Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's design and technology lesson in this unit, Electronics: making simple circuits and switches.

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

I hope you're well and in a calm and quiet environment so that we can begin.

Today, we will be looking at how electrical products meet the user's need.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some paper.

You will also need a pencil to write and draw with.

Today, you should've begun by completing your intro quiz.

Well done if you've done that already.

If not, you can always exit this video and have a go at that now.

Today, we shall start with an electrical products recap.

Then we are going to look at FLUMP.

Wonder what that's going to be.

After that, we're going to look at evaluating electrical products.

And finally today, I would like you to complete your exit quiz.

Today, there are some keywords.

I will say each keyword, and I want you to repeat it after me.

I will also read a definition of the keyword.

These may come in useful within this lesson.

The first keyword today is user.

Can you say user? A user is the person who uses the product.

Our next word is sustainability.

Can you say sustainability? Sustainability is how environmentally-friendly a product is.

Let's begin now with an electrical products recap, thinking about all the things we learnt about electrical systems last time.

Now, let's start with this question.

You should never fly a kit near an electrical pylon.

Is that true, or is that false? This is true.

Never fly kites or drones near electrical pylons or electrical wires.

This could be very dangerous and cause a very harmful electrical shock.

Now let's look at this together.

Can you think what electrical product matches these descriptions? Let's read the first one.

When a user presses a switch, the water starts to heat.

What electrical product could that be? That could be a kettle, couldn't it? Let's look at the next one.

When a user presses a button, a motor starts to turn which turns a blade to chop food.

What could that be? It could be an electric blender.

I wonder if you can pause the video and point to the inputs and outputs of this electrical device, the iron.

Welcome back.

Well, what did you point to? Let's look at it together.

Did you point here to this dial as an electrical input device where a user can change the settings of the iron? Did you point here to this input, to this button where a user change change how much water comes out of the iron? And what outputs did you point to? Did you point to this output, the plate of the iron, which heats up and helps us make the clothes wrinkle-free? Great, well done.

There's also another output here.

It's the heater that heats the water inside of the iron.

Now let's look at this one together.

Can you spot which of these electrical products is the odd one out? Is it the kettle, the washing machine, the microwave, or the radio? Pause the video now and have a think.

Welcome back.

Well, what did you think? I thought it might be the radio, and I'll tell you why.

Because I think the kettle, the washing machine, and the microwave all produce heat, so they have heat as an electrical output, whereas the radio's electrical output is sound, so it's slightly different.

That's why I thought it was the odd one out, but perhaps you got a different reasoning.

Now, what do you think of this question? Mains electricity is very dangerous.

Do you think that's true, or is it false? I think that is true.

Mains electricity is extremely dangerous, and you must remember to be safe around electricity and be supervised by an adult.

Now we are going to look at FLUMP, and I can hear lots of you saying, "I already know what Flumps are.

They're a type of marshmallow." And indeed they are, but within design and technology, we can use this acronym FLUMPS to mean something different that can help us to analyse existing electrical systems. Let's see what each letter stands for.

F stands for function.

L stands for looks.

U stands for user.

M stands for materials.

P stands for pros and cons.

And S stands for sustainability.

And we're going to use each of those sections to help us to analyse electrical systems today, so let's look at each one in more detail, starting with function.

Now, this means what does the product do, and why does it do that? Is the product designed well to do its job? Why is it designed like that? Has the product been designed to be suitable and safe? A very important question when we come to think about electrical products.

Does the product do more than one thing? Ooh, very interesting question.

Why might it do that? How does that make it meet its function? How easy is the product to use? The next thing in FLUMPS is the looks.

What does the product look like? Why do you think it looks like that? What shapes and colours are used in the product? Does the product have textures or patterns on it? Why might it have those? What are different logos and fonts used on the product? The next thing in FLUMPS is the user, very important.

Who is this product designed for? How easy is it to use this product? How is this product designed to keep the user safe? And we're going to keep on repeating that over and over again 'cause products must be designed to be safe.

How suitable is the design for the user? And if you could change this product to make it better for the user, why would you do this and how would you do this? Next part of FLUMPS standard for materials.

What is the product made from, what material? Why is the product made from that material? What properties of that material actually make it suitable for this product? And what other products could be used to make this product? Our next part of FLUMPS is our pros and our con, and this means what do we like about the product, and why do you like it? That's called our pros.

What do you dislike about the product? And why do you dislike it? That's the cons of the product.

And after using the product, what do you think you would actually change or improve about it? Why would you do this? And finally, the final letter in FLUMPS stands for sustainability.

This is all about our environment and recycled material.

Is this product made from recycled material? Could it be recycled after use? Can there be fewer parts used to make it easier to recycle and become more sustainable? Impact does this product have on our environment? Could this product be made more sustainable? Well done, you should now know what FLUMPS stands for.

So I wonder if you can remember, what does the F in FLUMPS stand for? Does it stand for function or funny? It stands for function, of course, and that means the function of the product, what the product does and how well it does it.

What does the M in FLUMPS stand for? It is marshmallow, or is it materials? That's right, it is materials.

The M in FLUMPS stands for the materials used within the product and why they have been used and chosen for the particular use.

Now that we know what FLUMPS stands for, we're going to use it to evaluate some existing electrical products, so let's look at an example together.

The first example that I've got is a hairdryer, and I've got it here as well.

And I am going to use FLUMPS to evaluate and investigate this product, starting with the function.

I want to think, what is the function of my hairdryer? What does it do? Well, it helps to dry my hair.

