Introduction to Capstone Project and Design Thinking Notes

Thinking Methodologies

Creative Thinking: Thinking in order to make something innovative or come up with new ideas and solutions.
Critical Thinking: "Thinking about thinking"—the ability to analyze a situation based on facts and data, understand how perception works, recognize reasoning mistakes, and avoid biases.

Design Thinking Framework

Definition: A non-linear, human-centric, user-specific, and iterative process used to tackle complex, ill-defined problems by understanding user needs and redefining problem statements.
Stage 1: Empathise: Designers observe and interact with users without judgment to uncover explicit and implicit consumer needs.
- Empathy Map: A collaborative 4-quadrant visualization tool centered on the user that captures what the user Says, Thinks, Does, and Feels (e.g., assessing needs like Ms. Neena seeking school admission or Anakha choosing a laptop).
Stage 2: Define: Gathers observations to narrow down the focus and establish a clear, human-centered problem statement using questioning techniques like the 5W and 1H method (Who, What, Where, When, Why, How).
Stage 3: Ideate: Brainstorming solutions in an open, judgment-free environment to surpass obvious ideas.
- Brainstorm: A collaborative session expanding in all directions using lateral thinking.
- Brain dump: An individual exercise where participants write down thoughts on paper or post-it notes to share with the group later.
- Brainwriting: A silent individual technique where participants record ideas on paper and pass them to teammates to elaborate on iteratively.
Stage 4: Prototype: Building experimental, simple models (e.g., drawings, posters, role-playing, homemade gadgets, websites, or 3D printed products) to rapidly test concrete aspects of an idea.
Stage 5: Test: Sharing prototypes with end users to gather feedback, learn about user behavior, and iterate back to earlier stages if necessary.

Problem Decomposition and Right Questioning

Problem Decomposition: The method of breaking down a complex problem into smaller, manageable sub-problems (e.g., breaking "Make Pizza" into crust, sauce, cheese, toppings, baking, and slicing).
- Steps: Understand inputs/outputs, ask clarifying questions, divide into large parts, break into smaller sub-parts, and write/test code incrementally.
Pattern Requirement for AI: AI models rely fundamentally on finding patterns in data. If data exhibits no patterns, the problem cannot be solved using AI technology.
AI Problem Questions:
- Classification: Which category?
- Regression: How much or how many?
- Clustering: Can the data be grouped / Which group?
- Anomaly Detection: Is there an unusual pattern?
- Recommendation: Which option should be taken?

AI Project Cycle and Capstone Projects

Capstone Project Definition: A comprehensive, independent project where students apply integrated subject knowledge to research, develop, and solve real-world problems. Ideal projects align with personal interest, practical value, a doable timeframe, contemporary relevance, and career advancement.
AI Project Cycle Stages:
1. Problem Scoping: Defining and researching the problem to set clear work goals.
2. Data Collection: Gathering, cleansing, and digitizing real-world signals relevant to the problem.
3. Data Exploration: Conducting exploratory data analysis (EDA) and using visual tools (histograms, scatter plots, box plots) to understand dataset structure, missing values, and distributions.
4. AI Modelling: Selecting algorithms and platforms to iteratively train software on datasets to recognize patterns without ongoing human intervention.
5. Evaluation: Testing the trained model on unprecedented test cases to evaluate real-world accuracy and tune parameters.
6. Deployment: Integrating the validated model into live online or offline environments.
Capstone Project Examples: Stock Prices Predictor, Sentiment Analyzer, Movie Ticket Price Predictor, Students Results Predictor, Human Activity Recognition using Smartphone Dataset, Classifying humans and animals in a photo, Heart Disease Predictive System, Social Distancing Monitoring, Project Happily, and rule-based chatbots built on IBM Watson, Google Dialogflow, or joonbot.com.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Overview: Announced by the United Nations in $2015$ in New York as a universal call to balance economic growth, environmental protection, and social equity by $2030$ . The concept originated at the Rio+20 Summit in $2012$ (proposed by Colombia and Guatemala to succeed the $2000$ Millennium Development Goals, which halved the population living on less than $1.25\text{ dollars}$ a day).
Goal 1: No Poverty: Aiming to eliminate extreme poverty by $2030$ . Over $700\text{ million}$ people live in extreme poverty, with severe concentrations in Sub-Saharan Africa, whereas China and India have uplifted large populations.
Goal 2: Zero Hunger: Target to end all hunger and malnutrition by $2030$ . Currently, over $800\text{ million}$ people are undernourished and over $90\text{ million}$ children are dangerously malnourished worldwide.
Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being: Focuses on increasing life expectancy, lowering infant and maternal mortality, and combating communicable and non-communicable diseases.
Goal 4: Quality Education: Ensures free, universal primary and secondary schooling for all children by $2030$ , despite disruptions from global conflicts like the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Israel-Gaza War.
Goal 5: Gender Equality: Empowers women, eliminates workplace discrimination and pay gaps, and protects equal rights to property, land, and reproductive health.
Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation: Promotes universal safe drinking water and hygienic sanitation by $2030$ . Projected that $25\text{ percent}$ of people will face regular water shortages by $2050$ . In $2015$ , $4.5\text{ billion}$ people lacked safely managed sanitation and $2.3\text{ billion}$ lacked basic sanitation.
Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy: Encourages development of clean energy sources (solar, wind, tide, geothermal) by 2030$.\n* **Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth**: Promotes full employment, equal pay for equal work, and higher job market productivity by 2030 $. According to the International Labour Organisation, over$ 204 ext{ million} $people were unemployed in$ 2015$.
Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure: Focuses on sustainable industrialization, scientific research, and clean technology adoption.
Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities: Addresses global wealth disparity. The World Economic Forum notes the richest $10\text{ percent}$ hold $76\text{ percent}$ of global wealth, while the poorest hold $2\text{ percent}$ .
Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities: Aims to build inclusive, safe, and resilient urban spaces and affordable housing to manage population growth.
Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production: Modernizes resource usage, reducing food wastage and raw material exploitation by 2030$.\n* **Goal 13: Climate Action**: Combats climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, which are over 50 ext{ percent} $higher than in$ 1990$.
Goal 14: Life Below Water: Protects ocean ecosystems and coastal biodiversity, which support the livelihoods of $3\text{ billion}$ people.
Goal 15: Life on Land: Encourages conservation of natural forests and terrestrial ecosystems while curbing desertification and wildlife trafficking. Approximately $13\text{ million}$ hectares of forest are lost annually.
Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions: Focuses on reducing violence, ensuring equal justice under law, and strengthening governance institutions.
Goal 17: Partnerships for the Goals: Enhances global cooperation, scientific technology access, and cross-border partnerships to achieve sustainable development.