During the first few weeks of year 10, our Leadership and Innovation class has been researching and looking into a creative toy task. This task requires us to investigate and create a toy idea of our own before testing the prototype out with (hopefully) the All Saints Early Learning Centre. As part of this task, we have been asked to look into: our strengths and passions, a vision board of our idea of what we want our toy to look like and lastly, our interview outline for Ms Mano (ELC staff)
Strengths and Passions
In one of the first lessons, we were asked to complete an online test to find out what our strengths are, these were my results:
As well as our strengths, we were also required to write down what we think our passions are. This is what I thought:
My Passions:
- Soccer
- Swimming
- Music
- Dance
- Travel
The reason for this activity was to help us find connections between our strengths and weaknesses. Identifying these similarities would aid us in thinking of a product idea as we want to find something that includes our strengths and passions. However, this still did not give me a clear target and so we were told to create a ‘vision board’ of the type of toy we were looking to create.
Vision Board
A vision board is a collection of photos that represent what you want your final product to look like. It is used as inspiration to help you find an original idea that you like and would create.
This is mine:
Design Thinking Process
Before we could begin designing the products we THINK will satisfy the target audience, we needed to get some feedback and information from a reliable source. So we contacted Ms Mano (Early Learning Centre Staff) and organised an online interview with her. In the sessions leading up to the interview, we were split into groups and were told to come up with 6 questions to ask her that would be beneficial and help us understand what kind of toys would be most successful in this line of business.
The first step in the Design Thinking Process is to think like your target audience. We needed to look at our ideas in the perspective of the 4-6 year olds and look into their wants, needs and what they find fun and engaging. To obtain this information, we used a range of techniques such as our vision boards and this interview with Early Learning Centre staff.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is a process that people take up to address a work challenge or fulfil a social purpose. It is associated with creating, launching and managing a business. This is what we are looking into going forward this semester in Leadership and Innovation. We will be learning how to create, launch and then manage our own business by creating a Early Learning Centre Toy for kids ages 4-6.
