Guest Lecture - Lynne Bemis and Linda Burhansstipanov
Justin Burr
They had a very interesting talk today about ways to get your ideas funded so that you
can move forward with your inventions and make money from them. The first thing that they
talked about were energizers to help you get your audience ready to listen to your presentation.
An energizer is something that is short, it needs to be fun, and it has to get the blood
pumping in your audience. The energizer that I liked the best was the Warrior, Princess,
Bear energizer it is played like rock paper scissors but it requires you to stand up and
create certain poses to get your blood pumping. Another key part to being creative that
they talked about was to have no fear. This I think is very crucial because to come up with
a great idea you have to have many ideas fail and if you are afraid to fail you will not
be able to succeed. The phases that they talked about for the grants got a little bit confusing
to me but it seems like it is difficult to reach stage 2. I didn’t really know if the money
that you got from the grants was what you lived off of or if it was to help you build a
prototype to your idea. They had many different games that they used to help us better
understand the particular area that they were talking about. One that I liked in particular
was the jeopardy with questions about cancer this game was fun for the class to play and it
seemed to teach us a lot about the different aspects of cancers. These games help you to
really visualize what they are teaching which for me helps me learn the material so much
better. It also keeps the interest of the participants so that they do not become bored
with the presentation. It was very interesting to see the different approaches that they
used to teach a variety of different material.
Three questions I didn't get to ask:
- What happens after you get to phase 3, do you stop working on that project or do you continue on with it?
- Is it difficult to manage the funds that you receive, and are they enough to support yourself and the project for the time needed?
- Why did you decide to get into this type of field, is it better than working a typical job?
Three places I would take this research:
- To see if these teachings have an effect on different cultures other than native Americans.
- I would perform test and poles before and after the talks to see how much of the information the recipients are gathering.
- Last I would think of a set of guidelines to follow when applying for the grants and find one that will work so you can get multiple ideas funded.
