This past June, my neighbor Barbra waved me over one day and asked if I wanted a tomato plant. She had gotten a few for free, and apparently I somehow looked like the type of person who would be interested in doing so. I was not.

To avoid being rude I took the plant, which turned out to be the smallest most miserable looking twig I had ever seen. It had a few small brown leaves and was barely hanging on. Charlie Brown's Christmas tree looked like it belonged in Rockefeller plaza next to this little guy. 

Over the next few weeks, my girlfriend Lexie and I nursed it back to health, and what failed to hold my interest at first now became the highlight of my day. Every day after work we'd immediately rush to see how Captain Jack Sparrow was doing (we had recently watched Pirates of the Caribbean and each read "Pirate Latitudes" by Michael Crichton), and every day it grew just a little bit taller. Soon there were five, ten, then twenty leaves as it shot up in front of our eyes. It became an integral part of our lives, routine, and almost our relationship. Before Lexie left for a trip she joked about how she'd miss Captain Jack more than me, and about how I had better keep it alive. My response was a mix of sarcasm and eye rolling as I joked about how incompetent I'd have to be to do such a thing.

Anyway, two days later, the thing was dead. Not just mostly dead, all dead. Either something had pulled it up by the roots or I am missing some very important pages in my mental book of "caring for living things." Either way, I knew Lexie would be disappointed so I needed a way to at least partially make it up to her. 

Lexie's undergraduate degree is in Environmental science, and she is very passionate about water conservation.  I had an idea to make a planter that would allow water to flow from one plant to the next; water would be soaked up by as many plant roots as possible before going back on to the ground. I started by brainstorming several sketches as can be seen below.

I should first note a few constraints and goals for this. First of all, I wanted to only use materials I had on hand. Second, I did not care about the actual mechanism or metric of water conservation -the idea of saving water- it's purely symbolic. 

​I began with the slat of wood you can see in the first picture below. It was a leftover from the CreatiCube prototype. I cut three slots with the table saw and painted them blue. I later sanded this off except for in the slots themselves. For the actual plant holders I had some leftover polycarbonate tubing from a project that wasn't ever going to get used. For the edges as you can see in the bottom middle picture I mixed latex paint with water and Xanthan gum to allow it to give a nice shiny surface- the surface tension from the water allows it to be dripped on like that with a syringe, and the gum keeps it from flattening out when it dries out. (I'm still working on the recipe) 

I painted everything with more CreatiCube leftover paint and stained all the wood, coating everything with a water-based clear so it could survive the outdoors. You can see the final result in the picture at the bottom. 

Lexie was understandably very disappointed at the fate of Captain Jack Sparrow, but I think the new planter and the idea of growing new plants from scratch helped 

     In March of last year I was approached by a few classmates asking about starting a student group. I was already the President of another and had no time to offer them, but after their initial pitch I was so excited about the idea that I vowed to make time to make this happen. The idea was simple: to bring students real-world product design experience by connecting them with real-world projects. The group would function like a design firm, with teams of students completing the work and learning about the design process along the way.

Spyhouse
 
We spent most of the summer in coffee shops, plotting and planning after work to make sure we had some traction when we hit the ground in September. We spent hours and hours researching and in meetings, trying to gather as much information as possible to not screw it up. Though we would be the only product design group to our current knowledge, the list of registered groups showed at least ten defunct ones still listed. We felt like Indiana Jones seeing the remains of the failed treasure hunters before him, but like Mr. Jones we kept on going.

The Rolling Boulder

We hit recruiting pretty hard during the first week of the semester, hoping to get at least 20-25 at our first meeting so we could begin to do a few projects. Apparently we had tripped some kind of switch by starting this group, activating a niche within the community that needed to be filled, because sixty two people showed up for our first meeting. The list of applications we had hoped would get into the 30s by the end of the semester had passed 80 by the beginning of November. 

The model we developed has so far has been very successful: Lead designers (upperclassmen with plenty of experience and good leadership skills) lead teams of 10-20 Designers (anyone interested) through the design process with the oversight of the executive team (us). This is supplemented by our general body meetings every other week, where we have games, activities, and speakers all designed to familiarize students with the design process and to make the group fun and engaging. 

The idea behind the system is that anyone can contribute and learn without necessarily affecting the project outcome, however the opportunity to contribute to the final product is always there. As students develop and grow within the group and within their actual courses, they are able to contribute more and more and have a larger impact on the final outcome. 

The Color Wheel

Shown below is our design process developed by our president Ryan Hedblom and I. It is identical to the standard model with the addition of the "Connect" step of the process. The idea behind this step is that unlike many real firms and designers, our students most likely do not have all the tools, resources, or expertise needed to complete the project. It involves reaching out to other students, student groups, faculty, or any other appropriate resources for anything needed to complete the tasks at hand. Unlike a for-profit firm, our group is a non-profit (501.3c) intended primarily for learning so this step also involves making sure all of the students within the project are connected and getting the full experience. ​

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