Reading and Writing Assignments

The Thirteen Tasks of Hercules

Published

November 30, 2025

Modified

March 4, 2026

Reading and Writing Assignments

Assignment-1. What Do you Want to Play Today?

Ref: I am Water:

  • Read Chapter 2, titled Classification of Games, from Roger Caillois’ book Man, Play, and Games. https://voidnetwork.gr/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Man-Play-and-Games-by-Roger-Caillois.pdf (Hat tip, Anousha Purohit!)
  • Think of several everyday experiences that you might have several times during the course of a week, e.g. Cooking, Cleaning, Doing Groceries, Reading, Listening to Music, Singing, Exercising, Commuting…
  • Describe one or more instances of such life experiences where you experienced each of agon, alea, mimicry, and ilinx
  • Did you modify such an experience, by infusing it with any of these elements? (e.g. mapping an exhausted letter in Antakshari to a relatively unused one, to make the game more challenging and interesting)
  • What were your realizations on such experiences and/or their modification?
  • What can you create with that Modification? A product, a service, a game, or a piece of art?

Assignment-2. I Carry Multitudes.

Ref: I yam What I yam:

  • Re-read carefully the article from class, What is Cultural Capital?. https://culturallearningalliance.org.uk/what-is-cultural-capital
  • Read this short story by Rudyard Kipling Tods’ Amendment https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/tale/tods-amendment.htm, which is all about using your Cultural Capital to do Primary Research;
  • Think of a Life Experience where you were completely dumb-founded, you simply could not comprehend what (almost) everybody was doing or choosing to do. Think ceremony, dress, gesture, behaviour, choice of word or phrase ( “think different”. Bah.)
  • What might have been the cultural grounding that you embody, that might have prevented you from (at least initially) comprehending?
  • How might you, in retrospect, modify your grounding to arrive at a better, and more rapid, understanding of what happened?
  • Is that same aspect of grounding, or similar, likely to affect you in the future?

Assignment-3. We are Like This Only.

Ref: Bird of Different Feathers:

  • (May be too much for illiterate SMI Peasants). But let’s try:
  • Watch any biopic: Linked here are two examples:
  • Pretend you are them and do an MBTI on them
  • Justify with examples from the movie
  • How did they change their default preference? Give examples.

Assignment-4. Do Adjectives follow Abstract Nouns on Social Media?

Ref: I Connect therefore I am:

  • Pick up Barbara Ann Kipfer’s Flip Dictionary https://archive.org/details/flipdictionary0000kipf, or any other dictionary
  • Randomly find a few Adjectives ( e.g. acerbic, diabolic, enchanting, ballistic, incendiary, colonial, motionless…)
  • Randomly find a few Abstract Nouns) ( e.g. mechanics, solitude, marketing, friendship, justice, ecology, …)
  • Again randomly, combine one adjective with one abstract noun.
  • Does the combination make sense, as a domain of work? Would the new domain have a language? What might a few words be that could be included in this domain-specific language? ( e.g. “forensic art” could, just, mean a science where one looks at paintings and find out precisely the historical period, season, time of year, and the phase of the moon on the day they were painted in, by examining minute details of brush strokes, pigments used, canvas weave, etc. Words in this domain might include: pigment analysis, canvas weave, brush stroke morphology, etc. )
  • Make as many combinations as you can, and make domains + languages out of them
  • Bonus points if you can name (with justification!) an expert from the Field that belongs with this new? Domain. (Expert can be a fictional figure too!)

Assignment-5. TBD

Ref: Thinking Fast and Slow:

  • To be Written Up. Need to think of something suitable for peasants.

Assignment-6. TBD

Ref: The Art of Parallel Thinking:

  • To be Written Up. Need to think of something suitable for peasants.

Assignment-7. Why is a Raven like a Writing Desk?

Ref: A Year of Metaphoric Thinking

  • Read one of the following (ha!):
    • Joshua Ferris, The Market Value of my Father, a metaphorical Short Story. (Web Link)
    • Primo Levi, Carbon, a metaphorical Short Story. (PDF)
  • List the Metaphors that are revealed in the work
  • Describe the source domain and the target domain for each metaphor you identify
  • Describe what attribute was mapped / carried forward from the source domain to the target domain
  • Comment, based on your own subjective experience ( aka CC ) whether and why each metaphor worked for you or not?

