Have you ever had to choose between keeping up with academics and nutrition? It is considered inevitable that college students will have to sacrifice meals in order to attend to their studies. Choosing between meals and grades inhibits success because the body requires energy to function and grades must be maintained for academic success. Finding a stable medium can balance these two critical factors of college life, and prevent a harmful choice!

Cole Meyer and Max Rombach both agreed that space needed to be more efficient.

Bob Sildmets

Manager at Abel Brought up space. Also talked about change from cafeteria to convenience beginning in the 1990s.

Jared, Jeff, Andrew, and Kaleb were students that used the dining hall as a social tool. 

Empathy: We are all college students aiming for success, and sacrificing meals in order to meet academic requirements is often necessary. By skipping meals we strain our body and deprive it of the required resources it needs to function. However, we also have deadlines to meet and the clock does not stop ticking. Our design group is composed of university students who have experienced this pressure, and each of us feel that this unfortunate consequence of time management can be combated through a new innovation.

Very through notes were taken during the interviews with each of the groups or individuals we talked to. Along with notes some statistics were given to us that had calculated the amout of waste that each of the halls made on a daily basis. 

As a group we ate at HSS and observed the layout and the way people went about their eating. We also discussed ways in making the layout more flowing, along with changing the technology in the dining hall.

Define: We defined this issue as an internal conflict within a student’s dining schedule. Design Group 156 B approached the assignment, which challenged the class to search for improvement of the dining facilities on campus, by interviewing a number of on-campus individuals. Through these interviews we obtained information and evidence that supported our concerns with the current dining hall arrangement. One of the major issues that developed was adequate space. As a group, we knew that our shared academic/dining conflict was a university wide problem, and for that reason we began our initial pursuit of the issue in the context of space. This helped us to initially define our mission and move forward into the process.

The previous four pictures are us during our brainstorming phase trying to come up with several great ideas that could match our statement. Much discussion was made and multiple ideas came about but in the end we had a more finalized idea of what could solve the problem.

Ideate: After defining several complex issues within our dining halls here on campus, Group 156 B began to develop and generate new ideas to help analyze the problem and break it into sections. Out of our analysis we determined that the dining hall(s) should include catering to academics. We formulated and advanced plans to create a ‘sanctuary for studies’ within the dining hall. However, this plan was far from reality and by digging deeper into the problem we found that brining books to the dining hall was less effective than brining the dining hall to the books. Our focus then shifted to the university library.

The four pictures above our the products of all of our brainstorming. We decided on building a table that could help the busy college student that needs a dining environment that acts as a sanctuary for multi-tasking and addresses both academic and physical needs.

Collaboration: It is important to work with the user, and as a group. Design 156 B interviewed multiple users and aimed for the best possible solution to a college-wide problem. In addition, Design 156 B also fostered teamwork and this helped us further our design process.

During our final meeting as a group the model was built and the mindmap were created to physically and visually represent our brainstorming process. 

The mind map is an excellent visual aid that represents our brainstorming process. It can also show the direction we were most led. This in the end became our main goal.

Prototype: To facilitate studying while dining we organized our initial efforts to create a suitable venue. Our prototype moved through different stages that helped it evolve to its current shape. At first we believed we would design a space within the library that encompassed studies with dining. This plan was too extensive for our purposes and the original prototype led us farther into the process where we found that purpose-built tables could play a major factor in helping students eat and study. These tables we theorized, could be placed within the library to serve as place for required academics and facilitate physical needs. The prototype table went through further conditioning to reach this point and it was at this time we took a step back into ideation. Group 156 B needed a clear path because designing a table is very broad. We took a period to list all of the qualities we wanted in this table. Why should it be in the library? What makes it different from other tables? How can it service the student’s academic needs? How can it cater towards dining? What will make it a place for academics? All of these questions led to more questions and we believed we had tapped a “wicked problem.” However, these questions helped us develop our understanding of the individual student and their needs, and we pulled ourselves back into the prototype phase with a detailed list of qualities we wanted this table to have. This list helped us further our process towards a solution and a result was this small model.

Test: Testing our prototype has proved to be successful. It addresses the needs of the user and can accommodate food and books.

The final physical model is our solution to our main statement: The busy college student needs a dining environment that acts as a sanctuary for multi-tasking and addresses both academic and physical needs.