TRIZ Textbooks:  CID Course for Children, 2-2G3
Methods of Solving Problems Topic 3.  "... Sledge, Go Home By Yourself!"      (Ideality)
Fantasy City: Course of Creative Imagination Development (CID),  2nd Grade, 2nd Semester, Methodical Guide-Book
Natalia V. Rubina, 1999 [published in Russian] English translation by Irina Dolina, May 4, 2001 Technical Editing by Toru Nakagawa, Sept. 3, 2001
Posted in this "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" in English on Sept. 11, 2001 under the permission of the Author. (C) N.V. Rubina, I. Dolina, and T. Nakagawa 2001

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Topic 3 Lesson 1

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Topic 3 Lesson 3  Project Ideal Desk

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Workbook

Lesson 1

1.   Warm-up

 “Card index to the CID lessons for the second grade, part 2”

Discussing the homework problem.

 
     The Ideal Final Result - IFR is one of the strongest instruments of TRIZ.  Aspiration for ideality is one of the main laws of the system development.  In order to find strong solutions of the creative problems in various fields, to obtain original and fantastic ideas, to predict the development of the systems, it is necessary to understand the ways of functioning of this law and to be able to apply the rules that govern this law.
The CID course for elementary school gives the general notion about IFR and the rules of Ideality.  Not all the children are able to master this strong instrument.  You will see that, at first, only two or three students in the group, while solving the problems, start articulating consciously the ideal final result.  Then more children will begin looking for an unusual application of the common things.  And. at last, they will start noticing the examples, when one multifunctional, more advanced system replaces several simpler systems.
     While solving the problems within the framework of IFR, it is important to draw attention to the following important fact.  In a problem there is always an Object (or Product) – a thing, that is difficult or impossible to change; and a Tool – a thing, that processes and changes the Object.  Sometimes, a problem doesn’t have the elements which can be changed, in this case the Environment should be changed.
     The notions of Object and Tool are not under consideration in the CID course for elementary school.  However, a teacher has to understand these notions to be able to solve correctly the given problems and to assist the children in applying the rules of Ideality.

3.  Introduction to the lesson

     The long road goes far away… Different people travel along it: wanders, horsemen, travelers on the carts.  Suddenly they come across a stone, lying in the middle of the road.  It is huge.  How did it get here?  The people on foot can go round it, the horses can pass it even easier.  But for those, who travel by cart, the stone presents a problem: it’s impossible to go further – the stone is in the middle of the road and it is impossible to pass it over.   What should be done?

     In this story, told to the children by Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana, the stone disappeared from the road by itself.  Some men with spades arrived, dug a hole, pushed the stone inside and smoothed the road.
     In a fairy tale if you want your wish come true, you have to say: “According to the pike’s command, according to my wish…”
     Once I have had a similar experience.  I always forget to put on the home shoes when I come home.  My parents don’t like it.  One day a miracle happened.  I came home as usual, took off my outdoors shoes and started to go to my room along the dark corridor.  When I turned around on the threshold of my room, I saw my house shoes follow me By Themselves.  How could it happen?
     Of course, my shoes couldn’t walk by themselves.  But if I tell you that we have a dog, you will guess right away, what this dog brought into the room.  In the dark corridor I just couldn’t see it.  Let’s keep in mind the following: things we want, can happen By Themselves, as in the problem about a stone in the middle of the road.

     In an ideal case, the problem is solved By Itself.  Such a solution in TRIZ is called an Ideal Final Result - IFR.

     In a problem that comes next, it is necessary to articulate IFR, and then to figure out how to reach the minimum changes in the system.

Problem 15.   A young mother has many problems.  If her baby is sick, she is upset and worried – everything goes upside down.  The baby cries.  The mother has to give him the medicine.  Without looking at the bottle, she pours out the medicine and gives it to the baby from a spoon.  Some time later the baby calms down.  Everything is fine, but the mother is worried by the fact that he sleeps so long.
     It turned out that in haste the mother mixed up the bottles and gave to the baby a strong sleeping medicine.  This time the baby was saved, but it could have had a tragic end.
     Those accidents are not rare.  Often such cases are typical for the old people, especially, if the medicine has to be taken at night.
     A pharmaceutical company decided to announce a contest for better decoration of a bottle for keeping poison.  So, your assignment is to design a bottle for poison.

