One of our new classes at The Tech Summer Camps this summer is Product Design Studio. It fits perfectly with the Galileo Innovation Approach, as the philosophy of the class really encourages campers to rethink and redesign (or invent!) everyday products. In its inaugural week, campers started off the class with a warm-up challenge: improve the peanut butter (and/or jelly) jar.

Typically, customers end up with smeared peanut butter all over their fingers as they cram their hands and utensils into the jar in order to scrape the bottom and retrieve the last precious bits of peanut butter (or soy butter or almond butter or sunflower butter). In this challenge, campers were tasked with recreating the jar to improve its functionality and design.

At the end of the day on Tuesday, after brainstorming, refining and building, groups had created prototypes of their new “jars.” The re-inventions were fantastic! We had everything from a jelly shooter to an all-in-one PB&J squeeze tube (complete with decorative fabric) to a shallow PB&J two-part compartment, with a special “super-spoon” attachment. Better yet, we even tested their contraptions by filling them with real-life peanut butter and jelly.

In presenting their projects, campers were asked to talk about what materials they would use to manufacture their designs, as well as ask for feedback and improvements. What a warm-up project! The rest of the week followed suit in tremendous fashion with automatic spaghetti forks, hockey foosball tables, glow-in-the dark tilt mazes and many more wacky and wonderful camper creations.

This post was written by The Tech Summer Camps Director Stephanie Chang.