design and technology - year 11 bridging activities

Background:

The BBC Big Life fix pairs up designers / engineers with people who have specific needs. They then work together to come up with a practical solution to help improve their life. You will be developing a similar project where you identify a person / group of people with a specific problem and try to generate solutions to solve this. Hopefully as a result of completing this work you will develop an in-depth understanding of inclusive and iterative design.

Preparation task:

Watch the short video clips below to develop an understanding of inclusive design (This is when you design to solve a problem for a group of people with a specific need / problem).

These videos are to give you some ideas and inspiration for possible problems people face:





Main task:

Begin to identify a person / group of people who have a specific problem that you could generate a range of design solutions. The best way to approach this task would be to:

- Develop a page that outlines the current problem and photographic evidence of how it is being dealt with

- Try to find evidence that backs up there is a problem. E.g. a fact / statistic from a reliable website such as the BBC

- Research a range of similar existing products

- Begin to sketch a range of design ideas (6 – 8 would be ideal)

- Attempt to implement the iterative design approach by constantly improving and refining your design idea e.g. combining several of your initial designs to come up with a final design

- Use basic card modelling to prototype and test out your idea

- Possibly use the 3d modelling website www.tinkercad.com to generate a 3D model of your product

- Attempt to test and evaluate your final prototype