Description
Key Learnings
- Learn about collaboration through design thinking
- Learn about hands-on learning in the design process and team collaboration with design thinking
- Experience foundational learning of Fusion 360
- Learn about the process of exploring ideas, and not being married to the first
Speakers
- JSJeffrey SmithJeff Smith (RIT 93' ID) is and Industrial Design working at Autodesk in World Wide Sales focused on Automotive. Currently a TSE (Innovation Agent), Jeff has also been on both the Customer Success Team and Education Team focused on Fusion Adoption. Prior to Autodesk, Jeff spent 20 years as a practicing Industrial Designer with experience in a wide range of markets and manufacturing processes. In addition, Smith has been adjunct faculty at three colleges (the Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale, RIT and Iowa State). Jeff is home based in South East Florida.
- JVJared VanscoderJared's career started as a teenager in a machine shop watching the CNC machines spin turning chips while learning CAM. After learning AutoCAD in high school, he entered Civil Engineering as a draftsman, working for two cities in Texas and the US Air Force. He transitioned into architecture as a draftsman, working for several different firms. After serving in Iraq, he finished a BS in Industrial Design and worked in new product development on exhibit systems. He then made the HUGE leap into education, teaching design & engineering. After receiving an MS in Educational Technology Leadership, he joined Autodesk in 2015 as a strategic account manager and then a technical solutions exec in 2022. Jared is a strategic leader with extensive experience in design, technology, and enterprise sales. Excels in providing stakeholders with actionable insights on leveraging technology for business growth. Adept at developing and implementing innovative programs and strategies to ensure teams exceed performance objectives. Skilled in driving digital transformation and fostering trusted advisor relationships with clients.
JARED VANSCODER: All right. Can you guys hear me without like me doing the weird neck thing?
JEFF SMITH: I can hear you, Jared.
JARED VANSCODER: All right, fantastic. So we're going to get started, and I'll do it manually. So a couple questions. Has anybody been to this session in the past? Has anybody been to this class, and--
JEFF SMITH: Have you seen us before? How interesting.
JARED VANSCODER: So we can do anything we want.
JEFF SMITH: We can do any what we need to go back to--
JARED VANSCODER: They don't even know.
JEFF SMITH: They don't know. All right. So that's good because this is the fourth year Jeff and I have done this session, and we did change it up a little bit. But this is going to be weird, let me just throw that out there. This is not your typical AU class. We're not going to sit up here and show you pics and clicks and how to do extrudes and that's stuff. That is not this class.
So if that's what you're here for, you should have known because you signed up for this class. But stay here because I guarantee you you're going to have fun. Does anybody come to AU to have fun outside the parties?
JARED VANSCODER: This is going to be fun. So you guys can interact. And this will be an actual class where you do work. We will teach you something, you will do it, and by doing it, you now own it. Fantastic. OK. So let's get started. I'm going to flip the thing. Jeff's going to yak a little bit here. So Design Thinking with Fusion 360. Let's talk about who we are, Jeff.
JEFF SMITH: So as Jared said, my name's Jeff, technically Jeff Smith. I'm an industrial designer and I've been at Autodesk for about five years. I worked for about 20 years in the industry making, designing, manufacturing, and building. I used to work with Jared on the education team where I went out and helped colleges and universities. I now work on a commercial team. I actually have the same job. I help people, but now I help customers in Fusion 360 instead of education.
JARED VANSCODER: Awesome. So as Jeff said, he used to work with me, but he left and it hurt my feelings. But I got over it because I get to see him here at AU in fun events. But I'm on the education side. So I'm an education program manager, and our education team is about 100 worldwide. And we have folks that go out and strategically work with schools. So I have a handful of schools here in the US that I work with strategically and we have cool partnerships and I get to go do really fun projects. So if you had nothing to do after this, we're actually having a student expo down on the first floor. Go see some of the student projects that are there. Really, really cool stuff.
