Status of the TRIZ educational problems proposed until now

In this blog until now I have proposed some original TRIZ educational problems. It's time to make a summary i.e. to examine the current solved / not solved status for each proposed problem.

"Baby's crying", proposed in December 2010 : not solved
"Dolphin's sleep", proposed in December 2010 : solved by Serge Haumont (Finland) after 3 months
"Black hornets", proposed in February 2011 : not solved
"Vertigo at the museum", proposed in April 2011 : not solved

I further encourage readers of this blog to propose their solutions to the above problems which are still "open"

Good luck !
Yours sincerely
Stéphane Savelli

Problem to solve : vertigo at the museum

During the building of a new museum, a huge amount of very old houses - ruins actually - has been excavated at the level of the foundations. As these very old houses' ruins are part of the history exhibited in the museum, they should be visible for the visitors. There is some place outside the museum with a balcony which allows to see some parts of the ruins. But at other places, namely outside and inside the museum, it is not possible to further use a balcony, because space is needed for the visitors.
Therefore it has been decided to use a usual steel structure with the shape of a large grid, which supports thick glass plates where the visitors can step on. Through the glass plates one may contemplate the ruins.

But two problems arise :

* people may be surprised by the sudden height feeling when they first step onto the glass plates, and eventually fall down

* even if people are warned, they may momentarily suffer from vertigo, or at least feel unease

For the first problem a non inventive, obvious solution was found : the people are warned by several yellow warning blocks.

For the second problem, an inventive solution was found (or used if previously found by somebody else).

It is suggested to solve the second problem.

Hint : use the already introduced TRIZ tools, i.e. determine the technical contradictions, find the underlying physical contradiction, and solve it

TETRIS : a way to learn TRIZ

If you :
* would like to have a further introduction into TRIZ, and you would not like to buy a TRIZ book
* would like to have a complete introduction to TRIZ, and you have already bought TRIZ books
* even are a TRIZ practitioner
you may be interested by the website of the TETRIS project.

In particular, the TETRIS project website provides (after due registration) the possibility to download a very complete TRIZ course. Five additional tough problems are proposed with usual mistakes and control solutions.

I forgot the following information : the access to the documents is for free. Very appreciable initiative !

Natural born inventor : Jean-Claude Novaro

I have a great respect for inventors. Above all I deeply respect independent inventors ; I call them "natural born inventors", because they always have a high intuition and cleverness, and these characteristics may be seen as natural. Actually these people are always passionate about their professional, technical activity, and work really hard. Through hard working and passion they gather such a profound knowledge and experience of their matter that they become real masters, who are then able to invent and to innovate along their career.

Arnaud, an excellent friend of mine, economist, seasoned sculptor, and passionate about arts, introduced me some years ago to such a natural born inventor, namely Jean-Claude Novaro. I was very lucky to see him glassblowing one morning.

Jean-Claude Novaro is a worldwide known glassworks artist living and working on the French Riviera. As explained on his gallery's website (http://www.galerie-novaro.fr/novaro_english.html), he was taught by a great master and further pursued his apprenticeship by self-searching and self-experimenting. This is the mark of great inventors, innovators, masters and artists : they have never finished experimenting and learning. They constantly evolve.

He told me about two great technical innovations which he introduced in the world of artistic glassworks, and which allow him to enhance his artistic power :

* a way to introduce thin gold films into his glassworks (see example below) : the problem to solve was that at the glass working and blowing temperature, gold melts and therefore cannot be introduced

* a way to make so that glassworks generate phosphorescent light in the darkness, after having been exposed to daylight (see example below)

These technical solutions are kept secret.


By the way, there are three ways to protect an invention :
* to keep the secret
* to obtain a patent
* to publish a part (sufficiently in order to impede its patenting by somebody else, and insufficiently so as to make copies very difficult)

TRIZ master Nikolai Khomenko

In the last post I shortly wrote about OTSM-TRIZ and his founder, TRIZ master Nikolai Khomenko.

