Design Projects
Prototyping

MacGyver Prototyping

MacGyver prototyping is a term that my colleagues and I created during our student-lead prototyping course. MacGyver prototyping combines the quickness of rapid prototyping with the power of bodystorming. It allows for designers to get into a situation through bodystorming techniques. It also provokes creativity and ideation through it's rapid creation and in-situ modifications and iterations. MacGyver prototyping forces designers to quickly prototyped a given environment using available materials and then experience a particular design in the given environment. Due to it's hands-on nature and rapid creation, MacGyver prototyping stimulates creativity and ideation.

Tornado Scenario

macgyver session, looking up knots

Overview

In working through the MacGyver sessions, each team of two had to design a scenario for the other students to escape. Evan, my teammate, and I designed a tornado experience in which students had to escape the HCID Design Lab (in the basement) after a tornado had just ripped through the building. The only real escape was up the elevator shaft and out the second floor. However, each student going through the scenario was forced to compensate for a partner who had been knocked unconscious. This proved to be a real challenge to the other students as it forced them to be creative and resourceful with their prototypes.

a whiteboard blueprint of the building after the tornado Wes working on his escape plan laying out the steps for escape and the tools needed particpants thinking throuh the scenario and planning accordingly walking through the prototyped environment the group accessing the damage caused by the tornado tools for escape were rapidly prototyped with available materials

Using various materials my team simulated a tornado ripping through the building. We created lighting, rain, and various debris in order to situate escapees in a realistic situation. Each person worked on their own in order to create an escape plan, they were to then prototype any materials they might need in order to escape the scenario. After 20-25 minutes of prototyping, each student explained their solution on camera. From there we had each person bodystorm their way through the scenario using materials they had just prototyped. Creativity of the individual played a major role. Students were not only forced to be creative in their solutions, but were also creative in prototyping different materials and in acting through the solution in the built environment.

Final Prototype

Below is a composite video of the various escape scenarios that colleagues designed and used to escape the prototyped disaster.

MacGyver Prototyping from John Wayne Hill on Vimeo.

Prototypes