A New Angle

Today in class, we watched a really cheesy video featuring a National Geographic photographer. He talked about using creativity in his daily life and work. One of the points that stuck out to me was looking at problems from multiple angles in order to find multiple solutions.

We put this into practice when we took pictures around campus. We decided to go to the Food Science courtyard and central campus for our inspiration. I took the close up approach for most of my pictures. Attached are some of my attempts at creative photography. Not too bad, if I do say so myself!

#platypus

Isaac Personal Reflection 3/28

This week I have not had many chances to use my creative problem-solving skills, as I have mainly been swamped with tests. I know that Awkward Prom is happening tonight, but so is the NCAA tournament. I may need to use my problem-solving skills to find a way to see both.

Other than that, the only other thing that has happened to me is 2048. For those not familiar, 2048 is a sliding block puzzle game that has recently become popular. Based on my personal experience,  I do not recommend it, as it is seriously addicting, and will lead to procrastinating on your homework until 2 in the morning. It is quite fun though, and is the kind of thing I think puzzle-solvers would enjoy.

#platypus

Isaac Class Reflection 3/24

On Monday in class we did a race competition using TanGoes. Spatial thinking is not my specialty, but I did better than I expected.

I really pride myself on our performance in the "who can make a gadget that flies the farthest" challenge. After a few so-so ideas and rough models, our team came to the stunning conclusion that we could probably outdo the other teams simply by making something that we can easily throw a long distance, rather than trying to make it self-propelled or transforming, which would have earned us double points.

Some may think that this defeats the purpose of a creative problem solving class, seeing as our final product was a role of tape with streamers attached. I prefer to see it as an efficient assessment of the challenge and understanding of the rules, with an easy solution to the problem at hand. Sometimes the correct solutions are the simple ones.

#platypus

Time Management Can Be Creative, Right?

The ISU Blood Drive was taking place this week in the Memorial Union from Monday to Thursday. I had time to go almost every day, but when did I decide to go? Thursday. So, the initial time management maybe wasn't the greatest, but it gets better.


When I gave blood in the fall, I sat in the waiting area for almost two hours. I wanted to avoid that this time, so I filled out my prescreening form and gave it to the girl in the waiting area. During a blood drive, they keep all the forms in the order they were completed and give the nurses the forms in order as they are ready for more donors.


After I turned in my form, I left and went to meet someone to work on a project for class, while I "waited" in the MU. (As it turns out, I wasn't able to work on my project. Maybe communication will be my topic next week...) When I returned to the MU, I only had to another 45 minutes or so before I was in the chair giving blood.


With just a bit of creativity, I was able to use the time I would have spend simply waiting to do something productive, while also saving three lives! Talk about multitasking!


#platypus

Visuals... Not My Thing, Well Maybe

In class this week, we used TanGoes (basically the tangrams of my childhood!) to do a little bit of visual problem solving. Needless to say, this activity confirmed that I am not the greatest with spatial thinking. It was difficult for me to decide which of the small shapes were needed to create the larger figures.


On the bright side, I was able to use my creativity to embellish our projectile for the later activity. We wanted to make it transform in the air, so I made some legs that we attached to the main body of our projectile (a roll of tape).


So maybe I am a visual person! It just depends on what context I need to apply those skills. Spatial thinking, not so much. Creative visual elements for a project, absolutely! Now I just need to decide when my visual skills are useful and when I need to find someone who can help me.
#platypus

El Fuches OoC post 3/27

During my co-op last semester, I discovered the world's most amazing puzzles.

This is one of BePuzzled's "Crystal Puzzles," part of a collection of 40 or so 3D puzzles. I love putting them together and displaying them as models. As of last week, I have 7 puzzles total, including the large pirate ship dolphin, and Snoopy's doghouse. While they aren't especially "creative," in terms of having a set objective, they are quite engaging.
I brought the "Earth" puzzle (pictured above) to campus this week. A friend and I were having a brain-melt moment, so I broke out the puzzle and we put it together. It turns out that some pieces are symmetric, so you had to be careful not to end up with pieces of Europe floating through Australia. It was an excellent activity for a mentally-stimulating break.
PS - if you would like to borrow one, let me know in class. I've got a sapphire, a skull, Saturn, and more!

#platypus

BFuchs Class Reflection 3/24

That is a good-looking flying machine. Sometimes, simplicity is king. Here I was, thinking that we had to create a flying machine, but the assignment was just to have something that flew through the air. We gave up on the potential 2x points for self-propulsion, but our distance was so good that it didn't matter anyway. It was a good reminder that, direct, 1-solution approaches don't always produce the best results. I'm glad that I had teammates who thought up of this idea.

Also, do you really think we could survive a 200-mile trek across the moon? On Earth, a person might cover 30 miles in a day (walking speed for 10 hours). I'm not sure that we could carry enough (even while wearing advanced space suits) to take care of us for a week of forced marching.
#platypus

Creativity = throwing a roll of tape as far as possible

So basically what I learned today in class was that while being creative is a useful tool always know what your constraints are. And know that sometimes the simplest solution such as chucking a roll of tape can be the best one. Another thing especially with the puzzles is to never get caught up at a problem in one way continue to look at it from different angles and perspectives and know that multiple people working on a solution is always better than one person.