JEFF SMITH: Side note, our @ signs here if you want us, mine's on Instagram and Jared's is--
JARED VANSCODER: Twitter.
JEFF SMITH: --Twitter. I don't do Instagram.
JARED VANSCODER: I post a lot on Instagram. I don't post a lot on Twitter. And it's not going reach that far. Go ahead.
JEFF SMITH: So is anybody a designer in here? Oh, a good selection of designers. So for you, design thinking is normal. It's part of our world. As an industrial designer, when people that I meet learn that I'm industrial designer, most of the time they ask me oh, you know design thinking. And my fellow designers in the room, you know that that kind of is the spawn and it comes from our world. And our goal is to help the other people in the room who haven't done design thinking to get a grasp on it. We want to show you what it is. We want to put you through a series of exercises. And hopefully, if you're a designer in the room, you'll be the ambassador on your team and you'll help them learn faster.
JARED VANSCODER: So I got to back up a little bit because I forgot to give you a little bit of my history, but this is relevant. So I'm an industrial designer too by trade, and then I went into education. So I taught, and faculty, and over the past before I came in Autodesk about 5 to 10 years before that, I did a lot of workshops. I did global workshops on design thinking. I've done K12. So I tried teaching design to kindergartners and high schoolers. So I did that for a while.
And over the years I broke it down what I've learned as being a designer into a few steps. And you can disagree. You can say, oh, it should be three steps, it should be 100 steps, whatever. But this is how I found an efficient way to communicate the design process to kids. And by that it actually relates to adults pretty well too, or at least people with my IQ level, which is kind of low.
So design thinking, this is how I define it. By all means, you're welcome to have your own definition. But if you're new to design thinking, this is kind of a basis. A process focus on one common goal, making the lives of the people you're designing for better. Remember it's about people. Design thinking is about people. And I broke it down into four steps, understanding your problem, ideation, developing a solution, and then sharing that out. OK. So you want me to introduce this part?
JEFF SMITH: Go ahead. You can do the challenge.
JARED VANSCODER: OK, cool. So like I said, this is going to be a little weird because you're going to be running through the design process. So those four steps that we just talked about, you're going to be getting in groups, working as a team, and running through a design process. And that's why Jeff and I were freaking out at the beginning because there's a lot of you.
JEFF SMITH: We were counting numbers going, oh my god.
JARED VANSCODER: So it's going to be a lot of teams. And we'll walk you to this process. It'll all work out in the end. It's going to be fun. But so here's our challenge. Everybody comes to conferences. Everybody's been to AU. You guys are sitting here right now. We live in a digital world and it encompasses our personal and professional lives. We can't avoid the digital lives that we've created.
But here at AU it's all about people. It's all about networking. It's all about learning and it's about growing. It's about connections. It's about who you meet and where you can go with that. But there's 10,000 people here. I don't think you you guys knew that, but it's actually more than 10,000. There's a lot of people walking around here.
But I don't know you. I don't know you, but maybe I should. I definitely should know you. But how do I know what your background is or what I could learn from you or why I should meet you? How do I know that?
JEFF SMITH: Well, I'm a pretty outspoken person and I like to go talk to people and I still have a hard time meeting who I might think are the right people or the person who is a parallel to me, that if we connect we connect dots and make things happen. So our challenge for you guys today is to design an item or a thing or a system to help that happen.
And I don't want to define you too much right now. It's an open call. You are all attendees. You are all users right now. We're asking you to take a step back and to think of a way, a system, a product, a thing that will help users like you connect and identify.
JARED VANSCODER: So here's your official challenge. Take a mental picture, snap it with your phone, whatever you want to do. But here's your challenge. Develop a solution that promotes physical connection here at the conference. But conference right here. Develop a solution that promotes physical connection here at the conference. We want you guys to break up into teams as evenly as possible. There are some rows that have four people and some that have six. Can we--
JEFF SMITH: Pretty even now I think.
JARED VANSCODER: Is it?
