Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to what is our sixth lesson in the Design and Technology 3D Computer Aided Design unit work.

My name's Mr. Wicken, and it's great to see you here today.

In today's lesson, we're going to look at what makes an effective range of design ideas, and how we actually create those design ideas with some key drawing techniques first looked into to make sure that we can produce a really, really good range of design ideas.

Now, let's have a look at today's lesson objectives.

So before we get into the lesson objectives, as always, if you haven't yet done it, please make sure you go and complete the intro quiz.

It's really important to help lead you into today's learning.

If you haven't done it, pause the video here now, and go and get that done for me.

And then come back and we'll carry on.

Okay, great.

So in today's lesson, we're going to look at, first of all, what is freehand sketching? And why is it so important to the design process? And we're going to look into some skill-based learning as to how you produce a really good set of freehand sketches.

We're then going to look into actually, how to prototype your designs.

So what is prototyping, and why is it important to the design process? And more importantly, how can you do it today with your designs? And then finally, we're going to actually, today, produce a range of designs for our shelter.

It's really important that we get these designs drawn today because we've done all of that work previously, that's led up to this point in the design process, which is great.

And then as always, we're going to finish with the exit quiz.

So with today's lessons, it's going to be quite heavy on the drawing.

So there are two bits of equipment that are really important that we need to make sure we've got.

The first is your exercise book or some paper.

If it could be plain paper, that will be really helpful.

If it's not, doesn't matter.

As long as it's some paper that you can comfortably draw on.

That's great.

Also, you're going to need a pencil.

Make sure that pencil is a good quality pencil and is comfortable to use, as you've used in previous lessons.

So if you haven't got those bits of equipment, pause the video here and go and get them for me now.

Okay, great.

So that's the equipment that we need.

Let's have a look at the keywords because there are some really important keywords that we need to be aware of in today's lesson to be successful.

The first one is sketch.

So let's say that together.

I'll say it, then you repeat it.

Sketch.

Sketch.

Sketch.

Excellent, well done.

So sketch means basically making a rough drawing of a given object.

You sketch things quite often, I suspect, when you're at school and you're doing drawings.

But effectively in design, it's just a really rough drawing of an object that you are trying to project.

Second keyword today is isometric, and this is probably a new word for all of us.

So let's again say that together.

Isometric.

Isometric.

Isometric.

Great, well done.

Now, isometric is actually a 3D drawing technique used in design and technology.

And we're going to look into what isometric is later in the lesson, but effectively, it's used by engineers and architects, those people that we've looked into before, to be able to produce a really good quality 3D-drawn object so that it shows the detail and understanding of what they're trying to demonstrate.

And lastly, we're going to look into prototyping, so we need to understand that word.

So I'm going to say it, and you're going to repeat it.

Prototype.

Prototype.

Prototype.

Prototype means in effect, a model or a sample of a product that you are testing to make sure that it works.

So by prototyping, what you do beforehand is that you make a small sample model of what you are trying to produce.

And that way you can then see whether it works or it doesn't.

And later in the lesson, we're going to look into prototyping, and actually how we can do some of it.

So those are the keywords for today's lesson.

Now, let's get into our first learning area.

So our first area of learning in today's lesson is what is freehand sketching? So freehand sketching is a really important technique within design and technology.

And one that is used constantly by designers, architects, engineers, whoever it might be just to allow a really quick, simple design of an idea to be produced, to show to an audience what their ideas are for a given product.

I'm absolutely certain you have all at some point done some freehand sketching to draw objects, but you've not realised the importance of it in the process.

And with design sketching, it doesn't need to be perfect.

It doesn't need to be an absolute masterpiece of design.

It just needs to be able to communicate to an audience your rough ideas and rough thinking as to what your designs could be.

Now, when we are doing our freehand sketching, we need to think of a couple of things.

The first thing is actually, we need to make sure we've got the right equipment.

So when sketching, you can sketch usually in pencil, but you can sketch in pen.

Some designers prefer to sketch in pen because it makes it more permanent on the page.

You can't rub out a pen, can you, or can you? Maybe you can, but actually, normally you can't rub out a pen which is why some designers use it.

