The Smithsonian Spark!lab kits are great.
The inventor kit instruction manual (even though for kids) is product thinking 101 itself! All that's missing is customer validation (just like some real life projects 😉)
I was tasked with the Think It phase and constructing a problem statement.
Following were the questions I had to answer (no kidding) :
* What problem could your robot solve ?
* How could life be improved by having a robot ?
* How does your robot move ?
* What does it look like ?
More often than not, we lay emphasis on these questions in reverse order or sometimes are so solution bound (how do we implement it and what does it look like) that we lose sight of the problem we are solving (and if the benefits are worth the effort) altogether.
I was blown away at the prototype created by my 9 year old though - was so aligned to the brief !
He added a few customer service elements : the robot says "Hi, how can I help you?"
The face tilts from side to side to give it a more humanly touch.
There's a brad pin added so the receipt doesn't fall off.
And a 10% discount just for today - launch offer thought about by a Gen A !!!
We didn't add the motorised component to it yet- but are calling this one our MVP 😀
All we need to do now is Sell It - any buyers ?