Slide outline for Lesson 7.7. Twelve slides, one day. Slide 6 (the two brainstorm rules) and slide 7 (the three filter questions) stay up for the whole middle of the period.
Big Idea Factory
- Unit 7, Lesson 7.7, Topic 7.2 FACS Shark Tank
- Today: you find a real problem, and your team picks one
- By the bell you have a team, a role, and an idea with my signature on it
Teacher notes
Image: a wall covered in sticky notes, no text readable.
Six area signs posted before the bell. Rubric 07 criteria 1 and 2 back at the door if they did not go back yesterday. Yesterday's exit cards in hand, eight chosen to read.
Do now
- Something annoyed you in the last 24 hours
- Write it down
- Do not make it important. Small and annoying is fine
Teacher notes
Read eight of yesterday's exit-card problems aloud, unnamed, then take four from today. Write them all on the board in a list. No comment. No evaluation.
Thirty problems on that board
- Every one of them is a business somebody could build
- Your team's job for twenty minutes: find twenty more
- You are not allowed to say whether any of them are good. Not yet
Teacher notes
The hook. Say the last line with emphasis, because it is the rule that makes the next twelve minutes work.
The six areas
- FOOD (Units 1 and 6)
- MONEY (Unit 2)
- FAMILY (Unit 3)
- HOME (Unit 4)
- CLOTHING (Unit 5)
- WORK (Unit 7)
Teacher notes
Image: six one-word signs, spaced apart, as they are posted around the room.
You have spent a year in all six. The problems you know best are in the areas you already studied.
Problem scan
- Three stops. 100 seconds each
- Stand under a sign
- Write problems you have ACTUALLY SEEN. Not problems you imagine
- One of your three stops must be WORK
- Drawings count. One word counts
Teacher notes
Circulate and give one example per sign to a team that stalls. If nobody named a clothing problem yesterday, stand under CLOTHING yourself and give two.
Two rules. Six minutes.
- The target is 20 ideas
- Nobody says "that's dumb"
- If you want to say it, say "later" instead
Teacher notes
Walk the room enforcing rule 2, not rule 1. One word when you hear a criticism: "Later." Call the count out loud at four minutes and at five. Teams sprint at the end and the last five ideas are usually the interesting ones.
Now open the gate. Three questions.
- Is the problem real? Has somebody in this room actually had it?
- Could three middle schoolers actually build or do this in five days with what is in this room?
- Would anyone pay for it, and roughly how much?
- Fail any one, cross it out. Do not argue
Teacher notes
Question 2 is the one that saves the project. Ask every team, in these words: "What are you physically handing a judge next Friday?"
Narrowing, out loud
| Too big | What you actually hand a judge |
|---|---|
| An app | Two hand-drawn screens, every button labeled |
| A restaurant | One dish, plated, with a menu card and a price per serving |
| A clothing brand | One hand-sewn item with a price tag and a care label |
| A tutoring business | One printed service card plus one worked sample |
| An organizing service | One scale floor plan of a real room, before and after |
Teacher notes
Show this when the third team stalls on question 2. It is the difference between an idea and a project.
Rank the survivors. Top three.
- Then pick one
- The rule: your idea has to connect to at least one of the six areas, and you have to say which one and why, in one sentence
Teacher notes
Hand out Project 07 here and read the scenario and this rule aloud. This is the project launch.
Three roles
- CEO owns the idea, the pitch, and the clock
- CFO owns every number and signs the numbers page
- CMO owns the customer, the look, and the prototype
- Nobody is the boss of the other two
Teacher notes
Read the last line out loud. It is the argument you will otherwise referee on the build days. Do not let the loudest student default into CEO; the role cards have three questions for picking.
The gate. Nothing happens tomorrow without this.
- Our idea
- Product or service
- The FACS area it connects to
- One sentence: our idea connects to ___ because ___
- What we are physically handing a judge Friday
- CEO, CFO, CMO named
- All three signatures
Teacher notes
Read every sheet at the door and ask one question of every team, which is always question 2 in some form. A team that cannot answer does not leave with a green light; they get a three-minute conference at the start of tomorrow with a narrowed version of their own idea.
Two sentences to the room
- The problem
- The idea
- Nothing else. No selling
Teacher notes
Ten teams at twenty seconds. Write one word per team on the board so the whole class can see the field. Then: "Five days from now every one of these has numbers, a customer somebody actually asked, and something you can hold."