Logan Seibold, product design instructor at Walla Walla University, created a unique design opportunity for the product design students at the end of winter quarter. Sixteen majors of all grade levels participated in the Design Olympics event, showcasing their skills learned over the quarter including sketching, modeling, generating ideas rapidly, and teamwork. The competition featured five challenges.

“My goal is to form community and culture within our product design program,” said Logan Seibold, product design instructor. One of the ways that Seibold chose to foster that community was with the Design Olympics. 

The five competiton challenges were best cube sketch, foam cutter relay, problem solving ideation where they had ten minutes to create a pitch for cleaning up ocean trash, hammer relay, and cardboard furniture models.

“I put this event together to have something fun for my students to do together,” said Seibold. “I came up with a few competitions that weren't really that serious—just things that product design students would be familiar with and have fun doing.”

“My favorite challenge was the foam cutting relay,” said Eric Nazario, senior product design major. “It was stressful and messing up was annoying, but it was also fun. My favorite part though was hanging out and enjoying the chaos with friends and laughing at the setbacks or wins that people made.”

To learn more about the product design major at WWU, visit, wallawalla.edu/design.

Posted April 18, 2022