Brainstorming for Engineering Projects using SCAMPER

Background Information for Teachers

This section contains a quick review for teachers of the science and concepts covered in this lesson.

The engineering design process typically calls for a brainstorming step where students are asked to think of new solutions to a problem. Some students might struggle with this and find it difficult to be creative or think of new ideas. It might seem like all the good ideas are already taken! SCAMPER is a brainstorming method that asks a series of open-ended questions about an object or process. Think of it as exercise for your brain—SCAMPER alone might not solve a problem for you, but it can get you in the right mindset to think of new ideas that might lead you down the right path. The letters in SCAMPER stand for the following steps:

• Substitute: what other materials could you make this item out of to improve it?
• Combine: what would happen if you combined this item with something else?
• Adjust: how could you make a slight change to it?
• Modify: how could you make a major change to the object? Make it bigger? Smaller? Change its shape?
• Put to other uses: what else could you use this object for?
• Eliminate: what would happen if you eliminated or removed parts of the object?
• Rearrange: what if you moved the parts around or switched them?

Note that these questions are examples based on the steps of the SCAMPER process, and they might not apply equally in all situations. In this lesson, your students will use paper clips as an example to work through the SCAMPER process. It makes more sense to ask "What would happen if you changed the shape of a paper clip?" than "What would happen if you rearranged the parts of a paper clip?" since a paper clip does not have multiple parts. Depending on the context, you can tweak the questions, using the main steps as inspiration.

Additional Background Links

• S.C.A.M.P.E.R., Wikipedia

Prep Work (5 minutes)

Pick an everyday object in your classroom. Spend a few minutes doing SCAMPER on the object yourself.

Engage (5 minutes)

Tell your students that engineers are people who come up with new ideas or improvements to solve problems or create new products. How do they come up with those ideas to begin with? What do they do if they are stuck? Ask your students to share some times when they had to come up with a new idea, fix something, or solve a problem. How did they go about doing it?

Explain that today we will practice a way to brainstorm called SCAMPER. SCAMPER is just one way to brainstorm—it is not the only way or the "right" way. But, if you are having trouble thinking of ideas, it can be a good way to loosen up your brain and help you think creatively/outside the box.

Explore (20 minutes)

1. Write the steps of SCAMPER on the board (see background section). Using an everyday object from your classroom, work through the SCAMPER process as a class. Ask the class questions about the object (e.g. "What other materials could we use to make this desk?") and write down students' ideas.
2. Pass out a few paper clips and a copy of the student worksheet to each student. Now let them work through the SCAMPER process individually using the worksheet. Encourage them to fiddle with the paper clips if that helps them visualize their ideas.

Reflect (20 minutes)

Put students in groups of two or three and ask them to compare their answers on the SCAMPER worksheet. Did any of them think of the same ideas? Totally different ideas? Ask each group to report their favorite idea to the class and what SCAMPER prompt it came from. Were any ideas common for much of the class? Did anyone have an idea that no one else had?

Assess

Collect the student worksheets student worksheets to use as assessments for this lesson.

Make Career Connections

You can explore careers in engineering on Science Buddies' Careers in Science page.

Lesson Plan Variations

• Let students use the SCAMPER process on an object they find in the classroom or bring from home.