Lesson video

Hi there everyone.

My name is Mr. Booth.

And welcome to your design and technology lesson for today.

Thank you for joining me.

Today, we are going to be critiquing your 3D eco-houses that you have been designing as part of the CAD Structures Architecture unit.

It's really important that we critique our designs at every stage of the design process so we can make them better.

Let's have a look at today's outcome.

By the end of today, I want you to be able to provide and respond to design critique that might be from yourself or it could be from one of your peers.

And this is all to improve your final design.

We have three key words for today that I want you to keep a lookout for throughout this lesson.

The first one is design critique.

And as I've already said, this is all about feedback to improve designs.

We also have design evaluation, something you're probably more familiar with.

This is about assessing designs against goals or a success criteria.

And then finally, of course we have feedback, the advice provided through critique.

And feedback is what will help us improve our design.

We have two learning cycles today.

The first one being design critique and design evaluation.

So let's get started with this one.

So, design critique and design evaluation are really useful to improve a designer's work.

Design critique usually happens when making a product to allow designers to step back and think about how to improve their work.

Design evaluation usually happens once a product is completed at the end of the process.

The product is evaluated against a success criteria to see if it was successful in what it achieved to do at the start whereas critiquing, we can do that at almost at any stage of when we are designing or making.

A quick check for understanding.

What is the main difference between a critique and an evaluation? Is it A, critiques are always negative, whereas evaluations are always positive.

Is it B, critique is for fun and evaluation is for grading, giving the designer score? Is it C, critique gives feedback whereas evaluation checks the success criteria? Or is it D, critique is for art, evaluation is for 3D designs? Pause the video now, have a go at this.

Come back to me when you've got your answer.

It is of course C, critique gives feedback whereas evaluation checks the success criteria.

Well done! So let's have a look at what Sam has designed.

So Sam has created an eco-house in Tinkercad using complex shapes and is gonna critique her work before moving on to make further improvements.

That's a brilliant idea, Sam.

Now what I want you to do is have a little look at Sam's design and just think about all the aspects and all the features you have been doing throughout this unit when you've been designing your own eco-house.

What could you possibly critique about Sam's work? Is there anything you think she could improve on? Is there any advice you've got for Sam? Now I want you to pause the video here, have a little think about this, possibly have a chat with a person next to you and then come back to me when you think you have some ideas.

So pause the video now.

So did you think of any feedback you can give Sam about her eco-house? Well, let's just have a look at what Sam thought of.

So first of all, she said, I'm gonna use recycled aluminum and build on a patch of wasteland.

She also said she's used gardens on every level of her eco-house, which is really good so she's already got that involved.

But now she starts to think about the user, the person who is going to use this eco-house, are they gonna be able to use this house and also do they like the appearance of it? Two really important things, looking at the user and also what it looks like.

And Sam says that she's not sure whether the large family who's going to live in this eco-house is gonna have enough space.

And that's a really important aspect that she needs to consider before she makes any further amendments to her design.

She also says, I really like the shapes I've created, but it's not very colorful.

She wants it to be a little bit more exciting because obviously it's a large family, they might have children.

What she wants to do is appeal to those.

And that again is really good feedback that she has gained from critiquing her own design.

Sam also thinks back to Ken Yeang's six features of an eco-building.

Can you remember what those six features were? Pause the video now, have a chat with the person next to you or do this on your own.

See how many of those six features you can name.

So, Sam's thinking back to Ken Yeang's six features.

And she says, does my design include nature? It does.

Does it use natural energy? Well, no, this house doesn't use natural energy.

Does it not waste materials? Well yes 'cause she's got that recycled aluminum if you remember.

Will it have as little impact on the natural environment as possible? Well, yes 'cause she's gonna build it on wasteland, not on brand new green land.

Does it make a smart use of space? Well we understood she said no 'cause she doesn't think it's big enough for her family.

And finally, does it use water wisely? Well, there's no evidence of that in her design at all.

So obviously she's used that to be able to critique her design and understand what she might need to improve on.

And that's a really good way of doing this.

So now Sam is gonna look for a little bit of peer feedback, asking someone else possibly in her class or a friend.

It's really useful to get feedback from as many people as possible and this is a really easy way of getting feedback that's not your own.

So Sam asks Izzy what she thinks of her eco-house design and if she's got any ideas to make it better.

So let's see what Izzy thinks.

She loves the shapes she's used, but are they aligned? Has she used the aligned tool to make sure they're all aligned properly? Maybe not.

She's also thought that maybe solar panels and a garden would be great, but what about using water wisely? You haven't considered that.

So when critiquing Sam and Izzy have been positive and reflective with their feedback.

We have to remember there are a few golden rules when giving feedback.

They are, make sure it's helpful, make sure it's thoughtful, make it positive, and of course constructive.

If we are giving feedback using those four rules, then the person receiving the feedback is much more likely to take that feedback on board and then develop their designs.

So, a quick check for understanding.

Which of these is helpful feedback.

