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Special session — Improvisation methods to catalyze engineering creativity

Numerous organizations, including the National Science Board and the National Academy of Engineering recognize the importance of creativity and innovation in the Engineering field. However, there is very little activity focused on systematically inserting these important concepts into engineering design and engineering education. The proposed workshop utilizes a systematic approach that is currently part of an ongoing research project to develop a protocol for engineering innovation and implement this in the engineering classroom. This protocol uses humorous improvisation techniques to generate technical design solutions. It uses improvisation as a random idea generator as a random number generator is often used in stochastic simulation. Unlike previous applications of improvisation to innovation, this protocol is suitable to technical applications because it utilizes an additional step to produce technical solutions from random improvised ideas. The workshop is intended for engineers or engineering students that wish to increase the innovativeness of their engineering design. It is also intended for engineering educators who wish to incorporate this innovation protocol into their design courses.