ThinkCycle
|
|
| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman-Professional Development |
| Discipline(s): |
Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering Biological Systems and Agricultural Engineering Chemical, Biochemical, Biomolecular Engineering Civil Engineering Computer Engineering Computer Science Design Electrical Engineering Environmental Engineering General Engineering, Engineering Science Information Systems Information Technology Mechanical Engineering Software Engineering |
| Special Topic(s): |
Appropriate Technology |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Community - General |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
| Author(s): |
Organization:ThinkCycle.org |
| Description: | ThinkCycle is an academic, non-profit initiative engaged in supporting distributed collaboration towards design challenges among underserved communities and the environment. ThinkCycle seeks to create a culture of open-source design innovation, with ongoing collaboration among individuals, communities and organizations around the world. The website resources, along with a very active discussion group organized around the following focus areas: Health , Education, Energy, Environment Community, Global Action, and Sustainable Living. At the heart of the community is an evolving database of reasonably well-posed problems and ongoing design solutions contributed by universities, Non-Govermental Organizations (NGOs), companies and the general public. The system is primarily aimed at, but in no way limited to, using the design and engineering skills of the students and researchers in universities worldwide. One scenario is for professors to assign challenges to their students, assist them in working collaboratively with communities and organizations in developing countries while encouraging peer review from domain experts of evolving design solutions archived on ThinkCycle. Motivated teams of students may also work on critical design challenges as independent study projects with their departments. The objective is to document all evolving design solutions, rationale, processes, peer reviews and contributions within a searchable and cross-referenced system. Distributed and shared intellecual property issues are approached by maintaining all contributions for individual projects on the system (more on this issue will be formalized soon, as we work closely with our current ThinkCycle design teams). Teachers and academics now have a resource for selecting interesting, applied problems while students gain experience in working on challenging real-world projects. Design teams can approach partner organizations for support in extending their work on the field and the development of subsequent products and services. NGOs, practitioners and researchers now have a resource for sharing problems and design challenges, while the general public benefit from open-source access to innovative design, and a new generation of individuals working on problems that matter for the environment and our communities. |
| Rating: |
|
| Related Resources | |
| Has Components: |
ThinkCycle Discussion Groups |
| Is Component of: |
instructables - step-by-step instructions |
| Usage Tip | |
| Related ABET Criteria: |
(c) Design a system, component, or process (h) Understand global, economic, environmental, and societal context |
| Use of Resource: |
ThinkCycle is an academic non-profit initiative, developed and operated by a group of doctoral students at the MIT Media Laboratory with the support of many students and faculty throughout MIT. The system is now being used to support workshops and courses in partner universities to scale this initiative worldwide. The online site complements ongoing design courses at MIT and many campuses around the world, such as the inter-disclipinary design studios: Global Design that Matters. ThinkCycle seeks to support design, resources, peer review and funding grants for students, individuals, design teams and organizations engaged in collaborative design with ThinkCycle. |
| Difficulty: |
Medium |
| Interactivity Level: |
Very high |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | October 2007 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://thinkcycle.org/ |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
|