JEFF SMITH: Yeah, there's no empty chairs. I think we're good.
JARED VANSCODER: Yeah. We'll let you self regulate. OK. So here's what you're going to do. The row you're in is going to be your team. Look to your left, look to your right. The row you're sitting at is going to be your team. We're going to run through some process here. We're going to stop at the end of each process and give you guys time to work. Certain processes have material so I've thrown around some paper. I know it seems weird the CAD company we're using that old school technology of pen and papers. But it's part of the process. So look down your row, that'll be your team.
All right. You guys ready? Fantastic. All right. So understand the problem. I love this picture because it's looking at a situation through a different lens. Understand your users problem. This is easy for you guys, but it's because we're on a tight timeline. You are the user. The people sitting next to you are the user. You're here.
All right. So understand the problem. Identify your stakeholders. That's you guys, obviously. But in a bigger situation, who are your stakeholders? Who was involved? Observe, listen, and question. I used to have my students write out a list of things that sucked. Things that sucked are things that don't work well, that have opportunity for betterment, and then market opportunity.
Uncovering motions. That's big because we're dealing with people here. We're not dealing with machines. We're not dealing with animals. We're dealing with people. People have emotions. They get emotionally connected to products.
And this is one of my favorite, yet deep hatred of this is dig deeper. So think about young children. You tell them something. Why? They ask why. You give them an answer. They ask why again. They ask why. They continually ask why. Dig deeper. Ask why. Get down to the root of the problem. Do we have time to give the solution on the--
JEFF SMITH: Yeah, go one more.
JARED VANSCODER: Does anybody know that in and the pictures right there? The hippo roller? It doesn't filter the water. So there was a team from Stanford that actually went and did-- a team of engineers that went to Africa and solved a problem. The problem was the women in the village were carrying jugs of water back and forth, back and forth, back and forth from the water source at her village.
So the team created these things called the hippo rollers. The hippo rollers are like 50 gallon barrels flipped on her side, fill them up, roll them back. Well, they went back about a year later and turns out they weren't being used because the team of engineers didn't understand their users. What they didn't understand is the ladies that went back and forth, back and forth to use that as social time. And when you took away their social time then they said, screw that, we're going back to the jugs on our heads.
All right. So a lot of money and time went into that. It's a great solution, but they didn't think about their user. Think about your user, OK? Understand. Jeff, you want to through this one?
JEFF SMITH: So the idea is since you guys are the group, you've got to understand what's happening. You've got to understand what the problems are, and you've got to gain empathy. It's going to be easy for you guys because you are the target audience here. But you've got to understand the problem. You've got to put yourself in their shoes.
You've got to mimic their situation, which is going to be easy for you guys because you're in the situation right now. That's why we pick a topic of this nature. And then you've got to let go of what you automatically think is the direct answer, which means don't get married to an idea. The idea is that you want to create a broad base of ideas. You don't want to pick the right one first. The more ideas you growth out of this, the better the final result is, because it's about creating a funnel.
And going through this discussion and this development, you'll hopefully gain a deeper emotional understanding of the problem you're trying to tackle. And we're telling you all of this in this situation that you're a part of now, but when you go back and you're solving problems in your professional life, you'll hopefully take these processes and these steps with you.
This is a pressure cooker. So every step we do will be timed and will be action. So in our first step here we're going to get moving quickly. I would say the first thing you should do is take like 30 to 50 seconds and say hello. I'm so-and-so. I'm so-and-so. I'm so-and-so. let's get to work. You want to ask yourselves. You want to question. What do you like? What do you hate about it? Get things out there to get the ball moving, to get your creative juices going. What things are good? What things are bad?
There is nothing wrong at this stage. It's about getting things on paper, whether it's a drawing, whether it's text, whether it's a note. It doesn't matter. It's getting it out there.
