Brain Storming

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Brain Storming

Brainstorming simply means thinking and developing ideas. It is a method of recording, creating, and sharing ideas. It is the way to plan whatever project, idea, concept, design, or creation. Brainstorming is used when ever you are required to plan your work before the finished project.

To start brainstorming all you have to do is take a journal, notebook, or chalkboard and start recording as many ideas you have about the subject. List anything no matter how realistic or practical the idea may seem. If you are working in a group of people, you will all write down your ideas separately and then compare ideas. While you are comparing ideas you record all the new ideas separately.

For example: you are given the task of designing a new toy in which children can jump with. First list what you know. The toy must be safe. It must jump. It must be durable and it must be fun to use. The first brainstorming ideas do not half to meet all these criteria. You will pick the most important ideas first. That is the toy must jump. Now list all the ways to jump. Spring, compressed air, rocket engine, bouncing, mechanical lift, and so on.

Now everyone compares their ideas. And which method of jumping is determined by the group. In this example the group decides that compressed air is the best method. So now it has to be determined how the compressed air is going to propel the child off the ground.

The group goes back and brainstorms again. They propose: motorized air compressor, pneumatic shock, mechanical air pump. The group finds that the motorized air compressor needs a power source and adds weight to the toy, that they are going to go with the pneumatic shock. It will compress air when the child’s weight hits the ground. The compressed air combined with the jumping of the child will then act like a spring and propel the child into the air. It requires no power source. It also is one of the safest methods by reducing the weight and leaving the toys shape less likely to cause injury if the child should fall.

So now the toy can jump and is safe but is it fun. What separates it from the hundreds of other jumping toys and thousands of other toys. The group agrees that jumping is fun but admit that this toy should appeal to adults as well. And it also has to be fun for an adult. They decide to produce the typical jumping toy for the children from 5 to 12 years of age. It will consist of a pair of handles and footpads on a pneumatic shock. But during their brainstorming they think that they have come up with a toy to appeal to adults.

They have come up with the outrageous idea of a pneumatic foot that is attached to a revolving cylinder counter weighted to stay in upright position. It resists centripetal forces and has pneumatic shocks on the sides to resist tipping sideways.

The brainstorming session ends and the group goes through the list of ideas adds any ideas that relate to the subject. The find that they will market a the simple pogo-stick. They decide that the cylinder machine is to dangerous to market, but they will build a prototype to show their talents and maybe have a discovery that will lead to a future product. Someone in the group gets an idea to make a small scale remote control toy out of the previous idea. But this one will be a sphere and will be a small remote control toy. Another person notes on all the different types of movements that the sphere can have. And asks if they use other shapes and use the forms for robots. So this pneumatic feet has many uses and it is worth the time spent designing it. And even if every idea wasn’t used, it was worth the time spent brainstorming the idea.

So there the answer is. Brainstorming is just collecting your ideas and organizing them while building new ones. A lot of great ideas can come out of this method. You now have a powerful tool for creating whatever you decide to create.