Today, we're going to use a pencil because actually, if we do make a few little mistakes, you can be comfortable at rubbing those out and then doing them again.

And as you move through the design process, you're going to get more and more confident.

And actually, you're going to realise, "I could use a pen to draw this, "to make it really, really permanent on the page." You don't need any other equipment other than that.

Mistakes are very much welcome.

Whilst I've said you can rub out some bits.

I don't want you to do too much because ultimately, if you rub out parts of the design, you might realise later in the process, "Oh, I've done that already.

"I really wish I'd kept that." So try and keep those mistakes in because it can really help you with your process.

So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to demonstrate actually how you can freehand sketch using your pieces of paper and a pencil.

Okay, so with our piece of paper and our pencil, we're going to start to come up with some freehand sketching ideas.

So I'm going to get some objects and we're going to practise sketching them using freehand sketching techniques.

So to start with, I'm going to use this, okay? All it is is a little battery pack.

You, when you come to do yours in a little while, you choose whatever object you want, but I'm just taking some simple objects to start with.

So you can see from the object it's quite a simple shape, okay? With straight lines and edges.

Yes, you've got the cables that we can draw on as well.

But ultimately, it means that we can start with a simple object to sketch.

So I'm going to sketch this object by starting with the top face of the object.

So actually, that's a rectangle.

So I'm going to start by just doing a rectangle shape.

Now, I'm doing it on an angle, you'll notice, so it looks like the rectangle is being pushed over onto the side, yeah, like so.

And that gives me the top face of the battery pack.

Then I'm going to do the sides.

So I'm going to put some little legs, like so.

And then I'm going to join them up at the bottom.

And that gives me a rough shape of the battery pack.

Now, it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and it could be improved massively, but again, that's the whole point of freehand sketching.

It's a very rough shape.

Now, I'm going to put in some of the cables.

So I'm then going to have coming out, just a cable going off to the side, and another one going off to the side, like so.

And I could put the connector on at the same time, if I wanted to.

I could also sketch this from a different angle.

I could just do it from the side.

So I might just put it like so and I'd just sketch the face that you see on the screen right now.

So at the side, I might just do a simple rectangle.

But you'll notice as well, if you can see, there's a little cutout either end.

And there is a line running across the battery pack, like so, so I'm going to put that in so that it makes it look more realistic.

And then I can have the cables coming out the side.

Now, that's one object, it's a simple object.

You will probably find something far more interesting.

But ultimately, we just want to be sketching objects in a really basic way.

You can take any object you want.

So you could have a little hand sanitizer bottle.

So if we're doing that, we can again, have the hand sanitizer bottle to our side, and then we can draw the object like so.

And again, I'm only doing it very roughly, very quickly.

I'm going to put in a little bit of detail about the hand sanitizer bottle.

I might put the bubbles in as well 'cause you can see, there's some bubbles inside the hand sanitizer bottle there.

But again, it's just a very rough, quick sketch that you can do.

I could then draw the side.

I could do it 3D if I wanted to, yeah? And just making it more realistic as I go through.

Now, you might say, "Oh, I can't draw." That's rubbish, everybody can draw, okay? I guarantee it, you can all draw your objects.

I'm absolutely certain of it.

Mine look terrible, okay? And that's fine because ultimately, it's just to communicate the designs to people really quickly and really effectively.

So I want you to find some objects that you can feel confident just doing some freehand sketching like I've done here, just to draw those objects onto a page and that's it.

So let's move on to what I would like you to do.

So your first task in today's lesson is just that, is producing some freehand sketches.

I want you to find some household products that you can feel confident freehand sketching.

Mine were quite simple, but you might find something far more interesting, and something that can really help push your design skills forward.

Make sure that when you are sketching these objects, you are confident with your drawing.

Be proud of what you do.

Try and keep those mistakes in there.

If you go wrong, don't worry.

Keep those mistakes because it can help push your skills forward.

Try not to rub those things out.

If you really need to, fine, but actually, it's a challenge for you.

Try not to rub anything out on that page.