If ……………………………………………………………,
then  (+) …………………………………………………….,
but  (--)  ……………………………………………………..

 ………………………………must be …………………………..,
          in order to……………………………………..,
 and must be not ……………………………………….,
         in order to ...............................................................

................... by itself ............................................................

     Let’s articulate IFR: the bottle By Itself warns that it contains poison.
     A contradiction is in the fact that the bottle should inform us about its contents, and it can’t inform us about it because it doesn’t have the required means.
     To solve this problem, we have to keep in mind that a person can obtain information not only through his eyes or ears; there are other organs of sense.
     The problem may have several solutions.
     Let’s use a sense of touch: a bottle may be an usual shape, in an unusual cover (for example, prickly).
     A sense of smell: the cover can be equipped with a plate with a sharp smell, while opening a bottle, a person is attracted by an unusual smell.
     A sense of hearing: a bottle is dressed into the cover, producing sounds when it is pressed, as a child’s rubber toy.
     Vision: it’s possible to suggest that the whole bottle should have a very bright color.  This solution has a serious drawback: in haste a person might fail to notice the bright bottle, while the other variants will draw his attention irrespective of his will.
   Obviously, there is no sense in solving the problem, using the taste.

If ……………………………………………………………,
then  (+) …………………………………………………….,
but  (--)  ……………………………………………………..

 ………………………………must be …………………………..,
          in order to……………………………………..,
 and must be not ……………………………………….,
         in order to ...............................................................

................... by itself ............................................................

     If the field is tilled with chemicals, then (+) nematoda will die, but (–) it is bad for people.
     Tilling must be performed in such a way, that to kill nematoda, and tilling shouldn’t be performed to save people from harm.
     Nematoda dies by itself during harmless tilling.
     Nematoda reacts to the smell of the potato’s juice, the juice makes it get out its cocoon.  Let’s till the field with the potato’s juice a few days before planting. Nematoda, smelling the potato, will get out of the cocoon and will die not finding the food.

Homework
     In “Card index to the CID lessons for the second grade, part 2” there is a collection of problems.

Workbook

1.   Warm-up

 “Card index to the CID lessons for the second grade, part 2”

Discussing the homework problem.

Name ten ways of lighting a room without a lamp.

Example 1.  It is known that under the influence of the heat the ice melts and becomes smaller.  This property of the ice may be used to put down a heavy object smoothly (Altov’s problem about a transformer  “And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared”, p.6.)

Example 2.  A slate and an eraser in one body carry out two functions: they put marks on the paper and correct them at the same time.

Example 3.  Contact lenses provide the people who have bad sight with good vision.  In this case, they don’t need glasses – the system that is not always comfortable.

     In these examples the solutions of the problems are near to be ideal, though IFR is different for each of them.
 

     “Huge, tough, unchanged technical systems are replaced with the systems that are light, “airy”, even “ephemeral”, made of small particles, molecules, atoms, ions, electrons, and governed by the fields.  An ideal machine shouldn’t have weight, volume… An ieal situation is when there is no machine, but the action is performed.
     That is why the definition of IFR, i.e. Ideal Final Result, is a method based on using one of the main regularities in the system development.   But at the same time, this is a psychological method: when one orientates oneself toward IFR, he stops thinking about the old, usual form of the machine.  The transfer to IFR is a strong method, and there are many rules, making it possible to articulate exactly IFR.  We won’t go into detail. The important thing is: you have to demand that everything happen by itself, as in a fairy tale.”
  G. Altov, “And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared, Moscow, “Detskaya literatura”, 1989, p. 88.

If ……………………………………………………………,
then  (+) …………………………………………………….,
but  (–)  ……………………………………………………..

 ………………………………must be …………………………..,
          in order to……………………………………..,
 and must be not ……………………………………….,
         in order to ...............................................................

................... by itself ............................................................

If ……………………………………………………………,
then  (+) …………………………………………………….,
but  (–)  ……………………………………………………..

 ………………………………must be …………………………..,
          in order to……………………………………..,
 and must be not ……………………………………….,
         in order to ...............................................................

................... by itself ............................................................
 

