Lesson video

Hello, my name is Mrs. Bishop, and I will be your design and technology teacher for today.

We have been learning about electronics, simple circuit and switches.

Today is lesson 9 of 10.

I hope that you've enjoyed designing your nightlight so far.

Let's see what we are doing in today's lesson.

Today we will be selecting components to assemble electrical systems, and we will also be finishing our final nightlight prototype.

I hope that you are in a nice, quiet and calm environment that we can begin.

In today's lesson, you will need a pencil to draw and write with, a ruler to measure with, some card or paper, some scissors, which must be used under the supervision of a parent or a carer, and some tape.

Now depending on what type of nightlight prototype you are designing, you might need some other equipment today.

You might need some modelling materials, a computer or a tablet, and you may need some electrical components.

Now, I hope you have started today by completing your intro quiz.

Well done.

If you haven't, you can pause the video now and go and give that a go.

Now, we're going to start today by recapping what we knew about the design cycle.

After that, we will look at measuring, cutting and shaping materials to create a nightlight.

Finally, today, we're going to look at finishing and how we might finish our prototype.

And at the very end of the lesson, I would like you to complete your exit quiz.

In today's lesson, there are some keywords, let's go through them together.

I will say each word and I would like you to repeat it after me, then I will read the definition of the word.

The first word is prototype.

Can you say prototype? Prototype is an early sample, model or release of a product built to test a concept or a process.

Our next word is assembling.

Can you say the word assembling? Assembling is to gather together pieces to create a structure, and we will be doing that today as we design and make our final nightlight prototype.

Next, we have joining.

Can you say joining? Joining is to link or connect pieces together.

So as we work today, we might join together different materials and different electrical components to create our final nightlight prototype.

And then we have finishing.

Can you say finishing? Finishing is to complete the manufacture of a structure.

And today, we will do that by adding decoration, but there are other finishing technique that we will discuss.

Can you recall what we are designing and making a nightlight? Here are some examples of nightlights currently available on the market, but yours might be different to this.

And I'm really excited today to see how you're going to finish that prototype.

We've learned so much before within this unit.

We've learned that we're going to make it a battery operated at nightlight for a particular user.

And so far, we have looked at electrical safety and electrical products around our home, and we investigate those and learned from them.

We developed design criteria, so we know exactly what our nightlight needs to do and who it's going to do for, and why it needs to be designed to meet in a certain way.

We've generated and collected so many ideas.

We've used computer simulations to simulate an electrical circuit.

And we have designed and made our own electrical components.

Today we will finish our nightlights, I can't wait to see your final finished prototype.

During these lessons, you might already have some prototypes and you might need to today test and evaluate them to make them the best that they can be.

Let's begin today by looking at the design cycle.

What can you recall about this? Why might we use the design cycle? Let's have a look at it together.

You might use the design cycle to help us to make our final prototype.

In all the design cycle, there are four different areas.

There was investigate, design, make and also, evaluate.

These are the four main elements that designers use.

And as a designer, you have the choice of where you want to start.

And you might move forwards and backwards between the different parts of the cycle, and that's perfectly acceptable.

For example, some designers might start by making different prototypes, and as they make, they'll find different solutions, but sometimes, they might come across problems. And what they will do is they will go back to the investigate part of the design cycle to find different solutions to those problems. Some designers will start by designing or sketching a model or prototype.

They will then think about what works and what doesn't work, and they will then evaluate their designs, looking at back at the design criteria, and thinking about how the product might meet the needs of the user that they have identified.

Some designers might use the investigate part of the design cycle, and they might investigate constraints with their designs or find out related information that might be useful to know about the user of their nightlight.

As designers make their prototype, they might also evaluate it, testing it to see, does it meet the needs of the users, and what needs to be changed or improved to make it better.

It really is up to you today where you start on the design cycle.

And again, you might move backwards and forwards to different stages as you start your work today.

So in today's lesson, you might need to choose your components live.

It's the policy that you and I select the components you need for your nightlight design.

Welcome back.

Today, you also need to think about the materials that you want to use in your prototype.

And each material has different properties and different advantages and disadvantages, so think today, what materials do you want to use in your final prototype for your nightlight? Pause the video now to go and select your materials.

Welcome back.

You might also think today that you could use CAD or computer simulations to help you with your prototype designs.

We looked together at a software called Tinkercad, and you can use that today if you do not have the materials and equipment that you need.

This can also produce a very professional and easy to share nightlight prototypes that might be a very good option for you to do.

Now that we have selected our materials and components for our nightlights, we can continue making or you might've already made some prototype designs in our previous lessons.

For example, I made this prototype design before, and I've used cardboard and paper to make this, and I have assembled it together with masking tape.

I've also made this one, and I've used a glass jar and some different lollipop sticks and straws, and I plan on putting my light on the inside.

I want us to think about where are we going to put the light? Where are we going to put the wires? And where are we going to put the battery? And where are these going to fit nicely? Where are we going to put the switch? And today, I'm going to show you ways that we could assemble these together.

So I might think about this nightlight prototype and I want to put the light on the inside, okay? So I want to think about where I can munch that light, so I'm going to turn it over.

