#1 Testing Afternoon

Just a few blocks from Demolas New Factory premises there is a place called Monitoimitalo 13 (roughly translated Multifunctional Building 13) which is a place for people of all ages (but mostly younger people) to practice hobbies or just to hang around. Demola folks had set up an event for the people of Monitoimitalo 13 and Demola to get to know what kind of projects are going on Demola right now. Our audience consisted mostly of young people from approximately ages 8 to 16. The idea was that we would present our sh***y prototypes, that we created on Saturday, to the audience and they'd come up with new ideas or criticism about the prototype. Also in the event some of the teams cross-examinated each other and gave feedback about the prototypes and shared ideas.

Our facilitator Ohad explains what's going to happen today.

As the event began we set up our stand and tried to lure some participants of our young audience. For our youngest audience (kids under 10 years old) our project was quite hard to understand. Recycling waste isn't something your average youngster usually bothers to think about let alone recycling the waste of SMEs. Our experience with the younger children can be summarized with the experience that Ane had with one young boy. After explaining the idea of our prototype the kid just answered "I like dancing" and danced away to the next stand. Sooo yeah :)

Our stand and our new team member Aili representing our Sh**ty prototype.

Ane explaining our project and prototype.

It seemed that most of the older kids understood our concept and prototype and thought it sounded cool and thought it might work. We tried to dig up some ideas that they could give us about the prototype but they couldn't find anything new or even something to criticise about. Other teams and facilitators of Demola on the other hand gave us much to think about. In the discussions with the Demola folks we found new ideas, problems and criticism about our prototype. I think those conversations gave us some insight on how to make our concept better. After all I think the first testing afternoon was a success and we managed find new ways and ideas to advance our project.

- Mikko -