Creativity and Innovation Assignment: Lawn Mowing Ideas and Analysis

This assignment, titled "Creativity and Innovation: Ideas for Mowing the Lawn," presents five innovative concepts for improving the process of lawn mowing, drawing upon the TRIZ methodology. The student explores principles such as merging, universality, spheroidality, periodic action, and discarding/recovering, applying them to develop novel mowing solutions. The paper analyzes each principle's relevance and potential challenges in the context of lawn care. Ultimately, the student recommends a cycling lawn mowing device as the most practical and cost-effective idea, emphasizing its ease of use and reduced maintenance compared to the other proposed solutions. The assignment highlights the application of TRIZ principles in generating creative and practical solutions to everyday challenges.

Running head: CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
Creativity and Innovation: Ideas for Mowing the Lawn
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note:

1CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
Task 1
5 Ideas for lawn mowing
Lawn mowing is an arduous but a necessary work. Any lawn, be it in a public place or in
a private place, must be mowed and trimmed regularly to keep it neat and clean. A nicely mowed
lawn increases the aesthetic beauty of the place. However, it is a difficult job. For any private
home owner, mowing the lawn is a necessary part of the household chores. Today, there are
many machines that help in reducing the burden of lawn mowing. However, the existing
machines are not always available or helpful in reducing the burden of mowing the lawn. This
paper focuses on 5 idea generating principles and their relevance and usefulness for the purpose
of lawn mowing and selects one, which seems most useful.
Following are the 5 principles chosen from TRIZ.
Principle 5: Merging
The essence of this principle is to merge similar or identical objects for performing
parallel operations and also making the operations contiguous (triz-journal.com, 2018).
Mulching Lawn mower was made based on this principle. It is made using gasoline or
electrically powered rotary with the ability to of cutting and recutting of the grasses together.
Using the similar principle, a cycling device can be made, which will enable the mowers to roam
around paddling and mowing the lawn at the same time (Ilevbare, Probert & Phaal, 2013).
Using this principle many devices were developed other than the mulching lawn mower,
such as, link slats in vertical or Venetian blinds in the windows or doors, the medical diagnostic
instruments for analyzing the blood parameters at once, vanes in the ventilation systems,

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personal computers, assembling various parts for parallel operations etc. (Ekmekci & Koksal,
2015).
The new product should be a combination of the technology of a cycle and a mower. In
this machine, the mower would sit and paddle through the lawn, while the blades with the wheel
will mow the grass. The mower does not have to walk and push the motor, but they would cycle
and the energy generated from cycling would help in the lever for the grass cutter. There could
be challenges similar to that of a cycle, and also the knowledge of cycling and physical ability of
the mower to paddle though the entire lawn.
Principle 6: Universality
This principle represents the idea of making an object perform multiple tasks, and
eliminating the need for other specific objects or parts. In other words, in this principle, an object
or a part of an object is used in a manner so that it can perform the job of other objects or other
parts alone and simultaneously (triz-journal.com, 2018). This principle is quite innovative. The
mulching lawn mower also follows this principle in its manufacturing. In the similar manner, a
device can be made that will not only mow the lawn, but will collect the grass and not blow it
away. The sucker would come together with the blade and would work together to save the effort
of cleaning the lawn after mowing. However, if necessary, it would also work as a blower,
similar to the vacuum cleaners.
Universality principle is applied in the products such as, the car seat of for children
converting into stroller, universally used handy-tools, such as Swiss knife, kitchen appliance
tools, toothbrush handle holding toothpaste, used during travelling.

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This combination of vacuum cleaner and lawn mower will need electricity for operating.
Since, it will not be a very big device; it will not contain a big battery. Hence, the supply of
electricity will be a challenge. However, if electricity can be supplied with a lengthy wire, then it
reduces the work load of the mower and saves much time.
Principle 14: Spheroidality – Curvature
This principle allows the usage of curved or spherical object to perform a task by
applying the rotary motion and centrifugal forces instead of linear motion for a better
performance (triz-journal.com, 2018). Using this idea, a mowing device can be made that will
use a roller or a curved blade, which will ensure a smoothly mowed lawn with ups and downs.
When the lawn is not particularly flat and has quite ups and downs, then a flat grass cutter blade
would not produce the perfectly mowed lawn. In that case, a roller or a curved blade would
produce a better result as it rotates according to the curves of the land.
Most common example of this principle are the roller and ball point pens distributing
smooth ink, producing linear motion in the computer screen by using the mouse or trackball,
using the spherical casters for moving furniture, using domes and arches in the architecture for
strength.
The mowing device will have some challenges regarding the wastes. Unless a proper
channel is made to collect the waste grass, it might enter into the roller blades and can make the
system stuck. However, with the development of a mechanism, which would brush up and
collect the waste grass as soon as it is rolled over by the mower, it will reduce the burden of lawn
mowing by ensuring a smooth run using less effort by the mower.

