Transformative Structures: Launch
Read your Challenge Statement and watch your Challenge Champion’s Set the Stage video. Be sure you have a clear understanding of the problem.
Then do some research to identify and understand the users – the people or organizations who need a good solution to this problem. What do users need in a solution? Why? What’s wrong with the solutions they have now?
Challenge Scenario
Whether it’s a multifunctional tool or a wheelchair-accessible van, people need products that can be transformed to serve multiple purposes. Public spaces and consumer products that are multifunctional provide numerous benefits and offer unique solutions to real problems. Transformable spaces allow communities to support a multitude of purposes and serve the ever-changing needs of community members. Multifunctional products increase efficiency, save space, and reduce costs as they allow users to perform multiple tasks with a single device.
From an environmental perspective, such consumer products and public spaces reduce waste and lower energy consumption. A wheelchair-accessible playground that converts into an open-air theater, for instance, becomes an inclusive area for all demographics, promoting social cohesion and interaction. Integrating innovative design elements that can transform into new shapes and functions contributes to the aesthetic appeal and richness of the user experience.
Entrepreneurs and scientists are finding new ways to take advantage of transformable products and spaces. This creates an opportunity for entrepreneurs like you to reimagine your surroundings and design a versatile object or structure that meets the needs and desires of your community.
Challenge Statement
Your challenge is to design a physical structure that addresses a community need and can be transformed to support multiple purposes. Your solution should:
- Address a community need. Describe how your physical structure can be transformed to help address a community need.
- Accommodate multiple purposes. Explain how users can easily transform the structure using simple actions, such as translating, reflecting, rotating, and dilating features.
- Include a prototype of your structure. Create a 2-D model of your structure. This should include:
- A 2-D model of your structure and its transformations, and
- Precise representations and detailed instructions showing how the structure can be transformed using translations, rotations, reflections, or dilations.
