Section outline

  • 🧠 What do a robot dog, an automatic plant-watering system, and a vending machine have in common?
    They were all built using a process called Design Thinking!

    • 🎨 What is Design Thinking?

      Design Thinking is a step-by-step approach that helps us solve real-world problems in a smart and creative way.

      It’s not just about building a robot that works — it’s about building one that makes people’s lives better and is fun or easy to use.

      🤖 Why Use Design Thinking in Robotics?

      • Focuses on the user’s needs
      • Encourages creativity and problem solving
      • Helps create robots that are both useful and user-friendl

    • 🪜 The 5 Steps of Design Thinking (With a Fun Example)

      Let’s say you want to build a robot to help carry school bags. Here’s how you would use Design Thinking:

      Step What It Means Example
      1. Empathize Understand the user's problems and feelings Talk to classmates — What makes carrying bags difficult?
      2. Define Clearly describe the problem Students get tired carrying bags long distances
      3. Ideate Come up with lots of creative solutions A robot that follows students or one with auto-balancing wheels
      4. Prototype Make a simple version of your idea Use cardboard, bottle caps, string, etc. to make a mini model
      5. Test Try it out and see what can be improved Does it move? Can it carry the load? Can others use it easily?