JARED VANSCODER: Just to clarify the it right there and whether you like, love, or hate it, is any current solutions. So remember you're here to connect. You want to meet other people. There's ways to do that. What don't they do? What do you wish they could do?
JEFF SMITH: We don't want to reinvent the wheel all the time, but you've got to know what the wheel is first. So what are the requirements? What are the limitations? You only have so much time and you only have so much resources. You don't want to create more waste and you want to use something that's powerful, yet does its job, yet you don't want to just add things to the landfill. So find that middle ground.
So a good way to start this as we start this first section is develop a problem statement. What is the problem? Who does it affect, and how are they affected? You're basically creating scenarios by quickly, who is the person? What is the group? What are we trying to do? How do we power through it?
JARED VANSCODER: And remember, the user is not just the only stakeholder. There's other stakeholders involved. So what is the problem? Who does it affect? How are they affected? Work in your rows. I'm going to set a timer and the teacher in me is going to when five minutes is up, that's it. Pencils down, folks. Test is over.
JEFF SMITH: You saw Jared and I roll up our sleeves. So that's what you should be doing because this is a working class. We are working.
JARED VANSCODER: All right, go. Five minutes. Stay in your group, stay in your lanes, pull together. Group, group, group.
[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
Is it switching OK?
[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
Tom. What's up, sir? How's it going? How are you? Everybody knows Tom. Come on. Come on.
[HUMMING JEOPARDY THEME SONG]
[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
I'm taking pictures.
[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
Stay. Stay there. Stay there. Stay there.
[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
Sweet.
[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
Just to make sure you're on track, there's two minutes left. T minus two.
[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
OK. 30 seconds. 30 seconds. This is the honor system here.
[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
[RINGTONE RINGING]
All right, that's it. That lovely tone is your signal that you're done. Pencils down. All right. So to keep you guys on track and get you out of here on time, I'm just going to keep talking. You can talk, I don't care, but I'm just going to keep on going. It's fine with me.
Let me go back real, real quick to the beginning slide. So if you are so socially inclined, you can feel free to take pics, videos, and share on your social media. Use that hashtag, we'll use that to archive it. We'll share with the whole world all the cool work you guys are doing. So DT with Fusion 360, or F 360.
All right. And let me skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip. OK. All right, define the problem. So now is my favorite part. Now is the really fun part. All right. So let's develop some possible solutions. Let's ideate.
OK. So here's some tricks for ideation. You can do it in groups or you can do it individually. I suggest do it in both. Research actually shows that both combined gives you the most innovative solutions. Ask silly questions. What if? What if your solution cost zero? What if you had a $5 million budget for one product? What if? Team with others unlike yourself, you don't worry about that because I'm going to guess you probably don't even know the people you're working with.
All right. So here's some tips for brainstorming. Defer judgment. I have a really embarrassing story about that. I can tell you later if you want. But defer judgment, all right? Nobody in here is an expert in this. And if you are, then we should talk afterwards because Jeff and I have some ideas.
JEFF SMITH: There are no no's. Don't kill ideas. It's always yes and. Build on, don't kill, because every idea is valuable now because you want as much as possible.
JARED VANSCODER: Wild, crazy ideas, OK? Blue sky, whatever you want. Go for quantity, not quality. If your team could bust out 100 ideas the next five minutes, Jeff and I will buy a beer or soda or whatever you're drink of choice is. Quantity, don't overthink it.
All right. There's probably some really great engineers in this room. Take off your engineer hat, don't overthink this. Have fun with it. Be visual. Sketch, sketch, sketch, and more sketches, all right? We've put paper. There's pins. We have some Crayola markers. Whatever you want to do, but sketch it out. Don't touch a computer yet. Sketch it out.
JEFF SMITH: And when we say sketch, that visual communication. Stick figures are fine. We're not talking about artistic renderings. Visual communication is actually our first language. So go back to that.
JARED VANSCODER: This is not an art show, so just get the ideas out of your head. Build on other's ideas like Jeff said. And then lastly, remember we're designing for humans here. So create experiences.