Be confident, when it goes onto the paper, that's it.

It's there for good.

Make sure that you're finding three or four different household objects.

Sketch them onto your pieces of paper with your pencil.

And then once you're done, we're going to come back, and we're going to move on to the next area of learning.

So if you want to pause the video here now, and get freehand sketching, good luck and enjoy.

Welcome back.

I hope you had lots of fun doing the freehand sketches and that you're feeling more confident now with your drawing skills.

If you're not, don't worry.

As we move through this lesson, you're going to become far, far more confident and you're going to be really proud of what you can produce by the end of it.

I'm sure of it.

Now, let's move on to our second area of learning, and that's how to prototype designs.

Now, before we actually look at what we can do to prototype something, I want to look into a specific drawing technique which can really help us with our designs, but also with our prototyping when we come to it.

So 3D drawing techniques are really important in design because actually by drawing in a 3D way as you've probably done, and as you saw me do with my freehand sketches, actually, what it does is it produces a good range of design ideas which are far more realistic so that the people that are viewing it can actually get a better idea, a better sense of what that is.

And one 3D drawing technique that is really crucial to design technology is isometric drawing.

Now, isometric drawing actually is a 3D drawing technique that gives people a really clear three dimensional view, but on the page.

Now, actually to draw isometric, we need to go through some steps.

And I'm going to talk to you about these four steps that are on the screen now.

So the first one is actually, what do we have to do to start the drawing? So to start, we draw this little diamond at the top.

Don't mind it if it overlaps in the corners.

You'll notice the lines are overlapping in the corner.

That's fine, it doesn't have to be perfectly matched up.

If they overlap, not an issue at all.

In fact, I'd encourage it because it helps you with your designs.

So once you've done that, then you put these four little lines that come off of the corners of that diamond so it looks a bit like a table, yeah? Can you see that table? Good, I can.

Those four lines should go straight down.

They should be absolutely, perfectly vertical.

Once you've done that, then on the third step, you need to connect those lines up so that you now, you're starting to get what looks like a 3D cube.

And again, don't worry about them overlapping in the corners, the lines.

I'd encourage that because it will help you produce the 3D drawing.

And then finally, what I want you to do is remove those lines so that actually, it then creates a real 3D object.

You'll also notice that the lines that are inside the shape, I've rubbed out because if it's a solid object, you can't see through that object.

It's not a transparent, it's not a see-through object, it's a solid object.

So we've removed those lines.

So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to demonstrate actually how to do that on your page.

Right, so with our pieces of paper, be it in our exercise book or loose, what I'd like you to do is actually to follow along with me as I'm doing this isometric.

So as I'm doing each of those four stages, I want you to pause the video, and I want you to do it.

So as we are doing this together, okay, you are learning as we go.

So do make sure that you've got your pieces of paper and pencil ready.

If you haven't, just pause the video here now, and go and get them.

Okay, great, so let's do step one.

So what was step one? That's right, it was to draw that diamond at the top.

So what I'm going to do is on my piece of paper, I'm going to draw that flat diamond.

So I'm going to start with a line here.

Then I'm going to do an opposite one at the same type of angle.

Notice that the angle of the line is similar.

It's not perfect, but it is similar.

Then I'm going to do another line which mirrors this line here.

And then finally, I'm going to join them up.

So can you now see that diamond shape is there on the page? Now, I want you to do exactly the same.

So if necessary, pause the video so that you have got this nice diamond on your page.

Great, so with that diamond now on your page and on mine, what was the next step? That's right, it was to draw those straight lines on the corners of the diamond.

So we're going to do one line down here.

We're going to do another line down here.

We're going to do another line here.

And finally, we're going to do a fourth one here at the back.

And now, we've got what looks to be a table.

So if you haven't got those four lines, if you could make sure you draw them on now, pause the video as we go.

If you're a little bit behind, that's fine.

Right, so with these four lines, what was the next step in the design process for the isometric? That's right.

It was to join these lines up, down the bottom.

So now, I'm going to draw a line between there.

And again, you'll notice that the line, the angle of the line is going in roughly in the same direction.