Assignment-8. A-social Media

Ref: Problems and Contradictions

  • Read the article, What are Problems?. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pain-loss-and-suffering/202105/what-are-problems
  • Trawl through your Insta / Locket / Snapchat / Discord / Twitter timelines (or whatever you call them, peasants), or stand-up comedy shows, or meme pages, or any other source of short-form social media content
  • Find 3 posts or stories that are especially funny or startling, or have people up in arms
  • Describe if there are two pole positions or contradictory forces at play in the post. (E.g. look at the Covid Healthcare vs Job Loss related Twitter post, and others, from class)
  • Describe how the posts uses these contradictions to create humour or surprise, or anger
  • Quote/Screenshot the Post (or link to it if possible) in each case
  • Reflect on how you might use such contradictions
  • Create a ( Oh sweet God..) a reel, a post, or a story of your own
  • Less than 3 to you if you can create a meme that becomes viral in class, including with your (elderly) Teaching Faculty.

Assignment-9. Count your Blessings

Ref: TRIZ Resources:

  • Watch any (number of) episodes of your favourite cartoon. Choose ones that have a lot of action / running around. (Spy vs Spy (especially!!), Tom and Jerry, Beep-beep the Roadrunner, the Beagle Boys … would fit the bill).
  • Keep an eye on the kind of things / objects / situations that they make use of in their ploys
  • Describe these using the terminology of the metaphor that we have acquired.
  • If possible, draw the Ishikawa Diagram for each ploy: what does the (cartoon) character want to do, and how do they use available Resources to do it?
  • You may include materials that the characters, especially Wile. E. Coyote, may buy from A Company that Makes Everything

Assignment-10. Six Impossible Things before Breakfast

Ref: Ideal Final Result (IFR)

  • Head off to the Springwise Innovation Database https://springwise.com/innovation-database/.
  • NOTE: you may need to create a free account ( valid for 1 week.) I have been reading their free newsletter for several years now.
  • Pick out 5 innovations in diverse fields. ( E.g Agriculture, Transportation, Healthcare, Education, Energy…)
  • Clearly state the PROBLEM that they claim to have solved
  • Clearly state the SOLUTION that they have provided
  • Now: Write, from a TRIZ viewpoint, what might have been the Ideal Final Result (IFR) for each of these Innovations.
  • Write some of the ASSUMPTIONS that might have been made in arriving at the SOLUTION
  • Finally, comment on how closely the SOLUTION approaches the IFR
  • For inspiration, look at the Case Studies section of this course website.

Assignment-11. 40IPs

Refs: A Contradictory Language and The Contradiction Matrix Workflow

  • Head off to Google Play and install the 40IP app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.trizconsulting.fortyip.android.paid
  • Pick say three Inventive Principles (IP)
  • Click on each of these find three Examples of how these IPs have been included in real-world products.
  • Write the TECHNICAL CONTRADICTION (TC) that might have been solved using the IP mentioned.
  • Justify your choice of CONTRADICTION, specifically thePARAMETERS` used. How might these have shown up in the Problem in the first place?
  • Write the ADMINISTRATIVE CONTRADICTION (AC) that might have come before the TC. ( You could work these in any order, as your intuition works.)

Assignment-12. The Ant Hill

Refs: A Contradictory Language and The Contradiction Matrix Workflow

  • Read Steven Johnson’s “Emergence” . Chapter on the idea of Emergence of Solutions in the Anthill
  • Research into the biological behabiours that have been found in Ant Hills. ( E. O wilson’s text may be a good reference. )
  • Find as many examples of TRIZ Inventive Principles in the behaviours of the ants, and in the phenomena that “manifest” themselves in the Ant Hill.

Assignment-13. Solve Someone Else’s Problem

  • Go off and meet the SMI peasants in Y4, who are struggling with their Semester 8 Projects.
  • Get their Project Briefs, and whatever Insights they might gleaned as a result of their Research
  • Write up a full Article analysing and solving their problem with TRIZ.
  • Sell it back to them, peasants.
  • You grade depends upon the signed Sales Invoice, and Payment Advise you show me in class.

Assignment-14. Bring Your Own Problem

  • Same as above, but for a Problem that you, or someone you care about , may be facing at the moment.
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