All right. So 10 minutes, here's what I want you to do, develop lots of ideas. Remember quantity over quality. Ask what if. What if you had a billion dollars to do this? Design for your user's needs, which is you guys, is to design for their needs, and then sketch, sketch, and/or sketch. But most crucially is label your sketches. That's a crucial step in sketching. Jeff, do you have anything to add to that?
JEFF SMITH: No we're good with that. I'm a drawer by nature. Everyone, go to your internal drawer by nature.
JARED VANSCODER: Any questions? 10 minutes. Go, back to work.
[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
I'm sorry we're working you so hard.
All right, folks, half way. You got five minutes left. Remember go for quantity.
[SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
Go for quantity, folks. Let's get lots and lots and lots--
All right. We're closing in, folks. Let's get them in. Who has the most ideas?
All right, that is time. I told you this is my favorite phase. So this is the worst part of being the facilitator here is asking you to stop ideating for a minute. So how do you feel so far? Good?
JEFF SMITH: Good.
JARED VANSCODER: Everybody got some creative juices flowing? Who's got the most ideas? Anybody got more than five? More than 10? More than 20? That's not bad.
JEFF SMITH: Not bad at all.
JARED VANSCODER: That's not bad for 10 minutes. That's not bad at all. 16 is good. Wow. Nice. Fantastic. Fantastic. OK. So you're feeling good, you got lots of ideas. I don't want to stretch us out too far. Does anybody got questions so far? Fantastic. Oh.
I did not specify, however that's a good point. So the title of the class is Design Thinking with Fusion 360. So the whole point of this exercise-- you're spoiling the surprise here. The whole point of this exercise is Jeff and I want to show you how easy it is to go from a problem to a digital solution in 90 minutes. So it doesn't have to be physical, but just keep that whole Fusion 360 thing in mind. All right, fantastic.
JEFF SMITH: If you can communicate it with Fusion.
JARED VANSCODER: There you go. All right. So, prototypes. As much as I would love to have a 3D printer and some CNCs or even a hot glue gun and some cardboard in here, we don't. The fire marshal looks down upon that. Jeff and I have some bad experiences. But let's prototype.
So to do that, let's do some digital prototype. And that's where we're going to use Fusion. Here is where you guys probably need the most handholding is in failure. Failure's OK. Now, granted some of you are probably licensed engineers and you put your life and name on the line with that PE. And failure there is not an option, but here failure's OK. We learn by failure. As long as you can figure out where you went wrong and then you move forward understanding that problem. And this is crucial for students. But this is a safe environment, so let's fail together.
All right. So let's develop some prototypes. Think with your hands. So you do have paper. You can fold it up, you can create origami solutions. You can do whatever you want. If you happen to have some prototyping supplies with you, by all means we have paper. Jeff and I have put out the markers. Feel free to mock this up however you wish.
But then let's move into CAD. So real quick, who's familiar with Fusion in here? OK, so good. Perfect. So hopefully there's at least one person in each team that can pull the program up. We've got Tom in the back, Tom. Jeff and I. So if you need help in Fusion, by all means grab one of us. Let us help you. Yeah?
JEFF SMITH: But shouldn't we try and do it with paper first and then go-- we have to funnel our ideas down a little bit because we have all these ideas right now.
JARED VANSCODER: You should. Yeah. So don't jump to Fusion so fast yet.
JEFF SMITH: So we want to funnel a little bit. We want to pull ideas. If you have 16 ideas, you're not going to do all 16 right now. We've got to use this time period to work through your ideas a little bit. Don't think final.
JARED VANSCODER: Yeah, and that might be-- there you go. So as a team, you're going to pick a single direction and move forward. Go through a critique, verify, select process. Nobody's a dictator in here that I know of. So let's work as a team. Let's come to a consensus. Don't be afraid to combine ideas. The Swiss army knife is a Swiss army knife for a reason. So if you have to make something that has multiple purposes and it suits your needs, then let's do it.
