Idea development in the early phases of the design process often involves the transformation of initial concepts into more feasible alternatives. However, this important component of design activity is often under-emphasized in design education, and tools to facilitate iteration of designs are limited. This study investigated "Design…

Engineering students need to prepare to address increasingly complex, contextual, and ambiguous problems in their future careers. Many students pursue engineering to improve societal problems and create innovative solutions. Yet, divergent thinking needed for creativity, and the consideration of multiple social issues and a variety of contexts, is…

This paper presents the outcomes of teaching an inventive problem-solving course to middle school students. Contrary to the common view of creativity as a 'free flow of thought' or 'thinking out of the box,' the method under discussion stresses the use of diverse heuristic approaches for problem-solving and the invention of new products: for…

According to a century-old tradition in biological thinking, organisms can be considered as being optimally designed. In modern biology this idea still has great heuristic value. In evolutionary biology a so-called design heuristic has been formulated which provides guidance to researchers in the generation of knowledge about biological systems.…