Innovations in Honors
Course DescriptionsFall 2017:
First course in a required two-course sequence in which students problem-solve on behalf of a community or campus partner. Students will learn applied creative practices as well as collaborate in small groups in order to begin the foundation research needed to answer the most pressing questions in our community. Spring 2018: Second course in a required two-course sequence in which students problem-solve on behalf of a community or campus partner. Students will apply and revise the research they completed in Innovation Lab I and compile a solution proposal and action plan for putting the proposal in place. |
The Innovation Process in Action |
Summary of the Year
We began the semester by being split into groups based on areas we thought could be improved and that we would possibly be able to innovate for. I was in a group with Mia Myers, Bailey Coppedge, Ashwyn Sam, and Nicole Borosak. Our group was one of two groups focused on innovating around people without homes and the homeless population around Chattanooga.
We decided to focus on resources available to homeless people and how they can more easily access them. To do this, our group was going to create a pamphlet or some form of informative device that could be available in various places around Chattanooga to direct homeless people to places where they can get clothes, food, case management, etc. Tyler Yount came in during class one day to discuss his initiative to end Veteran homelessness and places where his initiative could use some more innovating for. One of these such areas was finding homes where they can place veterans in his program. We immediately connected with this idea and thought it would be an interesting challenge for us. After brainstorming, our group landed on creating some form of homes made out of dumpsters or cargo somethings. A couple of weeks later, Michael Walton from GreenSpaces came to discuss his role at GreenSpaces and sustainability. After hearing his presentation, we really became attached to the idea of sustainable housing for the homeless population of Chattanooga. We then pivoted from our initial idea and landed on sustainable tiny homes that would eventually pay for it to be used. Our group went with this idea for roughly the last half of the semester and wrote our IRB application around this idea. We did anticipate problems with this idea, but initially thought that we would be able to work through and around them to end up with a finished product. After break, we came back and realized that this was not actually a feasible project idea and we were forced to pivot another time. This time we pivoted to the idea of designing a competition where competitors would design and build a tiny home that would eventually be used to house people without homes. While we were working through this idea and who we would talk to, we ran into yet another wall and were forced to pivot one more time. Since we ran into the problem of cost and money for the competition, we discovered a slightly cheaper alternative of using gutted cars instead of tiny homes. Initially, we thought this was a great idea and that it would help with a lot of the problems we were facing; however, we needed to create some sort of product before the end of the semester and would not have been able to complete this idea in the time we had left. Feeling the pressure of the end of the semester quickly approaching, we pivoted again back to our first idea of creating some sort of resource with information that would help people without homes. We landed on creating a website that compiles all the resources (and more) that we have gathered throughout this year and organizes them so they can be easily accessed by homeless people. When we started talking to people, we were informed that this already exists, which was kind of discouraging, but we decided to continue with this idea in hopes of creating a more efficient version of what already exists. While we work on this, the idea of creating an app targeted at people who want to help homeless people came up. We, again, found this to be an interesting idea as well and worked on creating a roughly drawn sketch of how we would want the app to work. We presented this prototype to United Way and to our Innovation class and received feedback on what they liked, wished would have been included, and any questions they had. Basically, this semester has been one big, never-ending circle that resulted in very little actually getting implemented into the community, but one also filled with lots of learning and fun.
We decided to focus on resources available to homeless people and how they can more easily access them. To do this, our group was going to create a pamphlet or some form of informative device that could be available in various places around Chattanooga to direct homeless people to places where they can get clothes, food, case management, etc. Tyler Yount came in during class one day to discuss his initiative to end Veteran homelessness and places where his initiative could use some more innovating for. One of these such areas was finding homes where they can place veterans in his program. We immediately connected with this idea and thought it would be an interesting challenge for us. After brainstorming, our group landed on creating some form of homes made out of dumpsters or cargo somethings. A couple of weeks later, Michael Walton from GreenSpaces came to discuss his role at GreenSpaces and sustainability. After hearing his presentation, we really became attached to the idea of sustainable housing for the homeless population of Chattanooga. We then pivoted from our initial idea and landed on sustainable tiny homes that would eventually pay for it to be used. Our group went with this idea for roughly the last half of the semester and wrote our IRB application around this idea. We did anticipate problems with this idea, but initially thought that we would be able to work through and around them to end up with a finished product. After break, we came back and realized that this was not actually a feasible project idea and we were forced to pivot another time. This time we pivoted to the idea of designing a competition where competitors would design and build a tiny home that would eventually be used to house people without homes. While we were working through this idea and who we would talk to, we ran into yet another wall and were forced to pivot one more time. Since we ran into the problem of cost and money for the competition, we discovered a slightly cheaper alternative of using gutted cars instead of tiny homes. Initially, we thought this was a great idea and that it would help with a lot of the problems we were facing; however, we needed to create some sort of product before the end of the semester and would not have been able to complete this idea in the time we had left. Feeling the pressure of the end of the semester quickly approaching, we pivoted again back to our first idea of creating some sort of resource with information that would help people without homes. We landed on creating a website that compiles all the resources (and more) that we have gathered throughout this year and organizes them so they can be easily accessed by homeless people. When we started talking to people, we were informed that this already exists, which was kind of discouraging, but we decided to continue with this idea in hopes of creating a more efficient version of what already exists. While we work on this, the idea of creating an app targeted at people who want to help homeless people came up. We, again, found this to be an interesting idea as well and worked on creating a roughly drawn sketch of how we would want the app to work. We presented this prototype to United Way and to our Innovation class and received feedback on what they liked, wished would have been included, and any questions they had. Basically, this semester has been one big, never-ending circle that resulted in very little actually getting implemented into the community, but one also filled with lots of learning and fun.