If it makes sense to physical prototype, then do it. And if you need help with that, Jeff and I can get some more supplies. But do that. But then let's jump into Fusion and let's develop a simple model to illustrate the concept. Use perspective, proper materials, make it look as realistic as possible. Again, if you're not as fluent in Fusion as you'd like to be, Tom, Jeff, and I can help, and then hopefully somebody in your group has a decent handle of Fusion and we can make some awesome looking models.
And then stay mindful of requirements versus limitations, which for you guys is time. 40 minutes may seem like a lot of time, but Jeff and I have some really high standards here. So we need some really cool looking products.
So again, let's funnel the ideas down. Let's come up with a single solution. I would recommend sketching that out. Create a physical prototype if you can, then go into Fusion. Let's create a digital prototype and then we'll share. Questions at this point?
JEFF SMITH: Watch the clock. Don't get bogged down. It's all about distribution as well. You have team members for a reason because you got to think about how you're going to do it, how you can develop it, how you're going to show it, how you're going to test it. So distribute tasks.
JARED VANSCODER: Well, if there's no questions, 40 minutes. Go. All right folks, that is time. That is time.
JEFF SMITH: OK. Are we ready? This is the most fun part of the whole class.
JARED VANSCODER: We're going to play good parent/bad parent here.
JEFF SMITH: Exactly. 100%. So what's going to happen is you're going to have about a minute and we have to rapid fire it because we have 14 minutes left to get you out on time, and we have a lot of teams. So I'm going to come around with my camera and project up to that screen, and you're going to show us off of your screen, and you're going to give us your spiel. You'll tell us what it is.
JARED VANSCODER: We're not quite ready for that yet.
JEFF SMITH: We're almost ready. We're doing it in one second.
JARED VANSCODER: All right. So let's burn through a little bit. This'll take maybe 30 seconds. So your challenge was to develop a solution. Your challenge was to develop a solution that promotes physical connection here at the conference. That was your challenge. And you stayed, so you accepted it. You can't go back now.
All right, so very last step. That's not it. We'll make this quick. Share a story, OK? So, story time. All right, real quick. What is your solution? What does it look like? How does it work? How does it solve the problem? And like Jeff said, you got one minute to do it.
All right. Show and tell. Start with the big picture, go into details. But again, one minute. So again, Jeff is going to walk around. Let's start in the back corner, and then we'll come around. And Jeff, I'll invite you to the Zoom meeting here. Where are you?
JEFF SMITH: I'm right here.
JARED VANSCODER: Meet with video. OK. So Jeff's got the mic. So whoever wants to do a quick presentation you can grab Jeff's lapel mic and then he'll do a video of your screen.
JEFF SMITH: I am almost there. So we're going to go with group one here, what I'm calling group one right now. So which screen should I be at guys? All right, who's telling us? Somebody's got to tell. It's not me.
ABADGE: Hi. So this is Abadge. It's got an LCD and LEDs on it, and it's made of wood to be sustainable. And it's angled out so other people can see better without having to look directly at you. It supports better communication. So you can find people with like interests and all of that.
JEFF SMITH: And I am doing technical, one second. Better starts here, that's what I want. Are you guys same team? Oh, you went rogue.
AUDIENCE: We had the same concept though, starting off with Abadge. I just did a little bit different. So my concept here it's pretty similar to what we already have. But maybe we have a Bluetooth connected app that has like a Twitter feed or you can put whatever you want that scrolls across this OLED down here at the bottom.
JEFF SMITH: Oh. An OLED? Wow. Big spenders over here. It's a good thing. Good thing. OK. OK. You guys ready? Where you at? Right here? OK. Who's talking?
AUDIENCE: Right here.
AUDIENCE: We did not steal the ideas.