Is it A, my work is rubbish because it doesn't look good? Is it B, I love the green spaces but can you add extra light? C, your work is perfect and can't be improved? Or is it D, I love the eco features in my design, but there could be more space for the users? Select which ones which you think are helpful feedback.

Pause the video, come back to me when you've got your answers.

So the helpful feedback are these are B and C.

I love the green spaces, but could you maybe a add extra light? That's a really helpful bit of feedback and it's got some positivity in it as well.

And then D, I love the eco features in my design.

So you've got that positivity there for the start with, but could there be more space for the users? So that's again, a bit of feedback, a bit of critique, which is gonna help us design better products.

So we're now onto your first task.

The first thing I want you to do is critique your eco-house against the user and appearance requirements.

So who is using your eco-house and what do they want it to look like? Can you think of anything that you could improve to help in those two situations? The second thing I want you to do is critique your eco-house against the design features of an eco-building.

Remember Ken Yeang, he came up with these.

So I want you to critique it against these.

So does it include nature? Does it use natural energy? Does it not waste materials? Does it have a very little impact or as little impact as possible on the environment? Is it using space smartly and does it use water wisely? Can you think of any feedback you could give yourself to improve your design based on those features? And then finally, I want you to ask a friend to critique your work.

Now they could use Ken Yeang's six principles, six features of an eco building, but they could also do it from the user perspective and also the appearance perspective.

Pause the video now have a go at this.

Come back to me when you've completed the task.

So how did you get on? I'm sure you've got some fantastic feedback that's gonna now help you improve your eco-house design.

Sam, of course, reflected on her own work and Izzy has also provided some feedback.

She's now ready to make some changes to her design.

She's got some great ideas on how to improve her eco-house.

So let's do that.

We're now onto our second learning cycle, respond to a design critique.

So there's absolutely no point in getting lots of feedback whilst you are designing if you are not gonna act on that, if you are not then gonna modify your design to suit that feedback.

Now after her work has been critiqued, Sam wrote a few notes on how she would improve her design and this is almost like a checklist that she's gonna use when she carries on designing using Tinkercad.

She wants to think about adding a water feature, use of color, making the shapes a bit more fun, adding solar panels to her design.

She's gonna think about drainage as well, where's the water gonna go? And also possibly adding some kind of supports.

The house doesn't look strong and stable at the moment, so she wants to do that.

Quick check for understanding.

Why is it important to plan improvements, especially when designing? Is it A, so you can practice writing? Is it B, so you can practice sketches? Is it C, so you don't finish or is it D, so you don't forget anything? Pause the video now, have a go at this.

Come back to me when you've got your answer.

It is of course D, so you don't forget anything.

It's very easy to have a conversation when you are critiquing and getting feedback, but it's also very easy then to forget everything that people told you.

So making a list and keeping that list close when you then go back into Tinkercad and start designing is a really useful way of making sure you don't forget anything.

So now let's look at how Sam is gonna respond to the feedback.

This is the same process that you are gonna go through now you have your feedback.

So, first of all, she wants to add a pond to catch the rainwater and you can see that in red on her design.

She also removes the green spaces and change some of the colors of the block to make them a little bit more interesting.

You can see she's also shifted some of the buildings around, some of those complex shapes to make it more interesting as well.

She moves the blocks to create an interesting design and she also has now added solar panels and puts the green spaces back, but makes them slightly bigger so they're easier for the family to use.

She adds rainwater drain pipes to fill the pond so when it rains they're going straight into that freshwater pond.

And she also swaps the middle block and the drain pipes over to make it look a little bit more structurally sound.

More strong and stable, so it's actually looking like it's gonna stand up.

She also adds another block to make the design more stable, but also to increase that space for the family that are gonna be using this design.

She adds extra supports so the house stands up.

So you can see she's done that down at the bottom and now the design is starting to look more like what her feedback told her.

So you're now onto your final task and you're gonna spend quite a bit of time on this because you're gonna be improving design in Tinkercad.

So you are gonna use the critique feedback to make a short plan of what needs to be improved in your eco house design.

Once you've done that, you need to be in Tinkercad, you need to open up your eco-house and you need to make the changes to your eco-house design that your plan has told you to do.

I really hope you enjoy this task and this is gonna be the kind of the final design to really improve that design to make sure it is the best possible design that can be.

Pause the video now.

Have a go at this.

Come back to me when you completed the task.

So how did you get on? I'm sure your design has improved massively and you've responded to that feedback really well from the critique from yourself and also from your peers.

As we can see, Sam has improved her design as well.

You can see her original design on the left hand side and then her improved design on the right hand side.

And although it has changed a lot, you can see Sam is really pleased with that.

So we have used critique and feedback to improve our designs.

Well done with that.

So we've now come to the end of the lesson.

So let's have a really quick summary of everything we've done today.

The aim of design critique is to improve designs.

The aim of design evaluation is to evaluate an end product against a criteria to see if it's successful.

In design critique, think creatively and critically and ask lots of questions.

In design critique, think about design suggestions and potential changes, remembering to give feedback in the correct way.

Well done today.

You've been absolutely fantastic.

I look forward to seeing you all next time.

Bye-bye.