Prototyping and hacking for pollinators

Activity concept

Prototyping is a widespread approach to design and product design, which involves the development of a simple version of an innovative solution (usually an object). This can be very helpful in creating and testing concrete interventions before they are actually implemented as well as in communicating the vision for a new idea. In a broader sense, a prototype can be something that gives a material shape to a concept, a relationship, an idea - even a whole vision of the world. As such it can be an important step in moving from imagining a systemic change to implementing it. Prototypes tell us something about the world in which they could be a daily object. As an example, consider one of the prototypes developed during a workshop presented in >Blueprint 1. Prototypes are, thus, on the one hand, tightly packed symbols that can be explored to find ever more meanings and insights. On the other hand, they are concrete objects that make speculation a reality, and help us imagine better how differently our world could be. Finally, they are a way to start moving to a different world – one where our relationships with pollinators - and other living beings - could be different.

Porotypes are often discussed together with 'hacking'. You may associate the term with programming, but its significance is broader: 

Hack (noun) – 1. A clever or elegant technical accomplishment, especially one with a playful or prankish bent. 2. A temporary, jury-rigged solution, especially in the fields of computer programming and engineering: the technical equivalent of chewing gum and duct tape. (Urban Dictionary) 

You probably also heard of ‘life hacks’ - simple solutions using daily objects to make things easier and more efficient. The current interpretation of hacking involves creatively finding ways to overcome limitations within a system by exploring and repurposing existing knowledge, techniques, infrastructures or practices. This reflects a hacker mindset of trying out new methods in different contexts. Although it is often interpreted as linked to disobedience, it rather embodies pioneering and daring mindset.

In most general sense, hacking is about working with what already exists and re-purposing or tweaking it slightly to make it work for new purposes, or making slight, often informal, adjustment to improve it. Prototyping is about working out something new. While the former is about effective change, the latter is very much also about communication of new visions. As such, these two can be complementary approaches, enabling innovative and proactive approach to addressing challenges and adapting to change.

Stage: Co-designing

Format: In person

Work Modality: Small groups

Location: Indoor

Duration: 120mins

Topic(s): Pollinators

Preparations

You can use everything you have available in terms of tinkering materials – starting with materials to draw the designs, all the way to DIY equipment. Depending on what you want to create, you can use random things that anyone can find around their home or more professional materials and equipment: cardboard or metal sheets, old mechanic or electronic devices, fabrics, plastic containers, scissors, duct tape or hot glue, etc. Participants can also use materials they find in the environment around them, and which were not purposefully selected by the organisers (e.g., tree leaves, office waste). The more advanced techniques you will use, the more instructions you will likely need to provide to participants – and never forget about the health and safety rules when using equipment! 

Tools

Pens, crayons etc..., Flipchart, Makerspace equipment

Because of the nature of this activity, it can work really well in >Makerspaces or FabLabs. 

Team

Facilitator / moderator, Visual artist, Maker

Process

The very process of developing prototypes involves very intense and close collaboration, so it should be run in small groups. If your process involves more than five people, divide them at the start. It can be a good idea for this activity to mix citizens and experts or even stakeholders, maximising the diversity of knowledge and experience in each group.  

This activity should start with identifying the issue that you want to address with your prototype or hack, and then defining what you want to do. This should build on previous >sense making activities, during which you can identify the concrete problems you would like to address. Make sure that you bring to this activity not just the problem, but a wider description of it. This can be, e.g., the causes mapped through the >problems tree or the diverse systemic layers mapped in the >Iceberg Model. This will help you stay creative in defining where you can intervene and how.  

Identify the general shape and features of your prototype/hack – as well as what you would need to develop it. You can do this using quick brainstorming techniques, where participants list different features of the infrastructures, objects, practices etc. they want to focus on. They should be as creative and open as they can. To help creativity flow, you can include play-like elements. For instance, sitting in a circle, participants say the as fast as they can, one after another, the words that come to their minds as they look at a photo illustrating your selected issue. Afterwards, together, they try to define more in detail the features following these initial keywords. Once the features are identified, structure the discussions using guiding questions:   

• Which features are part of the problem? Which ones can bring new opportunities? 
• Which of these features are relevant for pollinators? Are some relevant for both pollinators and people?
• Which of the relevant opportunities are feasible? What would be needed to realise them?
• Can some of the features that constitute the problem be re-appropriated as supporting the opportunities? 

This is the point where the participants can clearly define what the hack or prototype would consist of. It might be that you must confront this ideal plan with the resources you have at your disposal. That's OK - in fact the idea behind both hacking and prototyping is that you work with minimal resources.

Strat planning the shape of the porotype in concrete terms. Depending on the complexity of the idea and your working preferences, you can do this by drawing designs or directly toying and tinkering with materials. It’s a good idea to test the different features as you go, adapting and adjusting the elements as needed. When you work with big infrastructures, e.g. prototyping changes to budlings, do small models to make things tangible. This really helps to look at things form a different perspective and notice what otherwise might have been missed. 

When you have the first more or less functioning version, confront it with other groups, gathering input. With this information, do the next (and eventually the final) iteration to develop a more advanced version of the prototype. Ideally, at the last step you will test it in the (urban) wild – i.e., the actual environment in which the real product would be used. 

Compatibility

• This activity can be connected well with different forms of storytelling in that a prototype can be a starting point from which one can start developing a story about a world, or a vision of the future. Inversely, after you have a worked-out a story about a (future or alternative) world, to make it more concrete and develop steps to arrive to it, a prototype can be developed based on it. See >Blueprint 1 for concrete ideas on this.
• Prototypes can also be among the actions identified in >broad-casting.