Creative Thinking

Creative thinking !!!

If a man looks sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; of though she is blind yet she is not invisible – Francis Bacon

We were given a home work by our professor (Dr. Mandi) before attending this session. There was a puzzle hanging in the Upstairs of the open auditorium, we were told to solve it and understand the concept of creative thinking.

I personally didn’t understand what was happening, but once when I saw the puzzle  I concluded that “Dr.Mandi has something in store for us through this excercise”

The puzzle involved freeing a wooden ring from a setup of wooden squares, plastic balls, and a inverted tennis racket shaped wooden block with a narrow slit.

Steps for removing the ring from the toy :

•  The setup has the two wooden squares tied at either ends of a string. 
• There are two plastic balls in between which are free to slide along the string. 
• This string goes through the slit and we have a square and a ball on either side.
• Put one square block through the slit to the other side
• Pull till the plastic ball reaches the slit
•  Put the ball through the ring
• Slide the ring out through the slit.

Step to put back the ring back into the setup:

• Pass the ball through the ring.
• Tilt the ring and pass it through the slit.
• Pull the ring up above the slit.
• Remove the wooden plank, hanging on the same side of the other one but not having a ball along with it, through the slit.
• Let go of the ring.

Learnings

OBJECTIVE LEARNING

Identify the goal or challenges. In our case the puzzle involved freeing a wooden ring from the setup.The Situation prior to the solution need not be labelled as a problem. Alternate labels include a challenge, an opportunity or a situation for room for improvement

FACT FINDING

Here relevant data is gathered, in our case the data collected was follows

“The setup has 2 wooden squares tied at the either ends of the string. There are 2 plastic balls in between which are free to slide along the string. This string goes through the slit and we can have a square and a ball on either side”

PROBLEM FINDING

Clarify the problem that need to be solved in order to achieve the goal.In our case  freeing the wooden ring from the complicated setup was the problem.

IDEA FINDING

Generate ideas to solve the problem. Here we used divergent thinking process to come up with ideas. Divergent thinking is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by explaining many possible solutions. Divergent thinking typically occurs in a spontaneous, free flowing manner. In our case also, each student started giving one idea.

SOLUTION FINDING

Move from idea to implementable solution. Here we used convergent thinking. We are focussed on coming up with single , well established answer to a problem. It is oriented towards deriving the single best solution.Then the solution was implemented and problem was solved with ease. 

Thus we learnt that 

“CREATIVE THINKING is mental process of creating a solution to a problem. Creative techniques designed to shift a person’s mental state into one that fosters creativity”