Doesn't have to be perfect.

It's just so that it's looking roughly the same.

I'm going to do the same over this side.

I'm going to do one into the back corner.

And then I'm going to do the final one going in this direction.

So now, I've joined up those lines at the bottom.

We're starting to get that cube appear.

If you haven't got that done, just pause the video as we've been doing it, but I want you to be following along with me as we get this done.

Great, so the fourth and final step was what? That's right, it was to rub out these lines in the back corner.

So I've got a rubber on the end of my pencil.

And what I'm going to do is I'm just going to rub out these lines on the inside of the cube.

Doesn't have to be perfect, okay? You might want to get rid of some of these little lines around the edge as well and it makes it look more realistic.

Get rid of the rubbing shavings.

And then if necessary, where you've rubbed out little bits of the line from getting rid of the ones that we don't want, just draw them back in so it makes it a bit more permanent on the page.

And there you go.

We've now got our isometric cube.

So next to it, we're going to leave this space blank, because I'd like you to just practise if necessary, if you haven't done as well as you'd like here, just to practise doing some more.

So if necessary, pause the video before we move onto the next bit of learning to do with prototyping.

Right, so now, if you had a good practise, we're going to move onto the next area of learning within this section.

So we now need to look into action, what is prototyping within the design process and why is it so important? Now, along with the designs that you are producing, be it freehand sketch or now using that isometric drawing technique that we've just looked into, it's really important that we prototype our design ideas physically so that we can see what this product might look like when it is actually manufactured.

It's all great having the designs on the page, but actually by producing a prototype, it can make it far more realistic to both us as the designers, and the end-users.

Normally, prototypes are very rough fit and finish round the edge.

It doesn't have to be perfect.

And actually, very often they're made from modelling materials such as paper, card, or even clay.

So that again, it's not the end materials that will be used, it's more to give you an idea of what the finished product would look like.

Now, a really good modelling material that we can use to make our prototypes is Lego.

I know, Lego, that thing that we've all probably played with for years, and years, and years, but actually, it's a really good prototyping material.

It's the whole point of Lego, is that you are producing.

You're building those models of things.

You are prototyping with Lego all the time.

And actually, when you come to prototype in this unit work, I'd like you, if you have some available, to use some Lego bricks, because that Lego can be easily constructed and you can then see what the design looks like.

If you haven't got any Lego, it doesn't matter, because you can use card or bits of paper to prototype your design.

Additionally, when you come to actually using Lego, what's really important is actually the Lego itself.

When you look at the bricks, and you look at the images on the page, you can really easily draw Lego in isometric.

You can do it freehand, but also in isometric.

Now, I've got a worksheet that I'd like you to produce, actually to finish off your learning around isometric drawing.

It looks a bit like this that you see on the screen.

What I want you to do is to go over each of the stages from one through to 10.

And as you go along, it progressively gets harder.

So even if you struggle with where we've practised earlier in this session, don't worry.

This sheet is here to help you so that you could start to get that idea of drawing using isometric.

Go through sessions one, two, three, and so on and so forth.

And it gets progressively harder as you go forward.

Make sure that when you are doing it, you're trying your absolute hardest to get a really good 3D isometric cube.

So I'm going to ask you to pause the video here.

I want you to use that worksheet to practise drawing in an isometric way.

Then, one other challenge for you.

I want you to actually, if you've got any available, draw some Lego bricks.

Make sure that when you are drawing those Lego bricks, you're getting all the design and detail into that isometric drawing that you see on the Lego.

So pause the video here now.

Get the worksheet and have a go at drawing those isometric objects.

Welcome back.

And I hope you had lots of fun practise drawing those isometric cubes.

And hopefully, you've had a go at the challenge which is to draw those isometric Lego bricks.

Really well done on that work.

I'm sure you are hopefully feeling proud of what you've produced so far.

Now, let's move on to the last area of learning in today's lesson.

And that is, how do we produce a range of design ideas? So actually, we now need to take all that learning that we've done in our previous lessons to lead up to where we are now.

So our design brief and our design specifications.

And we now, need to use them to help design our shelter.

