Part 1 · Idea storm · 🟢 Easy · ~30 min
What you learn in this lesson: how to get LOTS of ideas — and why the best ones hide behind the first ten.
🎬 Watch it first
Script & storyboard: VideoScript
💡 Everybody is creative
Creative does not mean «good at drawing». Creative means: you find something new. A new game for the break, a new use for an old sock, a new ending for a story.
Everybody can do that. And just like football or the piano, it gets better with practice. This course is your training camp.
🌪️ The four storm rules
When you collect ideas — alone or with friends — four rules turn a light drizzle into a real storm:
| Rule | What it means |
|---|---|
| 1 · Lots! | Count your ideas. Twenty silly ones beat two careful ones. |
| 2 · No «that's stupid» | Judging comes LATER. While you storm, every idea goes on the list. |
| 3 · Wild is welcome | The crazier, the better. A wild idea can be tamed — a boring one never gets exciting. |
| 4 · Yes, and… | Build on ideas, your own and your friends'. «A flying bike!» — «Yes, and it rings like a bird!» |
📈 The idea curve
Your brain loves shortcuts. Ask it «what else could a spoon be?» and it first hands you the ideas everybody has: a shovel, a catapult, a drumstick. Those are fine — write them down fast!
The surprising ideas come after that, when your brain runs out of shortcuts and has to really think:
- Ideas 1–5: the ones everybody has 🙂
- Ideas 6–10: now it gets interesting 🤔
- Ideas 11 and up: this is where the ideas live that nobody else has ✨
So when you think «I have no more ideas» — that is exactly the moment to keep going.
🎡 Spin it — the warm-up wheel
Press Spin!. The wheel picks an everyday thing. Your job: find five other uses for it in one minute — out loud, or in your head. Then spin again.
🤖 Meet Sparky. In this lesson's challenges you play against Sparky, the course's AI helper. Sparky knows all the ideas everybody has — your job is to find the ones it doesn't.
✍️ Your turn
Three challenges: a puzzle to crack, then two with your AI helpers — Sparky plays idea games with you, Bolt builds your ideas into things you can play.
- 🟢 Easy · Which storm rule? — six situations — which storm rule is being kept or broken?
- 🟡 Medium · Beat the robot — the robot names the ideas everybody has — find five it never thought of.
- 🔴 Tricky · The yes-and machine — build an invention with Sparky, one «yes, and…» at a time.
Start with the easy one. There are no wrong answers in this course — only more ideas and fewer ideas.
❓ Check yourself
Five quick questions — with instant answers and no grades.
Course overview: Idea Lab — Spin, Draw, Invent! · Next: Lesson 2 — Spin and draw: let chance surprise you »