#platypus

Spring Break Road Trip!

Well two of my roommates and I road tripped to California to surprise our last roommate who lives there. It was a blast and some problem solving was definitely involved. For the record never camp at Arches National Park for whatever reason because pitching a tent in 50 mph winds in next to impossible and sleeping is even worse. Also just because someone is from the L.A. area does not mean they know where everything is and can sometimes get lost in there hometown. And as an FYI Barstow, CA does not know how to put bathrooms in their buildings... at all so try not to have your car break down there. All in all it is nice to do something spontaneous and a little stupid sometime and road trips are the way to do it.

#worth #platypus

Fish and Flight

Happy "Night-Before-We-Start-School-Again!"
ugh

Spring Break was pretty awesome, though. Made it out to Arkansas for some trout fishing, then over to Chicago to check out some Museums. My favorite was definitely the Shedd Aquarium - I love sharks. I also went up in the Sears Willis Tower for the first time, and stood out on the glass balcony. That was a little freaky.

See y'all in class tomorrow!

#platypus

Isaac Personal Reflection 3/14

I don't have much to say really. Its past noon on Friday and I'm done with classes. So begins Spring Break! I can't wait to go home and see my family and pets (I especially miss my cows). But even though I'm going to enjoy going home, I am going to miss the friends I've made here at ISU. Oh well, it's only one week after all. Anyway, its time for me to get some R&R from the college experience. See you all later!

Spring Break Probs

Anytime I go home, even just for the weekend, I have the issue of figuring out what to pack. You can't pack too early because you might want to wear something later in the week, but if you wait too long, you might have nothing left to pack.


What, you've never had this problem before? Maybe it's a girl thing...


Anyways, this week I figured out that I have exactly enough jeans to make it through the week without having to wash clothes. This way, I'll just pack up all my clothes, take them home, and my dad will wash them for me! Whew! I'm so glad I solved that problem. Now I'm ready for Spring Break!


#platypus

Personal Reflection #1

Well I just got done watching the basketball game and we won a nail biter with some clutch plays down the stretch! Basically this just made me want to procrastinate studying for my thermo test even more than I already am. Now I am trying to use my problem solving abilities to figure out how to find time to play outside today because it is gorgeous, go ice skating with my residence hall, plan a ride home tomorrow and study for my test. I'm thinking study after dinner. Other than that the only other thing on my mind is Spring Break!!! That's all I got

# platypus

Cody's First Class Reflection

So far I think this class is going to be super awesome! I really like the idea of working in teams and doing the least work possible. My team members seem to be super chill and I can tell that we are already creating our group dynamic and I'm interested to see how that plays out throughout the semester. I can honestly say I've never had a class begin with a puzzle to find the professor so I am excited to see what the rest of the semester holds.

#platypus

Brian's Much-More-Toned-Down Personal Reflection

 So it's been, like, 3 hours since my last post, so I figured the time is ripe for a new one.
In class, I said that I'm a fan of number puzzles. As such, I present my favorite number puzzles of all time:
Kenkens (Mathdoku)
 A Kenken puzzle is like a Sudoku puzzle - 1-6 in every row and column. However, the grid is divided up into sections. In each section, there is an operator and a number. The numbers in each section must perform the operation to get that number. E.g -"5" means the two number must subtract to make 5, or "x6" means the numbers must multiply to 6. Puzzle sizes go from 1-4 to 1-9.
 These puzzles are probably my second biggest time sink after Reddit, and I love pounding them out on the bus on the way to class.
#playtpus

The Brian's Supa-Dupa-Sugary-coated-Awesome Class Post

It's Wednesday, but I dream of Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday. And so on. 

It was nice to meet y'all for the first time. Isaac, was it you that figured out that we were looking at names? Because you really helped out. I was thinking that we were looking at a coherent sentence. 

Natalie, thanks for being our team rep for the syllabus. 

And Cody, getting dinner with you was cool.

In fact, we should all get dinner (or something fun) together at some point - if we're gonna be a team, we gotta be mates, right?

#platypus

Isaac Class Reflection 3/10

Hey all! The first day of class was great. I can tell that this is going to be an enjoyable seminar. I'm already looking forward to honing my problem-solving skills. The puzzles we did in class were a bit challenging, but I think I'll get better as the course goes on. See you guys again after break. In the meantime, I'll be thinking of puzzles.

WET MKIR-FPAATM JAGWNJKO EGO G JHPOHVHKO OJKQ GVM AGNO TCCO. WEHKCE OHST IAGPS WEGW PW IGVVHW FT G SGSSGA, PW PO MTIPMTMAN OH.

Creativity Trumps Problem Solving

Today in class, I learned that this seminar is going to be extremely productive, informative and fun! I am very excited to learn more about how creativity and problem solving are applied in our daily lives and using what I've learned daily. I also learned that I am better at using my resources (i.e. Googling answers) than actually solving the incredibly complex word problem. That would be my creativity coming into play!


Oh, and I have a wonderful group to work with!


#platypus

OMG! First Blogger Post! #platypus #inclass #problemsolverdeluxe