AUDIENCE: We had an idea for-- So we have the Connect O' Badge. It has a chip in it that contains all the profile information. Just like they were suggesting, it interacts through the AU app. Through that we can help find people of similar interests through maybe a heat map that would show us where people sitting in class or lunch or congregating out in the halls that we're interested in. It would have the LED lights that would help indicate to others as we're passing by that, hey, I'm who you're looking for. And then possible future things are social meeting games or Autodesk team challenges coordinated through your badge.
JEFF SMITH: Let me go through. Squeeze through here. OK. You guys ready? OK. Who's talking?
JARED VANSCODER: I'll talk. So one more badge addition like the yellow tags on the bottom except with a tracker type device in it and a light that lights up when you have people based on interest. It could be directional. Or maybe there'll be times in the day when all the lights go off and you have to find the matching colors and hurry and get as many as you can before it stops.
JEFF SMITH: See, there's the game idea--
JARED VANSCODER: Get some points along the way.
JEFF SMITH: Yeah, I like it. All right, nice. Nice. Nice logo too. Excuse me, guys. I'm trying.
AUDIENCE: OK. So this is a cell phone jammer and a bottle opener. And everybody gets one. It could be good in the conference, and it goes off randomly. And in order to unlock everyone's phone around you, you've got to find the person whose thing went off and give them a beer and crack it open with them. And on the back of it, it's going to display what kind of beer that person likes. So it can be like get Bill a Heineken. And you find him, you crack the beer, then it unlocks it, then at some point someone else is going to go off. You just got to keep finding the people and giving them beer.
JEFF SMITH: Have you applied for the patent yet or it's just that--
AUDIENCE: It's a process.
JEFF SMITH: OK, all right. OK, good. Good. Post that, please. All right, you guys ready?
AUDIENCE: All right. What we've got are a pair of AR goggles. They're going to double as safety glasses when you leave. Push that sustainability note. But in the meantime, they solve the problem by augmented reality filters that you can apply. So basically some sort of view that shows name, role, interests, maybe a content that you're willing to share. You can apply filters. You can see who has their filter on. You can strike up conversation.
JEFF SMITH: Oh, nice. Nice. OK, one more on this side. Who's talking?
AUDIENCE: So what we thought is that getting a physical connection meant bringing people close together for a general target. So getting your drinks would be, you need people on one side of the seesaw to actually lift it up so one side could get their glass. And the drinks would be on the other side, so you'd have both teams working together to get yourself a drink. So that would be the idea.
JEFF SMITH: There's that game component again, and nice usage of joints. Wow. Good job.
JARED VANSCODER: I'm seeing a trend with alcohol and games.
JEFF SMITH: OK. You guys are next. Who's talking? Jared gave me the hard job.
AUDIENCE: All right. So our idea here was originally would start with a badge and we kind of thought, how can you like get away from the badge? Because it kind of promotes awkward staring. So we thought, what if you could do like a water bottle or like a coffee mug or alcohol dispenser that you could kind of bling out with interest, CAD, whatever software you're into or your field, and kind of promote that connection of like seeing what other people are into and then you can go up, walk up to him and you've got a conversation starter right there.
JARED VANSCODER: Nice. And it gives you something to do with your hands so you're not like awkward.
JEFF SMITH: Does this one say I must cut you? I mean, does it come with a complimentary pocket knife? Which is a great tool, but-- ah. Ah. Product you worked at. OK, good. OK. Got it. Got it. I did this. Cool.
JARED VANSCODER: Jeff, that's a subtle message to SolidWorks users.
JEFF SMITH: Oh, sorry. All right. Where am I at, guys? Who's talking?
AUDIENCE: I am apparently. So we went with a versatile wearable option. It could be a badge. It could be attached to a watch. It could be attached to a hat. However the user wants to wear it. It would light up in two different colors. It would light up in two different colors. So it would either be green or red. If you wanted people to approach you it would be green. If you don't want to approach you, it would be red. You could have your-- sorry, what is this again?
AUDIENCE: Your RDF.
