Lesson video

Hello, I'm Mr. Donnelly, I'm one of the design and technology teachers for Oak Academy.

This lesson is going to be fantastic.

It should be seen as a celebration for all the work you've done from lesson one through to five for this unit.

If you've ever seen the TV programme Dragons' Den, it's going to be a bit like that where you produce a board of information.

And, if you want to, you can produce the board to show to someone almost like a sales pitch for your idea.

If a designer has been asked to solve a problem sometimes they have to pitch their idea to people that have employed them to solve the problem in the first place.

Designers often need backing and financial help, and to be able to pitch an idea is a great skill.

So, gather the work that you've done from lesson one to five, have it by your computer and I'll tell you what to do with it in a few minutes, thank you.

So, in this lesson, there are three things that we're going to do.

The first thing is we're going to recap on what we've learned during the unit.

So if you saw the introduction, you'll know there are five lessons that you should've done before this one, we'll recap on all that you learned from lesson one through to five, and this lesson is about putting it all together to produce a pitch that a designer might make.

As well as doing that, we're going to present our work so that others can see it, but I'll give you some examples during the lesson.

And then once we've got that example, I will go through some of the things to include when you pitch your idea, so that makes it clear for others to follow.

If you've been doing all of my lessons, you'll know for every one of them, there are two things that we need.

One of them is plain paper, and the other is something to draw and write with.

And I'd recommend a pencil as a minimum.

To take part in this lesson, there's always going to be some keywords and terminology.

And if we go through those now, you'll find it easy to understand what it is that I mean.

So, the first term is a design pitch.

Now, you might've seen Dragons' Den, as I mentioned before, and on Dragons' Den someone will pitch an idea, and when you pitch something you're normally wanting backing from the people that are watching.

So, this is when you share your idea with an audience to convince them that your presentation has got value.

Client is the next word, this is the person, or the customer, or company that a designer would work for when producing things for a project.

So, the client is the person that employs the designer.

And a designer will produce work for them.

And, often, will have to pitch their work as they go through the development of the project.

And then, the last is collaboration.

You might've heard this word and it means that when people work together.

Now, a designer might have some creative ideas but maybe not all the knowledge for all the parts of a project.

And collaboration is really important in design and engineering is all about teamwork, pulling together and making the best of everybody's skills.

So, to be a good designer you got to be able to work as part of a team, understand that you're working for a client.

And, quite often, you have to pitch your idea.

So, to set the scene for where we're up to part of my design learning journey is shown on this slide.

This is probably the page, which shows the development the most.

In the middle, as a recap, you can see one of my drawings from a previous lesson, and I use the acronym a method called, SCAMPER to make sure that I was forced to develop that drawing to make it look different.

So, I might've considered substituting a part, combining, adapting and modifying, put part of it to another use, eliminate and reverse.

So, if you could use a couple of those words in the future it will force you also, just like I did, to develop my work.

So, that's part of my journey.

And some of these drawings could be included on a presentation board just to explain the people that I'm pitching to that this is how it's all started.

Some of the key development, during this work, was I decided to add a roller ball to the base of the cup holder, and to remove some material just to make it lighter in weight and less bulky.

My final example is shown here.

So, to get that drawing done perfectly it was quite a tricky thing to draw, I actually took a photograph of my arm holding a cup, traced over it, and then adapted the drawing, and then photocopied it to scan it into this image.

So, I do that quite a lot if it's something that's difficult to draw, take photos of things I've made and then trace over them.

I decided to use carbon fibre to keep it lightweight and not bulky.

Thermochromic film, to make sure that the power triathlete using the product would be able to tell if the thing that they were holding was hot or cold.

And, of course, the cup holder, so that a cup could be held and the bit that their forearm slides into you can see it's got some flex and adjustability so that it's comfortable to use.

What a journey it's been, I think if you followed me through from lesson one to five you will have learned so much, so well done if you've stuck with it.

And if already you're thinking, "Actually, I missed a lesson out, "and something might be really important." Don't worry, go back, do that lesson, and you'll be able to include the learning from that in the summary of this lesson.

So, let's have a quick recap.

When you think back to what you've done and what you've learned, you should know that in lesson one we worked on developing a specification.

Lesson two, we focused on two key terms, ergonomics and anthropometrics.

