Although the book is called Invention, the invention section of the notebook is very strongly linked to the other three sections. It builds off the brainstorming process from the ideation section and the drawing section. Now that the children are comfortable thinking of crazy ideas and sketching them out, they are able to use these ideas to solve problems.

The invention section is essentially a lot of design prompts. Some example of prompts include “imagine what clothes will look like in the future. draw them on this person.” and “draw something that would make it easier to take care of a puppy” These tie together creativity, sketching, and problem solving.

This section was carefully crafted to have a broad range of structured to open-ended problems. We wanted to start the children off with a basic framework of invention and then let them really get creative. The “inventor signature” box on the bottom of each page is particularly important in this section. In testing, the children were very proud of their ideas and took ownership.

Several common design themes were introduced at a level that is appropriate for young children: identifying user needs, human factors, empathic design, and combining functionality. The children are encouraged invent both individually and with others and emphasis is placed on communicating their ideas and inventions. This sparks more thought and will help the children refine their ideas.