A few days later, I was informed by a TRIZ colleague that Nikolai Khomenko passed away, aged 57. He was so young. Sad news for the TRIZ community... Some testimonies and comments about this very much appreciated man and TRIZ figure can be found here :

http://www.tetris-project.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=95:nikkhomhasgone&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=56&lang=fr

http://www.triz-journal.com/forum/showmessage.asp?messageID=1988

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6907054178&v=wall&viewas=0

http://www.realinnovation.com/forum/showmessage.asp?messageID=2005

http://www.thinking-approach.org/index.php?id=3037&PHPSESSID=b85d7ae4447920e43080a021190192d8

http://triz-experience.blogspot.com/

The 2011 edition of ETRIA TRIZ Future conference to be held in Dublin from the 2nd to the 4th of November will be dedicated to his memory (http://etria.net/portal/)

Invitation to two OTSM-TRIZ websites

To people interested by TRIZ and who can read French, I recommend to go to, to read and to follow the following blog :

http://triz-experience.blogspot.com/

This blog is written and maintained by Yves Guillou, technical director of a French SME, 48 years old, who studied in 2007 at Insa de Strasbourg, France, and obtained an Advanced Master in Innovative Design (see current programme : http://www.insa-strasbourg.fr/fr/mastere-specialise-conception-innovante/). This is an academic way of learning TRIZ in France. The existence of this very interesting Master deserves to be well-known.
Yves entitled his blog "TRIZ et OTSM-TRIZ, quelques réflexions personnelles sur cette théorie". Like my blog, it is only at the beginning. You will find valuable information about TRIZ fundamentals, concepts and techniques. As explained in his introductive post, Yves proposes a step-by-step approach to TRIZ, which is made accessible to anyone.

You will also find on his blog a video and related explanations about a real industrial innovation which was realized by Yves Guillou (my congratulations !) (see : http://triz-experience.blogspot.com/2011/02/un-exemple-concret-dapplication.html), using TRIZ and OTSM-TRIZ. This is the first example of TRIZ success stories that I promised to post on this blog. OTSM-TRIZ was created by Nikolai Khomenko, who taught him in 2007. I consider OTSM-TRIZ as an extension of classical TRIZ. As far as I know (for there is no public synthesis of this theory, and only a few publications which are insufficient to get the whole picture), the essential contribution of OTSM-TRIZ to classical TRIZ is the introduction of two concepts : problems' network and contradictions' network. Yves' intent is to later explain how to use the problems' network. I am personally looking forward to reading this post.

Last thing, I also invite you to discover the following website about OTSM-TRIZ, which is written by the former Yves Guillou and his friend Séverine Baudrux (initially teacher, currently trainer), in English this time :

http://sites.google.com/site/otsmtriz/

You will find there very beautiful heuristic maps and TRIZ-related icons (see an example below ; this is the Size-Time-Cost operator) which help TRIZ users to have a good grasp of the different concepts and tools. Nice job !

John Koza's invention machine : comment

The former article illustrates the very interesting, emerging possibility of computerized invention. Does it mean that human beings will soon be replaced by computers ?
Absolutely not.
Let's recall the characteristic shared by all inventions which can be generated with the help of genetic programming : they result from structural or geometrical modifications of known elements which have known functions. It is probable that the level of such inventions is systematically among the 2 first levels of invention (reminder : TRIZ proposes 5 levels of invention).
But it happens that the majority of real inventions (2nd level and above) do not possess the same characteristic. The majority of real inventions solve problems which are not programmable. Why ? Because most real inventions solve contradictions, and therefore are not the fruit of an optimization. The "new element" which will solve the problem is, until now, not programmable. Otherwise, it would be already known by the programmer / designer, and consequently already found by him / her, a human being.

Human inventors and problem solvers have a (bright) future. Phew !