Design Process Overview

The students have spent time over the past  weeks thinking about their possible inventions and refining their ideas.  Now, the students have picked an idea.  They are now thinking seriously about how to design their idea.

Making an idea into an invention involves many important steps.  We are now ready to start building a prototype of our inventions in class this Friday.  In our process so far, we made observations about what might or might not work.  We researched ideas in order to decide whether it is worth pursuing and, if so, how we might make a model or prototype to show at the Invention Convention.  We are also going to be talking about the potential benefits of their inventions.

Now, we have to think hard about how to actually build the prototype.  In order to build a prototype, we need to think about the supplies that we will need, and how those supplies will fit together in the prototype.  We can make blueprints or draw pictures of what the prototype might look like.  We then need to gather our supplies and start putting the prototype together.

The blog entries this week focus on the students' first drafts of their design processes.  You can read about the process they used to come up with their idea, and see the students begin to think more deeply about how to create their prototype.    

Most of the prototypes are going to be based on easily-available classroom supplies.  The intent is not to have the students go out and buy lots of materials, but rather that the prototypes will be based on easily-available supplies and recyclables (paper, rolls, pencils, crayons/markers, etc).  Some students may even be planning to bring Legos or other supplies from home in order to build their prototype.