Lesson video

Hello, thank you for joining me for your design and technology lesson.

My name is Mrs. Conway, and I will be guiding you through your learning today.

So today's lesson outcome is, "I can develop a meaningful and authentic design brief." And these are our keywords: design specification, annotate, and evaluate.

I'll go through each one of these as we work through the lesson.

So the first thing we're going to look at is design specifications, moving animals.

Now, the local Science Museum is creating a new display called "Products that Use Air".

The exhibition will help primary school pupils explore how air can be used to make things move.

They have invited local schools to design pneumatic, moving air, animal toys to use in the interactive display.

Now, products, such as moving toys, are designed with a user and purpose in mind.

And we must always think about the design specifications of a product before beginning our designs.

A design specification is a list of product requirements that you think of them as kind of the needs of the product, and these are decided before a product is designed and made.

Now, a design specification can include information on the function.

Now, the function is what it should do.

Also, the users.

The users are the people who the product is for.

And the performance.

The performance is how it will actually work as well.

The appearance.

The appearance is what it will look like, or what should it look like? The materials.

And the materials is what it is made from.

And, lastly, the environment.

How are we going to reduce the impact on the environment? Now, these are all things that can be included in a design specification.

They don't have to, and, sometimes, there are more as well, but these are some really key ones that can be included.

Okay, let's just check what we've just gone through there.

What are design specifications? Are they, A, product names, B, product requirements, or C, the product user? Okay, pause the video here.

Just have a little think about your answer.

How did you get on? The correct answer was the product requirements.

So a design specification is the product requirements, so the needs of the product, what does it need to do or to have.

Well done if you got that right.

Now, to make a moving animal toy using pneumatics, we first need to create a design specification.

A design specification helps the designer to, and we've got some ideas here from Lucas, "To think about how the product will be made." Andeep has also suggested it will also help to "make sure that the product does what you want and expect it to do." And Izzy has also suggested that it helps the designer to "meet the expectations of the user." These are all correct.

These are all things that a design specification can help the designer to achieve.

Now, these pupils are thinking about the movement that they want their moving animal toy to actually make.

Now, Lucas has said, "I want the eyes to move up and down." And Andeep has said, "I want the tongue of the snake to go in and out of its mouth." And Izzy has said, "I want the jaws of a crocodile to move up and down." Really great ideas.

Now, these are all requirements.

Izzy is thinking about which pneumatic system she could use to make the jaw move on a crocodile.

So she's thinking about the bottle and balloon, or the syringes with one output, or the syringes with two outputs.

And she's decided, "I think the bottle and balloon system will work, so I will need a plastic bottle, tubing, and a balloon." So she's thought carefully about that.

Now, Izzy's created a design specification for a moving animal, and she's taken some of those headings that we looked at at the start.

And these are: product, function, user, performance, materials, and appearance.

And she's had a go at putting some needs or requirements down for her moving animal on each of those headings.

So, for product, she said that it's going to be a moving animal, and she's been even more specific and said a crocodile.

For the function, she has said that she wants to show how air can make something move.

For the user, she has said primary school pupil.

And this was based on that information we had at the very start of the lesson.

For the performance, she said the balloon will inflate, lifting the top jaw.

So she's explained that really clearly.

She's also had a go at putting down some ideas for materials.

So she suggested she's going to need to use a large cardboard egg box, plastic tubing, plastic bottle, and a balloon.

And, for the appearance, she has said she wants to paint it green with added eyes and teeth.

Okay, let's just check what we've just gone through again then.

All right, true or false? A design specification should be written before the designer designs and makes a product.

Is that true or is it false? Pause the video here to have a think about this question.

And the correct answer, it was true.

Well done if you got that right.

A design specification helps designers to decide how they will make a product, and how it will work, before they make it.

Right, over to you now to have a go at a task then.

I would like you to write your own design specification for your own moving animal toy.

Now, don't worry if you then change your mind later on, that's absolutely fine, but just put down some ideas for now that you think will work under each of these headings.

Okay, good luck with this task.

Pause the video here to have a go.

Great, how did you get on? Now, you will have filled out your own design specification, and that's going to be different to the example that I've given you here, but I'm just showing you Izzy's answers again, or Izzy's design specification again, so you can compare, and just see if you've got all the key points.

