Design is a skill and skills need to be practiced consistently. So in breaks where you don't have anything to design or projects to leave until the last minute, consider some background tasks or ideas to keep things fresh. Or don't... You could always do you own thing and give us more things to talk about in consideration of the obscure and weird inexplicable ideas that are pursued.

Hosted skillfully (for the most part) by M. Boer and S. Schekman on 20th October 2020

Keys: design skills, what you need to know, the design process

Engineers tend to deal with images and figures better than text and words. The use of drawings/sketches/rendered views, etc. is all but critical for a design. Stop fighting it, accept it and embrace it. Its not the dark side (unless you the dark side is better, in which case it is the dark side).

Also seriously, if you have found Jeremy, keep him.

Hosted in animation and pictorially by M. Boer and S. Schekman on 6 October 2020

Keys: the executive summary, problem definition, substantiation of ideas, design methods

In the current conclusion to the application or use of scientific principles to a design methodology, we discuss a series of different principles. There are more (the law of thermodynamics is an interesting one to try this with as is survival of the fittest). Keeping to only one design principle, ideology or approach allows for the potential for you to miss different ideas that may be far better than what may come from your standard approach. At the very list it tests your own thinking to find and fix flaws or gaps. Give it a go.

Hosted through equal and opposite responses by M. Boer and S. Schekman on 6th October 2020

Keys: the design process, iteration, optimisation, alternative perspectives of design.

It's easy. Are you complete with your work? Yes? Then you have been inconsistent. Does that statement hold true throughout? I really hope not. In design, however, it holds up well and is a good lesson to keep in mind. Also becomes it implies that you are never done in design if you have been consistent, which is a sad truth (there is always more you can do).

Hosted incompletely because of consistency by M. Boer and S. Schekman on 22 Sept 2020

Keys: when is a project done, integration of systems, iteration of systems, alternate perspectives of design

The original approach to this topic was schrodingers cat. The idea being that after you complete a design it is both a failure and a pass until someone looks at it. That got depressing quickly and required much toast to pull us out of that slump. Following on from us wanting to not consider the future submissions that are yet to be we moved onto the principle of not getting distracted with things that don't matter.

Hosted in the now by M. Boer and S. Schekman on the 22 Sept 2020

Keys: considerations in design, planning out the design, the design process from a different perspective 

No more interuptions. Just good ol' design of the ultimate gardening system, now with added pest seek and destroy action and the ability to hover. When we look back at what happened and how the machines took over we have only the weeds to blame. 

But what if you used sunlight to burn out the unwanted life in the garden? What if there has been enough ran to turn the ground into mud and the design can no longer move?

Hosted as close to being in the outdoors as the podcast is likely to get by M. Boer and S. Schekman on 8 September 2020.

Keys: accounting or what ifs in design, functional analysis of systems

To interupt or not interupt. To account for every "what if" during the design or to run on with it and hope it works out later.  It has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand it stops you running ahead with the really bad ideas and wasting too much time but on the other hand it means that when all you wanted is a coffee machine you somehow end up figuring out how to both hard boil and fry an egg. 

Interrupted repeatedly by M. Boer and S. Schekman on the 8th September 2020

Keys: accounting for what ifs, accounting for worst case scenario, potential group work methods, design choices, iterating.

It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of a person's fears and the summit of their knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Toasting Design.

Completely off topic as usual by M. Boer and S. Schekman on 1 September 2020

Key words: Functional considerations, design considerations, problem defining, concept generation, practicing functional considerations

You can define a function as the action for which a person or thing is specially fitted or used or for which a thing exists or any of a group of related actions contributing to a larger action. Does that help you understand it better? It doesn't for me but thats mostly because design doesn't work by dictionary definitions and when dealing with functions on your designs there are different and varied ways in which they are considered and these may be different between design engineers. What we discuss here is just one of those approaches.

Hosted considering the hosts are M. Boer and S. Schekman on 1 September 2020

Keys: Functional considerations, design considerations, problem defining, concept generation

It's been said before but Design needs time. Time to review your ideas and critically evaluate your decisions (should you really have used a dog sled as inspiration for your martian rover? - no. No you should not have). Time is also necessary when coming up with ideas and tackling problems and choices with the full spectrum of tools/skills/options at your designs proposal - did you consider using environmental factors as a potential propulsion system? We don't tell you what to do per se here but there are suggestions and take note that certainly what works for one of us is no guarantee to work for the other. 

Hosted by taking a quick trip in a bus by M. Boer and S. Schekman on 25 August 2020

Keys: approaching roadblocks in design, being more creative in your problem solving, thinking outside the box