     If the spools are changed all the time, then (+) the color of the threads will correspond to the color of the fabric, but (–) this will impede the work.
     The threads should be multicolored in order to be unnoticed on the fabric, and they shouldn’t be multicolored in order not to be changed often.
     The thread By Itself acquires the color needed.
     The color of a thread is there and it is not there.
     It was suggested sewing the fabric with the transparent synthetic thread, which acquires the same color as the fabric.

7.  Sum up

 In “Card index to the CID lessons for the second grade, part 2” there is a selection of problems.

Workbook

1.  Warm-up

“Card index to the CID lessons for the second grade, part 2”.

Discussing the homework problem.

     The lesson on topic Project “Ideal Desk” is a special lesson.  Predicting the system development, based on the laws singled out in TRIZ, is one of the most difficult and interesting directions in the development of the theory itself.  In the CID course for the elementary school, the children undoubtedly receive only the general notion about predicting with TRIZ methods.  However, even a small school project, worked out together with a teacher, is a real research of the level that is easily understood by the elementary school students.
    The research project work gives an opportunity of generalizing and applying in practice the system approach, the methods of solving problems, the skills for the work with the index card.
     For the qualitative work on the project, the full-scale collection of information on the system we are interested in is necessary.  You may choose as an object for predicting any system, familiar to you and the kids.  In this case, it is important that the children have enough experience of using this system, and you have a detailed information about it.  In “Card index to the CID lessons for the second grade, part 2” you will find information about a school desk, it will help you in preparing this lesson.
     And now there are more details about predicting with the help of TRIZ methods.  In the commentaries to the lesson, the materials from Altov’s book “And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared” are used:
     “Each new technical system passes a test.  The test is supervised by a very strict “committee”- life, practice.  The “committee” puts the questions in a very captious way: “What is it?  Oh, it is an engine!  Let’s see how it works in this system…  Well, quite satisfactory, we give you three points (out of five points).  And what is this?  Is this a transmission from the engine to the working organ?  This is an excellent transmission, you’ll receive five points.  And where are the control bodies?  What, only two buttons?!  And what if the working conditions have changed?  And how about an accident?  Do we have to give you three points?…”
     The committee has the following rule: it accepts only the systems that have received more than two points.  If they got four points or five points, if they got many points – this doesn’t mean anything.  What really matters is that the sub-systems could work in a team, even with three points.  Strange as it may seem, almost all the modern technical systems were given three points at first.  The first steamboat had a very weak and amazingly gluttonous steam engine.  The transmission from the engine to the wheels consumed the essential part of energy, and the wheels themselves didn’t function well.  But even in this condition, the system promised well, because the combination was successful, the work of all parts was well-coordinated, though not very skillful.
     The technical system as a group of musicians, as a sport-team, is good only when all the parts are well coordinated, helping each other.  That is why the efforts of the inventors in the first place are aimed at finding a “system formula”, i.e. a successful combination of parts.  This is the first stage in a system’s life.
     There are four stages altogether and each stage has its own aims and its own methods of solving problems.
     Let’s consider these stages, using the example about a plane.
     The question that interested the inventors most of all on the first stage, a hundred years ago, was: what is a flying machine?  What parts does it consist of?  Wings plus an engine or wings without an engine (glider)?  What kind of wings should they use: fixed or waving?  What kind of engine should it be: a muscular engine, a steam engine, an electric engine or an internal combustion engine?…
     Finally, “a plane formula” has been discovered: fixed, motionless wings plus an internal combustion engine.
     A second stage in a system development has started – correcting “three points”.
     The inventors would improve certain parts, look for their form and for the place where to fix them, choose the best materials, shapes, etc.  How many wings should there be – three-plane, bi-plane, one-and-a-half-plane or a monoplane?  Where the steering wheel should be fixed – in the front or in the back?  Where should the engine be placed?  How many wheels should an undercarriage have?  In the end of the second stage, the plane has acquired a familiar sight.
     An at this point it began to lose it, because, the third stage is a dynamization of the system: the parts that were connected in a fixed way, were now connected flexibly.  The inventor invented the undercarriage and wings that could be put away and could change their shape and space. The plane got a flexible head (remember TU-144).  The testers took in the air the machines of vertical take-off with a turning engine.  The “cut” airplanes were patented: their body was divided into parts and each of them could be loaded and unloaded…
     The fourth stage – the transfer to the self-developing systems – has not yet come.  However, we can judge about it by the spaceships, that can reconstruct themselves in the possess of working: throw away the spent parts, open the wings with sun batteries at the orbit, separate the landing apparatus…  Of course, these are the first steps in creating the systems that are capable of developing while moving in the course of working. Ideal self-developing ships, that can change themselves according to the environment, exist only in the science-fiction novels so far.
      So, let’s keep in mind four stages:

