LEGO

LEGOs are being used as a tool in participatory design process to help adults and children to physically engage, collaborate, imagine and build the future cities and help in decision making. Using LEGOs as a method to collect data was introduced to us during week three of Creativity in Design module which I found it a fun method to express our feelings and experiences through LEGOs.

I was also inspired by the LEGO process that SinFatt (2020) described in his article and how to implement it. Therefore, I decided to implement the process on myself. First step of the process is coming up with a challenge question and ask participant to build it so I came up with the following activity: Build a LEGO model to represent your groupwork experience during this module. The reason I have chosen this task is because I wanted to reflect on my experience working with the group. Second step is building the module. I then started building a model using LEGOs without time restriction because I did not want to put any limits to the process.

The third step of the process is to tell and share your story so I would like to explain what I have built. I imagined ourselves working in the farm in the tents where we are surrounded by green space and flowers. Each of the team members are working and collaborating together to complete the tasks and try to think of creative tasks for the workshop. The team faced some challenges in terms of scheduling meetings to fit everyone’s schedule as well as the weather condition as it was windy and raining and we were working outside in the farm. The green pieces represent the green spaces in the farm and pink pieces are flowers. In the middle of is a tent and white, eye, and orange pieces are team members working together. The yellow piece represent time. The challenges are represented as wind using the black pieces and green flags because wind was one of the challenges that we faced. Also, challenges are represented as wind because they can be unpredictable, come from different directions, vary in intensity, and create resistance. The metaphor highlights the idea that challenges can be difficult to face, but with determination and perseverance, we can navigate through them successfully.

The last step of the process is to learn and reflect on what you have learned from the story. As I did this individually, I would like to share what I have learned from working with groups. I have realized that doing a participatory design workshop and having a team to share ideas and design activities for the workshop makes it better. We are able to come up with better tasks and ideas. Additionally, I always find it difficult to reflect on something, but using this method made it easier for me to reflect on my working experience with a group.