Category: SCAMPER Technique

For Coaches and Teachers, For Kids, For Parents, SCAMPER Technique

A Review of the SCAMPER Technique

Alison Weaverdyck

SCAMPER is a valuable technique for students as they approach USAT challenges. Mind Sprints often are centered on brain-storming activities, or at least have a bonus round that requires quick thinking and fast answers. SCAMPER is a great way to come up with new uses for old ideas and objects. Teams are encouraged to keep a SCAMPER sheet int their Competition Kit all year long to help them out. Download a SCAMPER sheet now.

You can also visit our series on each of the 7 aspects of SCAMPER for more hints and explanations.

S is for Substitute

C is for Combine

A is for Adapt

M is for Magnify/Minify

P is for Put to Another Use

E is for Eliminate

R is for Rearrange

SCAMPER Technique

In Case You Missed It: SCAMPER Technique

Alison Weaverdyck

usat_picks29

SCAMPER is a valuable technique for students as they approach USAT challenges. Mind Sprints often are centered on brain-storming activities, or at least have a bonus round that requires quick thinking and fast answers. SCAMPER is a great way to come up with new uses for old ideas and objects.

S is for Substitute

C is for Combine

A is for Adapt

M is for Magnify/Minify

P is for Put to Another Use

E is for Eliminate

R is for Rearrange

For Coaches and Teachers, For Kids, For Parents, Mind Sprints, Resources, SCAMPER Technique

Getting the Most Out of SCAMPER Links

Alison Weaverdyck
State 2015
State 2015

SCAMPER is a valuable technique for students as they approach USAT challenges. Below are links to last year’s SCAMPER blog series for new students and coaches, as well as those returning who might need a refresher or a way to liven up practices.

S is for Substitute

C is for Combine

A is for Adapt

M is for Magnify/Minify

P is for Put to Another Use

E is for Eliminate

R is for Rearrange

For Coaches and Teachers, Mind Sprints, Resources, SCAMPER Technique

Getting the Most out of SCAMPER: R is for Rearrange

Alison Weaverdyck

We’ve reached the end of our SCAMPER journey and I hope these posts have been helpful! If you missed any of the intervening letters, here are the links to the SCAMPER sheet that should be in every team’s competition kit and the posts about getting the most out of the technique:

S-C-A-M-P-E-R Sheet
Background on the technique
S is for Substitute
C is for Combine
A is for Adapt
M is for Magnify/Minify
P is for Put to Another Use
E is for Eliminate

Print-and-Cut-TangramAnd now for Rearrange. During the USAT season, the writers often employ at least one Mind Sprint where spatial awareness is key. Objects and ideas are flipped over or reversed, or the sequence of events may need to be changed in order to solve a problem. We ask students to use shapes and tools to copy images or to create their own pictures. Some students find this fun and easy, but for others it can be a real challenge.

One way to tap into this skill is to try out a set of tangrams with your students. Tangrams are an ancient Chinese toy that gained popularity in Europe during the 1800’s. I had a set growing up and they are a lot of fun! With some imagination almost anything can be made by moving around these geometric shapes. Feel free to download and use both the tangram cut-out at left and the animal shapes at the end of the post.

Another way to hone rearranging skills is to use scrambled words. A day or two after teaching my ESL students new vocabulary words, I will often give them the words again but with the letters in the wrong order and ask them to figure out what the words are. For a native English speaker the exercise is mostly about moving the letters around in their minds and recognizing patterns, but it also helps my Bulgarian students learn to spell the words correctly. This is a fun game to play with your students, and it is quick and easy to prepare. Words can have a theme like foods, school subjects, toys, etc or they can be random to make it more challenging.

Likewise, you can scramble math problems. If a person is given the answer and all the components to a problem, she can use the order of operations to decipher the original equation. For instance, the answer is 49, the components are 3, 4, 7, ( ), + and x. What is the math problem?

Answer: (3+4)x7 = 49.

Happy SCAMPERing and good luck at the first Meet on December 12!

matematica-tangram_animais

For Coaches and Teachers, For Kids, For Parents, Resources, SCAMPER Technique

Getting the Most out of SCAMPER: E is for Eliminate

Alison Weaverdyck

When employing “eliminate” in your brainstorms, one way to think about it is that you are reducing something to its most essential elements. If you take the sound system out of a car, is it still a car? Of course it is. But what about the engine? Your first reaction may be to think that the engine is essential, but I would make an argument that it is really its shape that makes a car a car. Think about cars from The Flintstones, or that kids pedal around their yards before they can ride a bike. These do not have engines, but what other label would you give them other than car? This exercise of stripping something down in order to define it is a great way to get kids to think about the world around them and come to recognize how things may be similar or different in various ways.

It can also help them to create their P.A.R.T.Y. in a Box performances, by helping them get to the heart of what  backdrops, costumes and props need in order represent something more complex. If they want to show a park, can they get by with just drawing a swing set? If they are going to make the audience believe they are carrying something heavy they don’t actually need a great weight, only a sac that looks full (and some good acting skills!).

The most straightforward way to use “eliminate” to get your students to stretch their brains is to start with something intact, and have them take turns eliminating elements and considering the consequences. This could be done systematically by first thinking of all the parts of a thing and then taking each out one by one. The more complex machine, organism or situation you begin with, the more opportunity there is to get rid of different elements, but you can always start simple and move to the more complex.

As I was writing this article I thought of a few prompts you could use with your students that all involve elimination. For instance, if you begin with an airplane and eliminate all the seats, would that lead to a more comfortable flight? Could they find a way to play with their electronic toys if the batteries are taken out? If someone loses their voice in the middle of an argument, what might happen? Or if a certain character was removed from a story, would it still have the same outcome?