write a short story about the items. It was interesting how some were exasperated at the idea because they didn’t want to do the work, yet at the same time nearly every one was willing to do it. Finding two willing people was interesting, and we believe that using their stories we’ll be able to collaborate and come up with some fantastic ideas. We’re also trying to draw from ZeFrank’s songs (including Chillout) for motivation. Although our project still requires some hardcore brainstorming we’re hoping that using other’s creativity will help solidify ours! I’m sure we’ll know more next week!

-Tim Ochsner

The first meeting with our group went very well. We all had very individual objects that we decided to incorporate into a music video. One memeber of our group brought in a song he wrote and recorded himself, so that seems to be a good base for our project. We are hoping to incorporate all of our objects and ideas to somewhat make the song come to live in the video, and represent it with some very vivid and powerful symbols. Our group meshed well I thought, as we were able to work together for the last couple projects. We were all able to contribute ideas and we now have a solid base to work from. I also thought we benefited alot from the bean bag room. It really let the ideas flow and the creative juices work. Hopefully next time we meet we will all be able to contribute more to the project and really get it going and make some progress on it.

Without the irrepressible creativity of Ash in our group, our innovation levels were initially low.  After a slow start we really got our juices flowin’ and started to cook out some interesting ideas.  We got going when we began listing the resources we had at our finger tips.  Suddenly we were smacked across the face by an epiphany from Jesus himself.  I say this because this “godly” idea was proposed by my roommate, and long time friend, John Bailey Rhinehart.  My boy JB is one cool cat and obviously a smart dude, however I’ve never known him to be exceptionally creative.  Not to say his thinking is so systematically dull that he shares a likeness with Spock.  But this idea was so profoundly unorthodox that it couldn’t have been anything less than a seed begotten by the Holy Mary, germinated by God and sowed in John’s brain by the savior that is – Jesus Christ.

More details to come.

-Quinn

How we begin…

So, each of us brought in a product we made. I brought in a Flavor Flav clock. I really don’t know why. I had nothing in my room that I had made in previous years, so I tried to think of something simple, stupid, and original. So I got some paper, pens and scissors and went at it. What we decided we should TRY to do is create a collage out of tiny pictures that display people doing creative things around campus. People, at Tech, doing right brained activities. I’m not quite sure its possible, but we shall see. The collage will create a brain, more specifically, a right brain. Our second idea, if that one does not work, we will create some sort of film depicting left brain activities. It will be awesome of course. No matter what we do, we will use our right brains to create said product and we will illustrate others using their right brains.

-Walker Whited

The object I brought in to class was a wooden airplane I made back in the summer of sophomore year in high school. I have always loved woodworking since I was introduced to it back in sixth grade. My dad got me an early birthday present at the end of sophomore year and it turned out to be a bandsaw. After receiving that, I spend hours every week making items out of wood in my garage during the summer. I made various items from cars to shelves to random figures and models, but my favorite and best piece of work was a wooden airplane I created near the end of summer. It did not have too much detail as I was still an amateur to woodworking, but it was a piece of art nonetheless. I decided against painting it to keep the wood lines visible, but instead glossed it.

img source:http://www.redcarnationhotels.com/dynamic/gifts/full_size/thumbnail_cache/170×136/wooden-plane.jpg

Today we created our groups for our invention mobs. Our group ended up having me, Reed, Chris, and Jill. The idea for our project mostly came from Jill rather quickly. She suggested doing a project on relations between males and females at Georgia Tech, as our college is not as typical as most others. This social experiment involves interacting with the opposite sex and recording how the conversation turns out on a scale of awkward to chill. So far, we are discussing different ways to approach people that range from just a normal meeting to really awkward situations. This will help give different results and we can record how good or bad social interaction between opposite genders is at Tech.

img source:http://vputcha3.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/16528-one-blue-person-in-a-group-of-gray-people-thinking-up-a-creative-idea-with-a-lightbulb-over-his-head-clipart-illustration-graphic.jpg?w=300

On Friday my group did quite a lot of productive brainstorming. We all brought in various items we’d made, but honestly none of them have anything to do with our ideas so far! It probably did provide us with some inspiration though, and being in a nice open room with windows and a white board definitely helped too.

First we all shared things we enjoyed and talents we had to get a feel for something we might all enjoy. Hannah shared with us an animation she’d made and I shared some games I’d coded and from there we found our idea. We are all a bit creative and after suggestions and rejections, we thought that a video might be a really fun and creative thing to produce. We’re still not entirely agreed on what the video will be about, but we’re set on it being about the differences around campus, whether that is different backgrounds, or different tastes in food, we’re not sure!

I’m sure once we get together again we’ll get more of a solid idea down because we only spent a little bit of time discussing on Friday. We got a lot done though! It was a fun process and I enjoyed getting to know some of my classmates a bit more.

The five-week Invention Mobs project has launched. We five Asians formed a group which I’d like to call the Asian Alliance. I think some of us, like me, felt the paradox on the brand-new alliance. We cheered the similarities in culture and felt a sense of belonging. However, we have to work much harder for the presentation to compensate for the incompetence in language.

First, we had our icebreaker just like the beginning of many other teams. We talked about our majors to find things we shared. Tom majors in Biomedical Engineering; Yiyi majors in Environmental Engineering; Minsik, Andy and I major in Electrical Engineering. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any idea for our theme from the icebreaker.

Second, we brainstormed to find some topics we are interested in so that we share our passion for the project. Nevertheless, it is always the first step that costs. We agreed that we talk about our interests, no matter how unfeasible it could be. So I initiated it by talking about architecture, the field that I am interested in most but didn’t major in. I suggested we create a building, perhaps kind of virtual model. When I talked about my interest, I am not sure whether this topic is an inspiration or a catastrophe. But I am surprised that my teammates think architecture is not a bad idea, at least for the time being. We agreed to focus on it and try it out.

Last, we added complements and made adjustments. Tom suggested that we could implement different parts regarding our different majors to the building. Also, I suggested that in our presentation we introduce our group’s culture background, our shared similarities as Asians.

Challenges are inevitable during the next five weeks. If the plan appears not so feasible, maybe we will make some adjustments or even change the direction depending on the situation. Hopefully, chemical reactions would happen in everybody’s mind and a miraculous catalyst could turn up to help make our presentation successful.

Our group has come up with a fairly simple, but pretty cool and creative idea for our invention mob project. Our idea came from Zhe’s song we heard on the first day of class, but with a twist. With our four selfmade objects, we have each asked atleast two people to write or type a 1 page story involving all of the objects. They can write on or about whatever they wish, with a target audience of whomever they want. We will take these stories, sentence by sentence, and intermingle them with each other’s story. This will create one larger story with contributions from all of our participants, but our group also assigned each object with some sort of symbolism. We will analyze each story, along with our collaborative story, and gauge how our participants rank each symbol within society.

 I can’t wait to see where these stories take us. I have a feeling some will be very similar, while others will be completely off the wall.

Mark Jackson