Week 3

Idea Generation 🎯

What can we do to make our idea selection easier? Is there a simpler way to achieving the same results? What else can we do?

SCAMPER !

What is SCAMPER? 🤔

SCAMPER is a checklist to help us organize our thoughts when we are brainstorming.

S = Substitute

- Substituting part of the problem/product/process for something else

C = Combine

- Combining 2 or more parts of your problem and opportunity to achieve a different product/process or to enhance synergy.

A = Adapt

- Which parts of the problem/product/process could be adapted to remove the problem opportunity or think about how you could change the nature of it.

M = Modify

- Changing part or all of the current situation, or distorting it in an unusual way

P = Put to Another Use

- How you might be able to put your current solution/product/process to other purposes or think of what you could reuse from somewhere else in order to solve your own problem and opportunity.

E = Eliminate

- What might happen if you eliminated various parts of the product/process/problem & opportunity.

R = Reserve

- Think of what you would do if part of your problem and opportunity/product/process worked in reverse or done in a different order.

Our SCAMPER ideas 💡:

SCAMPER	Substitute	Combine	Adapt
Ideas	Use lithium-ion batteries	Rechargeable batteries  Have filter inside to filter the water/liquid	Alarm to remind the user to drink water Add insulation sleeve

SCAMPER	Modify	Put to Another Use	Eliminate	Reverse
Ideas	Built-in straw  Software and screen to show how much water the user has drunk Have an extra layer to prevent condensation from being exposed to the surface	Different compartments to store different types of drinks at once Have a timer to state how long it will take for the liquid to be cooled

Idea elimination 🚫

Feasibility analysis helps us decide if a project is viable. Not only that, but it also allows us to gain a better understanding of the project. More specifically technical feasibility and operational feasibility. They help us answer questions such as whether or not we have money, space, or the equipment to carry out these ideas.


Here are some of our ideas going through the feasibility checklist 💡:

Idea 1: Add an insulation sleeve	YES	NO
Budget -    Less than S$2000?	✓
Project Timeline - Can be completed within one semester?	✓
Technical Feasibility - Evaluate the technical feasibility of the project.
·       Is the project feasible within the limits of current technology?	✓
·       Are the required utilities available?	✓
·       Does the lab have the necessary testing and fabrication equipment?	✓
·       Does it need any computer software and hardware?		✓
·       Do we possess the necessary technical expertise and skills?	✓
·       Does the lab have sufficient space to support the project?	✓
Operational Feasibility
a.       Does the project team have sufficient manpower to carry out the project?	✓
b.       Is it legal to operate the project?	✓
c.       Is it safe to operate the project?	✓

Idea 2: Use Rechargeable batteries (Lithium-ion batteries)	YES	NO
Budget -    Less than S$2000?	✓
Project Timeline - Can be completed within one semester?	✓
Technical Feasibility - Evaluate the technical feasibility of the project.
·       Is the project feasible within the limits of current technology?	✓
·       Are the required utilities available?	✓
·       Does the lab have the necessary testing and fabrication equipment?	✓
·       Does it need any computer software and hardware?		✓
·       Do we possess the necessary technical expertise and skills?	✓
·       Does the lab have sufficient space to support the project?	✓
Operational Feasibility
a.       Does the project team have sufficient manpower to carry out the project?	✓
b.       Is it legal to operate the project?	✓
c.       Is it safe to operate the project?	✓

Idea 3: Built-in controller to change the temperature of the bottle to what the user desires	YES	NO
Budget -    Less than S$2000?	✓
Project Timeline - Can be completed within one semester?	✓
Technical Feasibility - Evaluate the technical feasibility of the project.
·       Is the project feasible within the limits of current technology?	✓
·       Are the required utilities available?		✓
·       Does the lab have the necessary testing and fabrication equipment?		✓
·       Does it need any computer software and hardware?	✓
·       Do we possess the necessary technical expertise and skills?		✓
·       Does the lab have sufficient space to support the project?	✓
Operational Feasibility
a.       Does the project team have sufficient manpower to carry out the project?	✓
b.       Is it legal to operate the project?	✓
c.       Is it safe to operate the project?	✓

Final decision 🚩

Now, we are finally making a decision through......COWS matrix!

What is COWS matrix? 

Criteria - relevance

Options - All feasible

Weighting - Contextualise

Score - Assessment 

Our FINAL DECISION 🙌:

Criteria	Weightages	Options
		Idea #1 Insulation sleeve		Idea #2 Rechargeable batteries		Idea #3 Built-in controller
		Raw Score	Weighted Score	Raw Score	Weighted Score	Raw Score	Weighted Score
a.    Cost-effectiveness	30%	3	90	2	60	1	30
b.    Availability of parts	20%	3	60	3	60	2	60
c.     Convenience to user	20%	2	40	2	40	3	60
d.    Durability	15%	3	45	2	30	1	15
e.    Weight	15%	3	45	1	15	3	45
Score	100%		280		205		210

Winner: Insulation Sleeve!

Reflection 📜:

~Trisyia 🐌~

This week we learned how to organize and eliminate our ideas. We organized our ideas through the SCAMPER checklist. This helped us greatly as we get to see which ideas are more useful and better to solve our problem statement. Next, we eliminated ideas through their feasibility. This helped us get a gauge which ideas were more realistic and achievable. Lastly, we made our final decision through the COWS matrix. This required us to recall our knowledge from year 1 which was surprisingly not as hard as we thought. This helped us choose the best of the final 3 ideas we had. 

~Jun Ying🚲~

In this week, we made use of the SCAMPER checklist to arrange our ideas into different categories. It was a very useful to list out our ideas in a way that I have not seen before as it gave me new perspectives on what our ideas actually bring to the table. I was particularly intrigued when I realised that so many different ideas could actually be categorised into 7 different columns. After selecting the best 3 ideas, we used the feasibility checklist and the COWS matrix to help us decide which is the best idea. I had mixed feelings about doing the COWS matrix as I did not really understand how to weigh each criteria properly. Nonetheless, my groupmates helped me understand that part and we easily completed the COWS matrix together. The time we spent doing the COWS matrix was also quite memorable as we were interested in knowing which idea was going to be finalised, and were quite invested into it.

~John👽~

For this week we learned something called a SCAMPER checklist. It was a unique way of eliminating and narrowing down our ideas as I have never heard of SCAMPER before. This really allowed us to minimize our idea to 3 as we had a fairly large amount of ideas but weren't sure as to which to choose. We also applied the COWS decision matrix which we learnt back in year 1 to finally end up with which ideation to use. Overall, the SCAMPER and the COWS decision matrix was really helpful and I would definitely use it in the future where it is applicable.