selection of the parts for forming a system;

improvement of these parts;

dynamization;

transition to the  self-developing systems.”

      G.Altov, “And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared”, Moscow, “Detskaya literatura”, 1989, pp. 31-32.

     “When you were reading about four stages in system developing, you probably had a question to ask: well, the systems pass over four stages, and what happens to the systems after that?  After that there are two options.  I have already spoken about one of them: a system, reaching the limits of its development, unites with another system and forms a new, more complicated system – the development continues.  For example, a bicycle, united with an internal combustion engine, turned into a motorcycle.  A new system has appeared, the development continues.
    Sometimes, the way to the union with other systems is closed.  Uniting is needed but it is impossible… Such a contradiction is overcome by splitting: we split the system into several parts and build something new by assembling these parts.  The interdiction referred to uniting with outside systems, and we haven’t violated this interdiction.
     And what if neither uniting, nor splitting is possible?  Suppose, the problem is: strengthening the “springing” properties of spiral is needed, without adding anything to it or splitting it.  Let’s assume that the spring is made of the most appropriate steel and there is no point in changing it.
     At first sight, the situation seems hopeless.  Nothing can be changed – how to pass to a new system?  Nevertheless, there is a way out!  A new system is hidden… inside the old one.  We see the spring as a “piece of iron”, but inside this “piece of iron” there is a whole world of particles, a huge system is there (it exists) and it seems  not to be there (we are not using it!).  Let’s magnetize the spring so that over every coil there was the same magnetic pole.  The same magnetic poles push away; and hence pressing the spring will demand much energy.  The problem is solved, though the spring hasn’t changed in outward appearance: we haven’t added or split anything.
     So, there are two ways of system development, covering, as it seems, all possibilities of development.  The first way is uniting with other systems (including splitting up and “reconstructing” these parts).  The second way is transition from macro-level to micro-level, where the inner world of a system is got involved  into the “game”: the particles, molecules, atoms…”
     G. Altov, “And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared”, Moscow, “Detskaya literatura”, 1989, pp. 49-50.

3.  Introduction to the lesson

     Do you like your desk?
 

     Pay attention to the children’s answers, which contain contradictions, for example, the desk is high for the first-grade students and low for the fifth-grade students.

4.  Main topic
 

     “Workbook on CID for the second grade” contains one of the patterns of presenting a project.  Together with the children you may use this pattern to present in detail the information you have obtained about the system that is of interest to you. The works on modeling the system, improved by the TRIZ methods, may be particularly interesting.

 _________________________________________________
 _________________________________________________
 _________________________________________________
 _________________________________________________

Point out the main functions of a desk, its sub-systems, and its properties making it possible to carry out these functions.  For example, a desk keeps objects on its surface.  For this purpose the upper part of the table board is made straight, but an inclined plane is more convenient for reading and writing.

1.  _________________________________________________

 _________________________________________________
2.  _________________________________________________

 _________________________________________________
3.  _________________________________________________

 _________________________________________________

     On the basis of the chosen functions and properties, ensuring their performance, articulate physical contradictions.

     IFR:

_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________

     Articulate IFR for each contradiction, using the rules of Ideality.

     Solutions:

_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________

7.  Sum up
 

     “While working on the basis of the method of trial and errors, the answer to a problem usually comes much later than the problem itself.  The theory of invention changes the situation at the root.  We understand the logic of technical system development, and can predict springing up of the new problems, knowing in good time how to solve them.”
     G. Altov “And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared”, Moscow, “Detskaya Literatura, 1989, p. 51.

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Last updated on Sept. 11, 2001.     Access point:  Editor: nakagawa@utc.osaka-gu.ac.jp