What are some creative ways to demonstrate your problem-solving skills in R&D? (2024)

Be a great team player, open to feedback, attention to details, competitive intelligence, data analysis, decision making, creativity and leadership skills

Craft an R&D portfolio as a visual journey. Showcase challenges as peaks, solutions as stepping stones, and outcomes as vistas. Simplify complex concepts with visuals, letting your problem-solving shine in a sleek, easy-to-grasp format.

Craft a problem-solving showcase: Start with a punchy problem, dive into your ingenious solution with visuals, and end with a bang—emphasize the game-changing results. Keep it snappy, scientific, and impossible to ignore.

Yes case studies will help to solve the problems. you will not repeat the mistake if case studies was done and you will think in different ways.case study will help others also

Think of a hackathon as a scientific showdown where teams tackle problems in a race against time. It's like a puzzle party for scientists! Jumping in, brainpower is used to solve challenges creatively and technically. The clock's ticking, but thriving under pressure is the name of the game. It's not just about winning; it's a chance to meet other brainiacs, learn new tricks, and improve skills. It's like a science party where everyone leaves smarter!

Participating in a hackathon can benefit you in a variety of ways. In my opinion the main thing to consider are:1. Demonstrating your ability to quickly learn, adapt, and apply your problem-solving skills to a new and challenging problem.2. Showcasing your creativity and ability to think outside the box to develop innovative solutions.3. Working collaboratively with other talented individuals to achieve a common goal in a fast-paced and dynamic environment. Creating a professional network is a nice bonus.4. Sharpening your presentation skills by communicating your ideas effectively to a panel of judges and potential employers.

It’s always a combination of the Team and the Individual. When you are confronted with a problem its then you should initially work alone and let problem consume you like osmosis. Record all the possibilities as a scatter and not follow a linear path. Within that, generate some questions and that brings you back to solving the problem with a team. Listen intently to their answers and let that lead to even more questions. Remember “every day is a school day “.

A puzzle is a captivating challenge demanding logic, reasoning, and creativity for a solution. Whether it's a crossword, sudoku, riddle, brain teaser, or code challenge, it's a playground for the mind. Solving puzzles showcases problem-solving skills in R&D—displaying analytical, lateral, and critical thinking prowess. It's a canvas to exhibit curiosity, persistence, and an insatiable passion for learning, qualities essential in the scientific realm.

Something to consider…often with success of an R&D project was the many failures that preceded it. Seldom are elements unsuccessful to the development shared or known, at least not widely. For this reason, I like to document chronologically failures and maintain them in not just lab or field notebooks, but in executive summaries that can be shared as tools to understand process and possibly guide others in the future.Often publications that are either internal, external or peer reviewed only address successful outcomes. “The artfulness” of how things are made, the process of elimination or improvements are where real understanding comes from. Sharing things that don’t work can save time, money and afford learning to others.

Get involved in Accelerator programs, Adjunct lectures, and/or hackathons. Always build your network and give to future students as it will circle back in the future

Honestly, the best case in which to demonstrate your capabilities for R&D is to go out and intentionally tackle a problem on your own and document the process from beginning to end. Pick something, anything and work and chew and process through it and document the success and failures of it. Use whatever you are most comfortable with - it could be video, audio, writing - a presentation - doesn’t matter but go do it. One time I wanted to deal with electromagnetic propulsion but at the time power storage was always an issue (in the 90’s). I built a electromagnetic mass drive from scratch and then documented on VHS tapes, working on various power solutions to drive the coils. I used notes from those videos for years and years.

Hi James you’ve hit on an important, if not defining, element of technical entrepreneurship - isolating and defining a significant problem and developing the means to solve it. You excelled at that even as a student. We’ll all have our personal notions of the relative merit or significance of a technical problem. We will all think of entrepreneurial as covering the spectrum from get-rich-quick trivial exploitation of an easy market to being in the forefront of those willing to make personal sacrifices and take personal risks to pursue difficult and important problems. At root, it’s the identification of the significant problem or challenge that sets the ball rolling. Good thoughts James - thanks again for that little chunk of star stuff.