This is where we're going to produce our range of initial designs for the shelter that we are going to 3D computer aided design model.

Now, what I'm going to ask you to do is we are going to do our initial designs in a couple of different ways.

We're going to use our exercise book or pieces of paper to actually draw those designs that you want to create for your shelter.

But you must make sure that when you're designing those objects, that they are following the design brief and the design specifications that you have written.

If you have said something in your specification or your design brief, you must make sure that in those designs, it's there, because if you don't, then we're not going to meet the requirements for our client.

Now, here's something else I want you to do possibly with your designs.

It's all great just going straight into the designs, but what might be really useful is the prototyping before you even start designing.

Actually, why not use some of the Lego if you've got it available or just using some card and bits of paper and some Sellotape, whatever it might be, and actually prototype your shelters before you actually design them.

Then once you've got some rough model, you can start doing the drawing from there onwards.

So instead of designing and then do the prototyping, actually you'll do the prototype before the designing.

And hopefully, this will really help you be creative.

So I'm just going to show you some examples of how that might happen with your designs, and then you're going to go and do it yourself.

So I've got some Lego pieces here on the screen and I'm going to use these Lego pieces to help build a rough model, a rough prototype of my shelter, which I can then take and use to help design the ideas for the shelter to meet my design brief and specification.

So what I'm going to do to start is I'm going to take these small, little, round Lego pieces.

I'm going to click them together because what I'm going to do is I'm going to make the actual main central structure for the shelter itself.

And then once I've got those clicked together like so, I'm then going to take, let's say, this square piece.

And I'm going to snap that to the top of the structure, yeah? So we've got the main centrepiece for the structure and then a top piece.

Then I'm going to take these smaller pieces.

I'm going to click them on to go round, so it creates the arms coming off of the top, so that it makes a kind of structure to allow the sections to come out to create the shelter itself.

Then I might use these other pieces just to extend that a little bit further.

Oh, they could easily come off, there we are.

And it's very rough.

It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

And it's, by all means, not the end design, but what it does, it gives me an idea as to what I can do.

So now, with that, I'll put that to one side, I can start to sketch my idea.

So I might create that central structure, like so, yeah? Then I'm going to get the top piece, and I'm going to create it going across the middle like that.

I'm going to put the line at the bottom as well.

Then the top of the structure, actually, because I want it to have a design so that it meets the client's requirements, I'm going to put it looking like this.

Now, I haven't got that on my Lego model, but that's fine because the whole point of the Lego model is to give me some ideas, and that could be my first shelter design.

Then I might move on to actually, hmm, I'm not quite sure about that.

Let's maybe change that to a different design.

So I could do down here, again, I've got that central structure.

And I'll have the line going across the top, but this time, instead of it being a what looks a bit like a pyramid, I might do it as a dome.

And that then, is another design idea for my structure.

And again, the Lego is just helping me create those ideas, but don't stick too much to what the Lego shape is.

You can go off and do whatever you like.

So now, you've seen how you can use the Lego and how it fits with the designs.

What I'd like you to do is to start to create your initial design ideas for your shelter.

Make sure you're using your exercise book or your pieces of paper, it doesn't matter which one, and that you are coming up with your design.

Make sure it's a good range of designs.

Four or more needs to be there of your shelter.

Use the Lego to help prototype the designs first, and then go on and be as creative as you want to be.

So pause the video here, go and get designing.

Good luck and have lots of fun with it.

Welcome back.

I hope you had lots of fun doing those design ideas and you've got some really creative and interesting shelter designs that can hopefully help you when we move on to our next lessons.

And that's it for today.

Thank you so much for being here.

I hope you've enjoyed what we've gone through today.

We've looked at what freehand sketching is and how we produce it.

We've looked at isometric drawing and prototyping.

And then finally, you've gone away and actually produced your initial design ideas for your shelter.

As always, I would absolutely love to see your designs.

And if you use the #LearnwithOak, and if you can get your parents to send the photos digitally through the social medias, that would be fantastic, so I could see what designs you've created.

I look forward to seeing you in our next lesson.

Take care, bye-bye.