The brainstorming deliverable is a significant portion of the individual component of your final grade. However, more importantinly, this deliverable is critical because this early work defines your direction for the entire term! Shortcuts now lead to disappointment later.

The ideas you generate will be pooled with ideas both from your teammates and those proposed by potential customers at the idea fair. This idea generation process leads the product ideas your section will propose at the 3-ideas presentation.

Generate a list of wide-ranging ideas and simple 'doodle' sketches or annotations in your design notebook. Example sketches are on the right.

You should come up with at least 20 ideas. Once you have a sufficient number of ideas, pick your top 5 using an idea selection method of your choice.

Prepare a simple annotated sketch to explain each of the 5 ideas, similar in style to the examples provided on the right (this type of sketching was taught in 2.670). Put each annotated idea sketch on a separate sheet of 8.5x11 paper or a full page in your notebook. If you use loose sheets of paper you should staple or tape them into your notebook.

Please make sure that your 5 idea drawings are readable from at least 10 feet since you will be pinning them up in your lab meeting. You may want to review the sketching tutorials or printout the creativity strategy cheat-sheet.

Please review the detailed instructions on how to submit your brainstorming assignment.

Brainstorming sketches: Barry Kudrowitz, "An Exploration of Concepts in Projectile Toy Design", MIT MS thesis, 2005.