“You cannot get a technologically innovative place unless it’s open to weirdness, eccentricity and difference.”
– Richard Florida
Stills from project videos
Just to point out the results we found from conducting the 2 experiments ‘Bean Bag Front Row’ and ‘Basketball Bin’, we have here a few stills taken from shooting. Pretty much before and after stills showing how the introduction of our creative elements into the public inspired people to break from the norm and alter their behavior.
Before class entered room:
Bean Bags Front Row - Empty
After class entered room:
Bean Bags Front Row - Full
Before introduction of Basketball Bin:
Basketball Bin - Rubbish on tables
Basketball Bin - Thumbs down
After Basketball Bin is introduced:
Basketball Bin - Kicking paper into net
Basketball Bin - Cheering throw
Basketball Bin - Slam dunk
Basketball Bin - Celebrating dunk
Project video – Basketball Bin
…And again as promised, heres the follow-up to Bean Bag Front Row, the second part of our ‘Fun Theory’ inspired experiment entitled: Basketball Bin.
Enjoy!:
Any comments or feedback are welcome.
Project video – Bean Bag Front Row
Heya guys!
So after sorting through all the footage and some tasty editing, as promised, heres the video for the first part of our little experiment entitled: Bean Bag Front Row.
Enjoy!:
Any comments or feedback are welcome 
Project ‘Basketball Bins’
For this experiment we first observed how much rubbish people were leaving behind on their tables when they left Starbucks, along with how often they used the bins provided. To entice people to use the bins more we bought a basketball net, and positioned it above one of the the bins in Starbucks. Our creative idea paid off as people not only used our ‘basketball bin’ more than the other bins, they actually engaged and played with it, and even looked for other rubbish to put in the bin… thus changing their behaviour and cleaning the restaurant at the same time effectively.
We will upload a video of Project Basket Bins soon =]
Project ‘Fun Chairs’ Gets Underway
Today was the day of our first experiment, Project Fun Chairs. We had a few multi-coloured bean bag chairs, which we set up in two classes. The first class was a 9 o’clock start so unfortunately we didn’t manage to get the bean bag chairs set up in the classroom before the students started arriving. By the time we got the chairs there, everyone was already in their seats, and it being early in the morning, they didn’t seem too interested in moving themselves and all of their stuff up to the front of the class.
It was a different story in the second class though as we had more time to prepare the new front row. We took away the tables and hard-backed chairs and set up the bean bags. Now it was time to see if our creative idea would actually work… The first one or two people that came into the class immediately took note of the chairs and were tempted to sit in them. However, nobody was keen on being the first to sit down on them by themselves, so they opted out and sat in the usual back two rows of the classroom. To avoid the same thing happening with everyone else that came to class, one of us sat down in the bean bag chairs and took out their notebook and pen, ready for class. (This was to get the ball rolling, so to speak). And it worked, the next few people all came in and sat down on the bean bags beside our team member. There was only one free bean bag seat left in the front row by the time the class started, which was soon taken by a late-comer to class. So in a way our experiment worked… even though we had to get it going ourselves, we still managed to entice people to sit in the front row.
We will have a video up of Project Fun Chairs soon =]
Idea Three
For our third experiment, we are looking at the fact that in almost every class, the front row of the classroom is avoided at all costs. We want to entice people to sit in the front row, and so we are going to replace the tables and chairs in the front row with ‘cool’ and ‘fun’ chairs, e.g. bean bags, inflatable chairs. We hope students will see the fun side to it and actually sit in that “daunting” front row.
Idea Two
Our second idea is entitled the ‘The Divide.’ It will be a divide, using chalk (or another washable source) on the ground, to create a divide, or two lanes, where people walk, as to see if people will engage and walk in their corresponding lane, ie. A “Dundalkers” vs. “Others” lane, or a Males vs Females lanes, in a hope to make people partake in creativity, just by walking.
Idea One
Our first idea is to place a basketball hoop over a bin in the Starbucks area of the college, with a second bin beside it, the purpose, to discourage littering, but by using the second bin, we can compare if people use the “fun” bin more so than the regular bin, generally because it is more fun and interesting to interact with.
Our Research
We want to conduct our own experiments to see if people’s behaviour changes when a creative idea be introduced into an everyday circumstance. Richard Florida’s quote, “You cannot get a technologically innovative place unless it’s open to weirdness, eccentricity and difference,” has made us believe that being in college gives us the perfect place and audience to enforce our experiment(s), as there is no better place where people are weird, eccentric and different, other than college.