Is it easy to use? Does it meet that function? Yes, it is.

I can see that it's been designed with a really good heating element.

I can change the different settings on it here and here using switches to help me to get the right setting to dry my hair.

And of course, other people might have different hairs to mine, so they might need it to do slightly different types of functions.

The next thing we're going to look at is looks.

Do I like the shape and the look and the texture of the hairdryer? Well, actually I do.

I quite like the look of it.

I like that it's quite simple.

I like how, again, it looks a bit for use, a bit for purpose.

But I also like that there's different textures used on the hairdryer, and that helps me to hold it safe and make sure that it doesn't slip out of my hand whenever I'm using it.

Also, there is I think somewhere on it a safety warning to remind me that it would become hot whenever it becomes used.

So that leads me into the next part of FLUMPS, the user.

Is this product designed with the user in mind? Is it easy to use? Well, it is.

It's got only three simple buttons and simple little logos on it, making it easy for me to use it.

And if I could change anything about it to make it more user-friendly for me, I'd perhaps change this bit, and I'd think about if I could get different types of attachments to help with different types of hairstyle, and that might help the user.

The next thing in FLUMPS to look at to help me analyse this product is the materials.

And I can see that most of the product is made in plastic.

Even these shiny bits that look like a type of metal are actually plastic, and that's a really good material for the housing of an electrical product to be made from because plastic is a type of electrical insulator, and that means that whenever I touch these bits and I've got it plugged in, I would not get an electric shock.

So that's really important, that all of the electrical components are housed on the inside, and I can see the plug here.

So, yes, I think the materials are quite suitable and safe for this product.

Now, the next thing I'm going to look at is my likes and dislikes, and we'll look very carefully at it.

What do I like about it? Well, I like that it's very easy to use and it has very simple buttons that have clear labels on them for the different heat and air settings.

And I also like this sort of silver pattern, and I like the logo on it.

And what do I dislike about it? Well, I think I said a minute ago that I think that this would be better if I could change this to different attachments for different types of hair.

And I also think that here I can see a little warning symbol, but I do think maybe that should be a little bit bigger and clearer because this bit can become very hot.

So if I was to improve this item, I think I would improve that first.

Now, finally in FLUMPS, I can look at my sustainability.

And can I see how many parts that it's been made from? I can see.

I can see inside many different parts.

And I can think about how easily this could be recycled and what impact this would have on the environment.

I do think that this would be quite a hard product to recycle because of the amount of different materials used, not only on the inside, but on the outside too.

So maybe that would be something to consider that maybe I would think about changing some of the materials used so that it could be more sustainable.

But also, I do think it needs to stay safe and safe for a user to use.

A lot of people use hairdryers, and I think it is a really fit for purpose product.

So that's my product that I have analysed for you there.

What I want you to do now is I want you to pause the video to analyse this product.

It's a washing machine.

And again, can you use FLUMPS to go through each section and think about how well this product meets each thing? So how well does it meet the functions? What do you think of the looks of it? Does it meet the user's needs? What materials are used? Are they appropriate materials? What are the pros and con? And how sustainable is this product? So I want you the pause the video to complete that task.

Welcome back.

I hope you've enjoyed doing that task.

I think we should do another one to practise, and this one is an electrical fan.

Again, can you pause the video and think, how well does the product meet its function? What do you think about the looks of the product? What about the user? How well is this product designed for the user? What about the materials? Why have the materials been chosen? Why is there this grille on the front of the fan? What are the pros and cons of the fan and what might you improve about it? And how sustainable is it? Pause the video now and have a think.

Welcome back.

I think you're getting really good at analysing products using FLUMPS.

Now then, let's look at these two electrical products.

Which of these products do you think would be best for a police person? Do you think it'd be the head torch or the normal torch? Pause the video and have a think.

Now let's look at the next two.

Which of these products do you think would be more suitable for making phone calls whilst outdoors? Do you think it's the landline phone or the mobile phone? Pause the video and have a think.

I think it might be the mobile phone because it has a battery inside it, making it portable so that you can carry it places, whereas the landline phone needs to be plugged in with a cable or a wire, and therefore it would be harder to use outdoors.

Out of these two lamp, which one do you think is more suitable for a children's bedroom? Pause the video and have a think.

Welcome back.

Well, both of them would be suitable in a children's bedroom, but maybe the novelty lamp might be better for a children's bedroom 'cause it might appeal to their sense of style and the cartoons and things that they like, whereas the desk lamp might be better used in an office environment.

Now, what I want you to do now is with an adult's supervision, I want you to find some electrical products in your home.

And using FLUMPS, I want you to think about how the product meets the needs of different users.

What makes it suitable and safe? And which purpose is this product best designed for? You can repeat that for a number of products if you have time today.

Pause the video now to complete your task.

Welcome back.

I hope you enjoyed doing your activity.

Did you find out how some electrical products meet the needs of the users? Well done if you did.

I hope that you enjoyed using FLUMPS today and it was a really useful acronym to help us to understand how products meet the needs of different users.

And remember what each letter stand for.

F stood for function.

L stood for looks.

U stood for user.

M stood for material.

P stood for pros and cons.

And S stood for sustainability.

And all of those can help us when we come to analyse electrical products and electrical systems, and it helps us to understand how the product is best designed for user, what the product does, and why it does it.

And I want you to keep on thinking about that as we do this unit because we will be designing and making our own electrical system.

So I look forward to seeing you next time.

In the meantime, stay very safe and very happy, and goodbye.