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Principle 19: Periodic Action
In this principle, periodic actions are used for performing a job instead of using
continuous actions. When an action is already periodic, the frequency or magnitude of the action
can be changed, and it uses pauses in between the actions (triz-journal.com, 2018). In the task of
lawn mowing, periodic action can be applied. It helps in reducing the burden of doing it
continuously. By applying this principle, an automatic mowing device can be made which would
function periodically.
Periodic action principle is mostly used in periodic laser, manufacturing something by
repeated hammer hitting or hammer drilling, and supplying DC power (Kim & Yoon, 2012).
The automatic mowing device will have periodic programming, which will automatically
pause the motor of the machine after a certain time. This will help in saving the cost of energy
and also reducing the wear and tear of the machine. However, this will also need a battery or
electricity for operating the motor. Battery will need to be replaced and electricity needs to be
supplied.
Principle 34: Discarding and recovering
The application of discarding and recovering principle results in making parts of the
objects that would go away themselves once their main action is fulfilled, modify themselves
during the operations or would restore the consumable parts of the objects directly in the
operations (triz-journal.com, 2018). Using this principle, self-sharpening lawn mower blades are
already developed. These blades are self-sharpening, the more they are utilized to cut the grass,

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they become more sharpened. By using this principle, a device can be made that would
regenerate and reutilize the energies used for mowing from the running of the self-sharpening
blades.
Apart from self-sharpening lawn mower blades, using dissolving capsules in medications,
ice structures, automobile engines tuning themselves up while running continuously for around
every 100,000 miles are some of the products that are developed using the discarding and
recovering principle (Russo, Rizzi, & Montelisciani, 2014).
Like the other principles, this also will face some challenges. Regeneration and re-usage
of the energies consumed for mowing will need a highly developed technology. Along with that,
the incorporation of the self sharpening blades will also need a complex technique, which will be
difficult and costly to maintain for the general public like the private home owners.
Task 2
Recommendation for the best idea
Among the 5 ideas, chosen from 5 principles taken from TRIZ, the first idea, that is,
developing a cycling device for lawn mowing seems the best. The principle is about merging
similar objects for performing parallel operations. If a cycling lawn mowing device is made, it
will merge the cycle with the lawn mower. The major purpose of this is to make the lawn
mowing easier, cost effective as well as less stressful than pushing a mower machine by hand.
This will help the mower to save time and effort while mowing his lawn and not feel burdened.
The maintenance cost and effort will also be lower for this device than the others.

6CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
The other four ideas were not chosen to be the best ones, because, they are not cost
saving and high-maintenance. They will need battery or electricity for running. They also need
high maintenance, leading to higher cost. Moreover, they also need high level of technological
advancement, for example, in case of applying the principle of discarding and recovering for
making a lawn mowing device that will have self-sharpening blades and energy regeneration
technology, will incur high cost and high maintenance for the regular user. Apart from this, the
rest of the ideas also focus on technologically advanced devices. Thus, it can be said that, the
cycling mowing device is the most cost effective and simple idea for lawn mowing among all the
other principles.

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References
Ekmekci, I., & Koksal, M. (2015). Triz methodology and an application example for product
development. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 195, 2689-2698.
Ilevbare, I. M., Probert, D., & Phaal, R. (2013). A review of TRIZ, and its benefits and
challenges in practice. Technovation, 33(2-3), 30-37.
Kim, S., & Yoon, B. (2012). Developing a process of concept generation for new product-service
systems: a QFD and TRIZ-based approach. Service Business, 6(3), 323-348.
Russo, D., Rizzi, C., & Montelisciani, G. (2014). Inventive guidelines for a TRIZ-based eco-
design matrix. Journal of Cleaner Production, 76, 95-105.
triz-journal.com. (2018). 40 Inventive Principles. The Triz Journal. Retrieved 2 May 2018, from
https://triz-journal.com/40-inventive-principles-examples/