Lesson video

Hello, my name is Mrs Enock, and I'm delighted to be your design and technology teacher for Mechanisms, Leavers and Linkages.

In today's lesson, we're going to be evaluating our final product and considering the opinions and views of other people.

I can't wait to get started.

In today's lesson, we're going to evaluate our finished product.

I'm going to respond to some feedback I was given, by adding extra information, how to be persuasive.

And I'm also going to begin to challenge myself by experimenting with a new mechanism.

I can't wait to get started.

In this lesson, you're going to need, your persuasive picture, a pencil and paper, people to question and scissors, card and split pin.

Now this evaluation is going to focus on the persuasive picture that you've made.

So it's really important that you've finished your persuasive picture before you begin today's lesson.

Here are key words we're going to be using in today's lesson.

Design criteria.

Can you say that for me? Great.

Design criteria are the important things we need to include when creating our project and during this whole unit of work, we've kept going back to our design criteria and checking that when we've made a product, it's met that design criteria.

The next word is evaluation.

Can you say that? Great.

Evaluation is when we identify the strengths of our product and we're very brave and we identify the areas of development as well.

Our next keyword's product.

Can you say that? Great.

Product is how we refer to the item which we've designed and created.

So in today's lesson, when I use the word product, I'm referring to the persuasive picture with moving parts.

And our final word is mechanical system.

Can you say that for me? Brilliant.

Mechanical system is where more than one mechanism is connected.

It's now time to evaluate our finished product.

Here's a picture of my persuasive picture with moving parts.

I'm really pleased with my picture because I really liked the bright colours and I like the fact that it has a persuasive message of something that I strongly believe in.

What I'd like you to do is press pause and have a look at your persuasive picture and say two things that you like about it.

When you're done press resume and we'll carry on learning together.

Ready? Off you go.

Did you find two things that you liked about your picture? Well-done if you did.

It's now time to evaluate my product, the persuasive picture.

I just said a moment ago, two things I liked about my persuasive picture, but it's now time to dig a little bit deeper and begin to analyse, reflect and not be afraid to develop our ideas.

Let's focus on the strengths of product first.

A strength of my product, is that it moves using mechanisms. It focuses on a good cause, helping the environment.

The pictures, the moving pictures, are also a cute design with bold colours.

Here's some areas for development.

There could have been more information about the dangers of plastic in the sea.

I gave a powerful message, but I didn't actually show people how to use less plastic.

I also could have added extra mechanisms to increase the range of movement.

Now's the time for you to pause the video and evaluate your product.

You can use the worksheet to help you if you'd like.

Once you've evaluated your product, press resume and we'll carry on learning together.

Ready? Off you go.

Did you evaluate your product? Well done if you did.

I also took the opportunity that I asked other people about my persuasive picture.

And these were the statements that people made about my product.

When I asked them to comment on whether the moving parts of the product, they said the mechanisms moved well.

When asked to comment on the product being controlled, they said the movements were smooth.

When asked to respond to whether it was appealing.

they said they liked the title.

They said it was bold and gave a clear message.

And when asked to comment about the product being persuasive, they said the picture made me feel sad for sea animals.

Okay, it's now time for you to press pause and ask for other people around you to evaluate the strengths of your picture.

To help guide you, ask them to comment on the four design criteria that we came up with.

For the product to be moving, be controlled, be appealing and be persuasive.

Once you've got feedback from other people, press resume and we'll carry on learning together.

Ready? Off you go.

Did you get other people to comment on the strengths of your product? Well done if you did.

Okay.

It was now time to ask people to comment on the areas of development for my product and to help guide them, I asked them to comment on the four areas of my design criteria.

So, an area for development about the project being moving.

It was said it would be good if I'd had one input connected to all the outputs.

So instead of having two inputs, they said it would be better to have one input.

I think that sounds like a great design and technology challenge.

In response to something being appealing, the comment was made that the blue background could have been greater.

And in response to being persuasive, I was told it would be good to have more information on how to use less plastic and upon reflection, I agree with that as well.

In response to my product of being controlled, no comment was given.

It's now time for you to pause this video and ask for people to evaluate your product focusing on areas for development.

Now remember, do not be offended or upset if somebody gives you an area for development.

It's a really important part of being a designer.

We are always trying to improve our products and a great way of doing that is by accepting, productive, honest feedback.

Okay? So press pause, ask people to comment on your product and once they've done that press resume and we'll carry on learning together.

Ready? Off you go.