Your user, for example, will be the same as Izzy, but the others will be slightly different, and that's fine.

Hopefully, you've got some really good ideas included in there.

And this will help you when you move on to design.

Okay, so next we're gonna look at generating ideas.

Now, at the start of the design process, designers generate lots of different ideas, and they might not use all of the ideas, or they might combine different ideas to make new ones.

And one way to generate ideas is through sketching or drawing.

Now, sketching your moving animal toy can help you work out how it will be made, and you can make sketches to show what the toy will look like inside and outside, and also where the pneumatic system will go.

Now, it can help you also see any extra things you will need to add, or adapt, or change as you go along.

So drawing isn't just doing it for the sake of doing it, your sketching and your drawing is you basically working out what you're going to do.

Now, Izzy's asked a really good question here.

"I'm not very good at drawing.

How can I make it clear?" And there may be lots of you right now thinking the same thing, and it can be a little scary, sometimes, thinking about, "I've now got to draw.

I'm a bit nervous about that.

I don't know if I'm very good at drawing, so how can I make my ideas really, really clear?" Just remember a few things.

Design drawings do not have to be detailed, especially the ones that we do right near the start, when we're just getting lots of ideas down.

Designers can use actually very simple sketches, and then they can annotate them.

Now, annotations are a little bit like labels, but with more detail in them.

Annotations are notes that are added onto a design to add information.

The kind of information you can include are things like materials, sizes, the function, the joining methods.

Anything that isn't clear in the sketch, you can add as an annotation.

So if you've got something really tricky, and you're not quite sure you can draw it, or you don't think you've drawn it very clearly, you can annotate it to explain it.

Okay, let's just do a quick check for our understanding on that then.

Which word means the same as drawing? Is it, A, annotating, B, generating or C, sketching? Pause the video here.

Just take a moment to think about your answer.

And the correct answer, it was C, so drawing is also sometimes called sketching.

Well done if you got that right.

Now, Izzy started by sketching the outside view of her moving animal toy, and then she annotated it to add information.

And you can see here she's drawn her sketch, or sketched her drawing, or her design, and the annotation is around the outside.

What she's also done to help the annotation is she's included little arrows, or lines, to point out which bits she's actually writing about.

That can really help to make a drawing nice and clear.

Izzy's explained here, "I included the size or number of parts I would use." So that combination of her drawing and the annotation have worked together to make this design really clear, and she's done a great job there.

Izzy sketched the inside of her moving toy to show how the pneumatic system will fit.

So she's kind of drawn this from above, and you can see, again, she has used annotation as well as her sketch to make it really clear in how it will work.

She's just explained here, "I will need to cut out some of the egg supports, and make a hole in the egg box to put the tubing through." But she's also explained that in the annotation.

At the bottom, you can see she's written, "Cut hole for tube." So she's made it really clear, and, this time, she's used more than one sketch.

You don't just have to draw it once.

You can draw it from different angles, or different views, or you can draw the insides of idea as well.

Okay, quick check for understanding then.

True or false? Final product designs come from one idea.

Is that true or false? Pause the video here.

Just have a little think about your answer.

The correct answer, it is false.

So designers can have lots of ideas at the start, and, in fact, that's the best way to work.

The more ideas you've got at the start, hopefully, the more creative, and different, and, what we say, innovative the idea will be at the end.

Some of those ideas can then be combined to make the final design.

Okay, it's gonna be over to you now to have a go at another task.

I'd like you to sketch the outside design for your moving animal toy.

And also I'd like you to annotate it as well.

And to annotate it, I'd like you to include information on things such as materials that you're going to use, the components or the parts, and anything you will need to add or change.

Now, remember, as you are sketching your design, use your design specification to help guide you on what you need to include, or what your product needs to have.

It will help you.

The second thing I'd like you to do then, is then to sketch the inside design for your moving animal toy, just like I showed you with the example.

Again, I'd like you to annotate it to include information on: the pneumatic system, so the air system, the materials that pneumatic system is going to use, and where that pneumatic system is going to go.

Also, I'd like you to add anything else that you will need to add or change.

Okay, quite a bit of work to do there, but really fun to get your idea finally down onto paper.

Right, pause the video here to have a go at these tasks, and good luck.