AUDIENCE: Your RFID in the back. So it would also act as your MagicBand to get into the panels to-- communicate with other people.
JARED VANSCODER: Stealing that Disney idea there. See where you're going.
AUDIENCE: I don't have Disney frames on this one.
JEFF SMITH: All right. Nice job. I really like the don't come talk to me right now. I really like the, do not disturb.
JARED VANSCODER: Very nice.
JEFF SMITH: I like it.
JARED VANSCODER: Very nice.
JEFF SMITH: All right. Who's talking over here? You were talking. OK, here you go.
AUDIENCE: All right. This is a tag that you add to your lanyard. The outside is color coded for whatever area you're in, whether it be education, AUC, manufacturing, BIM, bat. The yellow in the middle are lights. When you connect with someone in your area, the light lights up. When you get a full card, you go to a hub, tap it in, and you enter it into a drawing.
JEFF SMITH: Oh. You mean you've been motivating people to give stuff away to connect? Oh, I like it.
JARED VANSCODER: Very nice.
JEFF SMITH: I like it. OK.
JARED VANSCODER: I'm seriously impressed, guys. This is fantastic.
JEFF SMITH: OK. Got to get through, guys. Who's talking? You're talking, I'm filming.
AUDIENCE: We went along the same lines with the badges. But our issue of getting people together would be on the slot that you don't have a class that fits would be a speed dating. Like that on the first level. So instead of, oh, I don't have a class from 1:30 to 2:30, you would sign up for speed dating, and then the same thing would come up. It would light up with the programs you typically use. The LEDs on the right would let you know, hey, I'm in construction. I'm an educator. I'm a designer. And then they could be reusable year after year. So the bottom section would be the sticker that's still lists your name, where you're from, things like that.
AUDIENCE: Or if you want beer.
AUDIENCE: Or if you want beer. Yeah. Well, that would be the thing of-- our group had only two people from the US. So you sign up for the 7:00 to 8:00 class. It meets and then they immediately go out to venues around the area.
JEFF SMITH: Very nice. Florida represent. I'm a Florida resident. I assume you're from Florida with FP&L. You're not?
AUDIENCE: I worked on FP&L.
JEFF SMITH: OK. Because I was like, awe. OK. OK. All right. Last one. Last one. All right, who's talking? You are talking and I'm filming here.
AUDIENCE: So our group came up with an idea for a backpack strap, backpack strap cover that's similar to some other team's ideas. It would be organized by area, and that would be the beacon on the top corner or the top shoulder so that when you pass by people who are also in like manufacturing or architecture, et cetera, it would light up and indicate that you could connect with that person.
And then thought about putting all of the different softwares that people use. So option to customize, so that you could then further create conversation through I'm an architect who uses this, I'm an entertainment person who uses this, so that you could do that. And then it would be removable so that you can have your plane backpack for after AU.
JARED VANSCODER: Fantastic. Guys, give yourselves a hand.
[APPLAUSE]
JEFF SMITH: So we're done like two minutes early.
JARED VANSCODER: No, we're not quite done. Hold on. All right. So again, this is the biggest group Jeff and I have ever had. This is the best group we've ever seen. This is fantastic, guys. Thank you so much. So going back to what I said before, the whole point of this session was to show you how you can use Fusion 360 to go from thought to thing, from concept to creation, to get the idea out of your head and get something on a computer take that 3D, print it, throw into a mill, have a prototype created in a matter of an hour or less. So thank you so much for coming.
If you do feel so inclined if you took some pictures or video, please post to social media. Let Jeff and I know what's going on. He's a big time, Instagram guy, so you can follow him and see all his amazing sketch work. And I don't do anything interesting, but you're welcome to connect with me as well. But thank you so much, guys. Really appreciate it. Last question. Did you have fun?
JEFF SMITH: Yes.
JARED VANSCODER: Thank you.
JEFF SMITH: Then we did our job. I hope you take away, take away process.