Product Design Challenges and Pownce
4:40 pm on the 8th of September, 2007Having posted a week or so ago about trying to get my 4th years to be a bit more creative, my efforts have come around to bite me.
With Standard Grades being sat at the end of 3rd year at Ross High it gives us a whole 2 years to cover the higher courses. So far this is showing some good and some bad points. One of the good things to come out of it in the CDT department is the chance to overhaul the structure of some courses. In Product Design for instance we are giving the pupils the chance to be a lot more hands on and to actually make some of the things they design. This is great because the pupils get to see their designs right through from brief to manufacture and evaluation, it also makes sure they have to take the development of ideas through its full cycle and leave no details uncertain.
However that is causing some small headaches. The project they are currently working on is to design a promotional radio. The pupils are to design the radio and then create a pattern around which plastic will be vacuum formed, then they wire up a radio kit and mount it inside their plastic shell.
The class have come up with some really creative forms, the trouble is finding a way to create the pattern that the plastic will be formed around. The original idea had been that the form of the radios would be simple extruded shapes, and we’d be able to make the pattern from some timber or MDF - no such luck, I’ve tried to put together a rough model of one idea, I’ve probably simplified it:
This afternoon I posted this image on pownce asking for any advice on how to make it and Ian quickly came up with some good ideas. Of course that is exactly the sort of conversation that the pupils could have benefited from being involved in or even better, leading - my task is to get them set up on pownce sometime in the next fortnight or so.
The link above to my pownce post won’t work unless you have an account and are marked as my friend, but I have invites left if you want one.
Tags: pownce, Product Design, Ross High, vacuum-forming
September 8th, 2007 at 7:07 pm on the 8th of September, 2007
What about asking Brian about the prototyper from Uni? Also I’m sure they have a webcam set up over it, Of course it’s a complicated option with cost/availability but even using it once would be cool.
September 8th, 2007 at 7:49 pm on the 8th of September, 2007
That’s a good point Krysia, especially if there’s a camera - I didn’t know about that. The point of this project is to introduce vacuum forming but It’s definitely worth looking into doing something with the rapid prototyper for another part of the course.
I wonder if you’d be able to help me put together some ideas for a video we could make to show what it does and why it can be useful? That’s if you have any free time these days.
September 9th, 2007 at 2:05 pm on the 9th of September, 2007
of course! I think I have seen a good video already on this though I am not sure where. Will let you know.
(Also likintg your idea of doing some filming in your PCS class. I am finding mine fairly dry as the boys are simply working through the joints at the mo. Will speak to you at teachmeet)
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