February 13, 2018
Design Challenge: Check Out What’s Happening at Roosevelt High!
Blog post written by Kartika Rathee
About Roosevelt High School
Roosevelt High School opened 96 years ago in 1922 and is part of the Seattle Public Schools with over 1650 students. The school is named after President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). The school’s team, the Rough Riders, is named after Roosevelt’s famous military regiment.
Roosevelt High School
About the team
The team participating in the design challenge consists of 15-16 students from the Girls Who Code after school club.
Overview
In our first meeting, we started with an overview of the Design Challenge and the human centered design process and went over the timeline for the next few weeks. We then watched the first video in a series of videos that explains what the challenge is about, followed by a brief explanation of the stages in the HCD process. The students became super excited and were eager to get started.
Brainstorming
We huddled up together and began our brainstorming session. I had a list of questions and pointers for them to explore, however, the first question was enough to get them started – “Imagine you had a Social Robot, that reduces stress, living in your high school, what would it be like?“
It was super inspiring to see the students enthusiastically brainstorm ideas and build on those as we progressed into the discussion. They listed out their preferences and also drew out some sketches to illustrate the physical characteristics of the robot. The team also came up with traits the robot should absolutely not have, sorry Siri and humanoids, teenagers are not impressed! At one point they wanted it to be a dog or even a pig or any fluffy animal. One special request was the robot should be washable (I totally relate to this!).
Brainstorming Session
Diving into research
After the brainstorm, I explained that we would now be exploring the research phase of the HCD process. In this stage, they would be asking their peers questions related to the ideas we came up with and also inviting other students to share their thoughts and ideas for a social robot. We narrowed down to two research methods: surveys & interviews. The team was really excited about both of the methods, which is the beauty of the HCD process. We then came up with a bunch of questions they wish to ask in the surveys and during interviews. They were also considering hanging a chart in the hallways with a couple of questions and a QR code for the survey.
Next up!
The students will now be handing out surveys to their peers in the first half of the week, and this will be followed by interviews. On Thursday, we move to the next step and will be analysing the results from the research. I can’t wait to see them again this week, their energy and ideas are so exhilarating! It is wonderful to see them engaged in the Design Challenge.
Towards the end of our meeting, the team spent time deciding on a team name and team color. I was surprised to see the huge number of options they came up with! Some of these I’d never heard of before, have you heard of millennial pink?