And what I really want to do do is I want the light to be mounted here in this.

So what I could do is I could cut a slot for that light to fit into.

The first thing I'm going to do is just draw around the component, then I'm going to cut this out just so that the light can fit neatly into the base of this nightlight.

So I'm just showing you how to cut an internal slot.

I'm just neatly cutting along the lines, moving the scissor and moving the model as I work.

I'm taking small little cuts so that I get it accurate to circle.

Now, I can discard this part and now I have the perfect spot for my bowl, and when I turn it over, I can see that the bowl is now perfectly in the middle there.

Now I might think, where do I want to attach this switch? And I'm going to use this push to make switch cause why I want with this one is when it's being down like this, I want the switch to push together so that the light is on, so I might going to mount it here at the bottom, and I could use some glue to help me with this.

Stick my nightlight design onto the top.

So now, when it sits this way, it will be on, but if I take off the pressure, this switch will be off.

So now I can connect up my switch and see if it works.

Now I connected up all of my components together using the wires, I've connected up my power source with wires to the switch, then I've connected up to my light on the inside, and connected back around again to the negative electric.

Normally, my nightlight will sit like this, but let's see what happens when I hold it down, the light lines up, lighting up my nightlight, and making it work for the user, but whenever I let go, the light goes off, and that's using a simple push to make switch to make this nightlight work for the user.

In my second prototype design for the nightlight, I have chose to use glass and wood for the housing of the nightlight.

I've also decided this time to use my simple toggle switch.

My power source is going to be my battery again, and this time, I'm thinking about using LEDs to light up my nightlight.

But just be careful with LEDs because it's the convention that we need to know about, and that is that on LEDs, there is a positive and a negative side, and we can look at this led to see it.

Can you see that one leg is longer than the other? And also, on this side, it's hard to see in the video, but there's a flat edge.

Now, you have to remember that the longer leg needs to be attached to the positive part of the battery, and the shorter leg must be attached to the negative side of the battery, so that current can flow in one direction.

Also, there is a convention of wires, normally, we use red wires to connect the positive sides and we use black wires to connect the negative sides.

Okay, let's build this circuit now, thinking about how we can attach together our model with our electrical system.

Now you can see that I've connected from the positive side using a red wire to my switch.

And then I've connected positive to the positive leg of the LED or the longer leg of the LED, and then we've connected black wire to the negative leg or the shorter leg of the LED back to the negative side of the battery.

Hopefully when I turn the switch on, we should see the LED light that works perfectly.

Okay, so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to hide the power source on the wires and the light on the inside of the jar.

And the glass is an electrical insulators, so that means that the user can touch all the outside of the jar with the electrical components stiffly enclosed in the inside, but I'm keeping the switch on outside of the jar because that's the bit where the user can input what they want to happen.

So I have it currently in the off position, but what happens when I move in to switch to the on position? There we go, the electricity can flow and it makes my light light up.

Now that we have worked hard on designing and making, we're going to look at finishing.

Why are finishing techniques used? Well, they could be used to protect.

Finishes are used to protect the material from where mould, rusting and moisture.

I'm going to be making a real-life product.

We will often use finishes in such a way.

Today, we're already making a prototype, so we might actually just use finishes to add decoration.

Logos, pattern and textures, prints and colours are added to nightlights to change the materials' appearance and make them look more attractive for a user.

And that might be what we will focus on today because we are making a prototype.

But it still important that we appreciate that a real-life designer would have to think about using finishing techniques to protect the product but also to enhance it because some finishing techniques can enhance the materials making them more durable or improving other qualities.

We're going to think about coating materials with different materials to add things like water business or to make the product more strong and sturdy.

Now, what finishing techniques could be used with different materials? Well, for plastic, we sometimes can sand and polish it to create a smooth finish.

For wood, we can paint it, stain it, coat it, sand it, oil it, varnish it and each finish offers different pros and cons.

And for cardboard, we might be use, we can colour, coat it or paint it.

Remember that today we may use different prototype finishing methods that would be different to real-life finishing methods.

And today you might want to use paint, felt tips and colouring pencils to add decoration.

You might also think about adding some logos, different types of stick-on decorations and patterns and effects.

Now I want you to pause the video to complete your task.

I want you to design, make and finish your nightlight prototype.

Work in a way that suits you, choosing where you want to start on the design cycle.

Experiment with materials, techniques and ideas to create a nightlight that really meets your design criteria and will be absolutely perfect for your user.

Pause the video now to complete your task.

Welcome back.

How did you get along? Do you want to show me your nightlight prototype now? Wow.

I am so proud of you.

You have done such amazing work in this unit.

Congratulations for making an absolutely fantastic nightlight prototype.

I think it will meet the needs of your users.

Now, if you'd like to, you could share your nightlight prototype today with me cause I'd love to see them, but you must also ask a parent or carer to share it on Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnWithOak.

I know that you love to see your work.

Congratulations on everything you've done within this unit so far.

I look forward to seeing you next time for our final lesson in this unit.

In the meantime, stay safe and happy.

Goodbye.