ThinkCycle: Reaching Out to Solve Real-World Problems

They envisioned the database and the Web combining into a system that documents submitted problems and the evolving design solutions to those problems. The database would serve as the repository for all the iterative design concepts, technical notes, working files, and images around a problem and its solution. This repository would be searchable, cross-referenced, free, and open to the public.

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Motivations
Several motivations are behind the ThinkCycle concept. One has to do with changing the way engineering design is taught in schools. In traditional design courses, students are given projects for problems that have already been solved -- in effect, reinventing the wheel. ThinkCycle focuses on real-world problems and moves beyond the local classroom model, involving students and faculty at MIT and other schools in industrialized and developing countries.

Another motivation behind ThinkCycle is to work on problems in communities not being well served by new technologies. To get at these problems, ThinkCycle asks
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other stakeholders related to underserved communities to submit worthwhile challenges.

How It Works
The ThinkCycle process can be summed up as follows:

1. An NGO or other stakeholder submits a problem to ThinkCycle. The problem is given a peer review by domain experts and made accessible in the ThinkCycle database.
2. Design faculty in a participating school can select problems for a design course and present these to the students in the course.
3. The students, working in teams, investigate the state of the art around technology related to the challenge, establish design constraints, brainstorm design concepts, then design and manufacture prototypes.
4. During the design and prototyping, experts in the domain of the problem review the work of the students and provide advice as well as resources.
5. As with any design course, at the end students give a final report and project presentation, which may include recommendations for future work.

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