Okay, now that we've evaluated our product ourselves and we've asked other people to evaluate our product, now is the time for us to respond to that feedback and work on how we can improve our product.

So, this is how I can respond to my feedback.

I decided to focus on two of the points made.

I had a look at more information needed on how to use less plastic.

So adding information to my persuasive picture on how to use less plastic.

And in response to only having one input connected to all the outputs, that seems like a great challenge to design and make a new mechanism with only one input.

Now's the time for you to pause the video and have a think about how you can improve your persuasive picture.

Don't pick any more than two things and don't be afraid to be honest with yourself.

Ready? Off you go.

Did you have a think of how to improve your persuasive picture? Well done.

Let's ask ourselves this very important question.

Can we redesign the persuasive picture to make it a stronger product? Point to yes or no now.

Well done if you pointed to yes.

I absolutely agree.

We can always redesign a product to make it even stronger.

Being a good designer means not being afraid to go back to the drawing board and work hard to improve a product.

Okay.

I'm now going to show you how I'm going to respond to my feedback.

Remember, the way you respond to your feedback, is most likely going to be different to mine.

I'm going to begin by adding extra information on how to be persuasive Okay.

Let's pause the video and have a think about extra information you can give to persuade your target market audience.

It'd be great for you to help me out.

How to think of all the ideas of how we can use less plastic.

Once you've had a brainstorm press resume and we'll carry on learning together.

Ready? Off you go.

Did you have a think for me? That's fantastic.

These are the ideas I came up with of extra information that I could add to the poster.

I could recommend the people to use metal straws instead of plastic straws, as once these are used, they are often unrecyclable and are thrown away.

I also came up with the idea to use your own water bottle.

Again, to reduce plastic bottles which cannot be recycled being used.

And finally, I thought about the idea to use recyclable bags.

And I thought this was great because I actually used the old plastic bags on my poster to itself.

So that would be great advice to give to people.

Okay.

I'm now going to respond to the second part of the feedback.

I'm going to experiment with a new mechanism.

I've been very excited about this new challenge.

Responding to the feedback.

It's now time for me to experiment with my design and see if I can make only one input and connect it to all the outputs.

There's lots of different ways that I can experiment and develop this idea.

The length of card.

We can change the length of the card and see what happens to the movement.

We can position the pivot in different places along the lever and see what happens.

We can change the length of the slider by cutting different size slits in the card and see how this will affect the movement.

Finally, we can add that very important bridge changing the size of the bridge and the position of the bridge to see what happens to the mechanism.

Okay, here's our safety warning.

If you choose to take this challenge with me, you will need to use sharp scissors.

So please go and ask an adult to be present before you start this activity.

Please don't use sharp scissors unsupervised.

So, press pause, gather all the equipment needed, when you've done press resume and you can watch me experiment.

Now remember, you can either pause the video and work alongside me or you can watch me first and then have a go afterwards.

The choice is yours.

I've had to go with a long lever and I've initially cut out three of the shorter levers.

And I have made all three of the loose pivots attached to the longer lever and that way, there's only going to be one input.

I'm then going to attach it to the back of the cardboard.

So I need to get extra split pins.

Now remember, you can try putting the pivots in different places and see what happens.

I've just attached the first mechanism which is the same one that had my turtle on.

And then, along the same lever, I've attached another fixed pivot for the two fishes.

Once all the fixed pivots have been added, it will be good to see if it really is one input with multiple outputs like a mechanical system.

Did you notice what I was missing? That very important bridge to help that control.

Again, you can experiment and see where you can put the bridge in different ways.

I think that's a good starting place to experiment and see about one input with multiple outputs.

Okay.

If you haven't yet had a chance to experiment with your mechanism, here's the new challenge.

Can you design a new mechanism with only one input? Have fun, experiment and don't be afraid to change your design.

Once you've had a go, press resume and we'll carry on the lesson together.

Ready? Off you go.

My goodness, this has been an amazing unit of work and I've absolutely loved teaching you, Mechanisms with Leavers and Linkages.

Let's see what we learned about in our final lesson today.

We evaluated our finished product, we added extra information, how to be persuasive and we began to experiment with a new mechanism.

I've absolutely loved being your teacher and would love to see any of the work that you're especially proud of.

If you'd like to share your work with Oak National, please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Twitter, tagging @OakNational and hashtag learnwithOak.

All that's left to say is, I'm very proud of you and you should be very proud of yourselves as well.

Bye for now.

Bye.