Ambiguious or Creative projects?

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So, Im in a Graphical Engineering Program and currently taking an intro Design Principles class. I'm having trouble with the course work because its almost entirely "Go home and use a physical medium (Clay, Chip board, foam, w/e) to construct a model demonstrating XYZ Principles". The principles aren't too difficult (Tension/Compression, Nesting, Rhythm etc etc), and I can find myself able to identify them well enough in other examples, but I'm having an exceedingly difficult time creating these models, principles or no..... I know I have issues generating original content, as it were. I'll sit down to make a model and I have an impossible time coming up with something to make.

Anyone else here relate or have similar trouble or issues with open ended or otherwise ambiguous or creative projects? Any advice?

Thanks,
Aldran

Yes, absolutely.

Any assignment where I have to initiate the idea/process is incredibly difficult. I was telling my doc that 'It's a shame that the side effects of depression don't include inspiration." but maybe it's the asperger's that's as much a problem as the depression... If I'm not super interested in the topic in the first place, being creative in that topic is almost impossible.

Hmmmm. I find originality impossible pretty much regardless of the topic or my interest level. I can take and modify anything, and people have argued that thats a form of originality, but to just generate something new with no or little outside input I find exceedingly difficult.

Aldran

It may help to impose some of your own restrictions, so it isn't so open ended.

Thats an idea. I haven't tried that with this class yet. I will add though, that the projects he's having us do are entirely abstract. "Create tension and rhythm in an orthogonal non-rectilinear Model, using design hierarchy and different axis to create a design thats pleasing to the eye"........ Thats an example of one of them.

To put it in layman's terms, Tension is following certain angles and using space around those angles, rhythm tends to be using a series of objects within a single form to imply similarity between them even if they're different, orthogonal is basically 3 dimensional, non-rectiliniar means "no Squares, Rectangles, cubes, corners, or Angles", Hierarchy can basically be boiled down to "1 large, 1 medium, 1 small" in this case, though it has to do with proportion to each other as well, and different axis of course means none of the three can be "aiming" along the same axis, or ideally shouldn't be (This one can be bent, "If you have reason to do so" as the professor puts it).

Out of all of that, the crux of the problem I'm having, I think, is "Pleasing to the eye"...... The idea behind modern design apparently is that Design is Objective. Meaning that most people should be able to look at a design and without much discussion (if any), come to a consensus on whether its a good design or not..... I can definitely agree with that in part....

But two things keep cropping up to me whenever I'm doing this,
1: is that there is without a doubt some bit of subjectivity to this (Meaning individual preference in this case. For me, Id be just as happy designing the next Earth Excavator as I would designing the next McClaren P1), and
2: If people with ASD are just wired differently, wouldn't that serve to either separate us some distance from objectivity (Group consensus) or make it more difficult? The second one I feel is the more pertinent question, and I would definitely say that thats how I feel anytime I walk out of class with a new one of these projects or sit down and see what everyone else has built....

Thanks for reading through all of this if you have.
Aldran