Right, how did you get on? I'm just going to show you Izzy's examples again of her outside view and her inside view.

Yours are going to look really different to this.

That's absolutely wonderful.

Just compare yours to Izzy's, and just think, have you made everything really clear using your sketching and also your annotation? Have you got an outside view and an inside view as well? The last thing we're going to look at today then is evaluating your ideas.

Now, evaluation is an important part of designing.

It's the chance to think carefully about a product, and how it actually meets the design specification that you wrote.

Evaluations are often done at the end of the design process, but, actually, it's also a really good idea to evaluate your design ideas before you make the product.

You can, actually, evaluate your ideas as you go along.

This makes it then easier to adapt or to change things to your design, and make sure that you get it the best it can be.

Izzy asked Andeep to check her design idea using her design specification.

It's a really nice idea to use friends, or to use classmates, to help you evaluate your design.

So Andeep can see a problem with Izzy's design, and makes a suggestion to help her, which is really kind of Andeep.

An egg box doesn't open on the short side like your design.

You will need to change how the egg box opens.

That's a great spot from Andeep.

Sometimes, when we're working on our own design ideas, we can miss bits, and getting someone else's opinion can really help.

Okay, let's just do a quick check on evaluations then.

Finish this sentence.

Evaluations.

A, tell you how to build a product.

B, show what the final product will look like.

Or C, check ideas meet design specifications.

Pause the video here to have a go at this.

And the correct answer, it was C.

So evaluations check ideas meet design specifications.

Well done if you got that right.

Now, Izzy thought about Andeep's feedback, and adapted her design, so she changed her design, improved it.

And you can see here, she's drawn this out, and shown it really clearly that, actually, she's going to connect the egg box on the short side.

So she's added some extra annotation to make that clear.

And she's just explained here, "I will cut the lid off the egg box, and attach it again on the short side." She's just gonna have to make an adaptation to her design, and it's really great that that was spotted now.

Another quick check then.

What does the word adapt mean? Is it, A, to start again, B, make changes, or C, give up? Pause the video here to think about your answer.

The correct answer, it was to make changes.

So to adapt something is to make changes.

You should never give up.

Always try to avoid giving up.

There's always things that can be done.

So, sometimes, small changes can make a product better.

You don't need to start the whole design again.

Okay, over to you for another task then.

The first thing I'd like you to do is swap your designs with a partner.

Now, using their design specification, you're going to evaluate their design.

I'd like you to think, will it work how they want to? Can you see any problems? And then I'd like you to feed that information back to your partner.

Now, when you do this, you're gonna have to look really carefully at the designs, and read all of their annotation to get a really good understanding of it.

You may need to ask them a few more questions if something isn't clear, but make sure you really do look very carefully, and try to understand the design to be able to give them some really useful feedback.

The other key thing to remember when you're giving feedback is don't just criticize their work.

Think about what they can do, and give them ideas of how they can improve it.

That's what's makes feedback really useful.

The second part of the task then, I'd like you to then think about the feedback that you received from your partner.

Are there any changes that you will need to make to your design? And, if there are, I'd then like you to make those changes.

So I'd like you to adapt your design if you need to.

Okay, pause the video here to have a go at these tasks, and good luck.

Okay, how did you get on? Hopefully, you got some really useful feedback from your partner, and you've been able to adapt your design based on that feedback.

I'm just gonna remind you of Andeep's and Izzy's here now.

Andeep said, "An egg box doesn't open on the short side like your design.

You'll need to change how the egg box opens." Izzy then adapted her design to make it work based on that feedback.

So, she said, "I will cut the lid off the egg box, and attach it again on the short side." And she's shown that in her sketch, or her design work.

Your feedback's going to be different to Andeep's and Izzy's, but, hopefully, you were able to get some feedback, and adapt your design, and you've got some really good ideas now.

Let's summarize today's lesson then.

Today, we've been looking at develop ideas through annotated sketches.

And the key points from the lesson are: design specification outlines the key problems to solve, sketching and annotating designs allows designers to generate and develop ideas, and choosing and finalizing a design to use may mean combining ideas, and evaluating design ideas helps us to make sure the product will work.

Thank you so much for joining me for the lesson today.

And well done on all your lovely creative ideas, and the feedback that you gave to your partners.

Thank you again, and I will see you soon.