So to recap, ergonomics is making something, so that it's fully optimised for human use.

And anthropometrics is making sure that human sizes have been taken into account in the design of the product.

Lesson three, we focused on function and form.

Lesson four, we prioritised some design decisions.

Quite often designers have to make really difficult decisions.

And that's what lesson four was all about.

Lesson five, we considered different materials that we could use to make the product that we've designed.

And we're at the point now where we need to share what we've learned, and what we've produced to somebody else.

It's time now to celebrate our work.

Ideally, you'll have all the work that you've produced and designers would do exactly the same, where they gather examples of key parts along the learning journey, and that would be shared with others.

So, you have to excuse that I've just disappeared for a few minutes, and I'm going to show you some examples of pitches that people have put together.

So, this is a design board and, on here, you could either have your photograph at the top left-hand side, or it could be a photograph of something that describes the problem.

There is a name of the product, a logo, some information about what the pupil has done.

So, this is all students work that I've worked with, in the past, and I thought I'd share that with you now.

There's some information that sets the context and then there are some little drawings that lead up to what the final then developed product is.

I've got another one, this one is all about an air humidifier.

So, there's a little logo, a photograph where you can either put a picture of yourself.

There's something about sleeping well, and how a humidifier could help.

And it's been designed in quite a cute little way to look a bit like a panda, or a small animal.

We got another one here, which is really nicely presented, fantastic 3D drawings and, again, we could go and have a logo, a photograph of either yourself or the situation, and then really nice development drawings just so that you can talk about that.

And it's better than using PowerPoint, I feel.

Quite often people will use PowerPoint which could be great, but to have a design board I think it's far more engaging and it's easier for a designer to talk about the content of a single slide rather than to read from the PowerPoint.

Right, I'm back, so this slide should help you be guided on what to include on your board.

So, you will have seen this design board on one of the previous slides, and I thought I'd highlight some of the key points.

You need a name for your product.

So, most things that you own will have a name, and you need to think of one for the thing that you've designed.

You might have either your photo, or it could be a photograph of the design situation, or problem that you've solved.

Company logos are always quite fun to design, and really important to include because brand identity is something that customers relate to.

We've got some sketch work leading up to a really good 3D drawing, which helps communicate the idea.

We got information just about how you've solved the problem.

So, it's a short story about what you did, maybe how you collaborated and what you actually found out.

And then, lastly, some information that sets the scene, or the context to which the problem's related to.

So, you gather all your work together, work out what you've learned along the way, and you can start to piece together your own design board.

This is the main task for the video.

So, you've seen some examples, you've probably got a great idea what to show and you can put together one design board now to show to other people, you can either use a large piece of card and put your work actually on there.

So, cut it out and stick it on.

You could produce it digitally.

Or you might just use a selection of papers and hold them up to talk about those as you go through.

So, how you present your findings is entirely up to you.

But I think it's really important that you gather all your work together, and it's celebrated because I think you've learned so much in the last five lessons.

This is one opportunity to put it all together and think, "Well, this is what we've done." So, I hope you've enjoyed it.

Pause the video now, read through this slide.

And then you can get cracking on your design board.

Now, that you've finished your design board, I think it's really important that we go back and remember some of the keywords that I mentioned at the start.

So, the first one is design pitch.

I hope your board is in a position now to actually use it to explain to someone what you've learned and how you've solved the problem.

A client, you can actually pretend that the person you're presenting to is the client.

And you could get some questions from them at the end of your little presentation or design pitch.

But the client is normally the person that would employ a designer, or it's the person that a designer is designing things for.

So, it could be a bit like a customer.

And collaboration, I think this is so important for designers because they can't know everything.

They always have to tap into the information and knowledge that others have and to be able to work with other people and be part of the team.

That's crucial to being a successful designer.

So, if you can be a part of a team, understand that you quite often have to work for people and follow and be guided by their specifications and pitch an idea at the end you might have what it takes to be a fantastic designer.

And I hope one day I get to know that you've designed something based upon the work that you've done with this lesson.

Thank you very much, I really hope you've enjoyed it.

And if you could share some of your design work you could maybe ask a parent or carer to take a photo and put it on Twitter.

And the information for that is on the next slide, thank you.