Homework 1/25

In terms of The importance of revision, Tharp says that We have to use our past failures in order to Avoid repeating our mistakes and failing again. Petroski, however, looks at it a bit differently, and instead of talking about using failure in our revision process, she instead suggests revising our good ideas to make them even better.


Tharp defines a few different types of failure: Failure of skill, failure of concept, failure of judgment, Failure of nerve and failure through repetition. Petroski, however, destined only one type of failure: Failure through disregarding criticism. In revision, failure is beneficial because it pushes us away from bad ideas or ideas that may not work out and towards something viable.

Homework for 1/18

• Dodds & Smith define fixation as a persistent block or impediment to successful problem solving.

• Gerber recommends throwing away previously generated ideas when someone is in an idea development stage and hits a wall. This is to keep too much energy from being wasted on a few ideas and allowing for room to be made for new ideas.

• My reaction to Gerber's idea is that it makes sense, but I don't agree it should always be the case. On one hand, it's good not to get too caught up on ideas that are going nowhere, however, if you let a bump in the road stop you in every case, you'll never get anywhere. I think it's good in theory, but not always the best case in practice.

• I don't think Johnson's thesis is entirely true. Some of my best ideas have come during random bursts of inspiration, as if out of nowhere. I think it's impossible too truly define how to generate "good" ideas because every idea is subbjective. It could could good for someone and terrible for someone else.

• In terms of our in-class teamwork, I think doing exactly what we did in class last week, sitting down and brainstorming, might be the best way to go about combining the ideas to creat something more innovative.