Day 08 - Smarter Energy (Middle School)

Day 8 was all about prototyping!! We started out the day with a mini design challenge that was focused on creative confidence. The students were able to choose a random item from the prototype lab and they had to come up with a use for it. The students shared out about their use and then they passed the item to the left. The student had to come up with a different and innovative use for the new item. After our mini design challenge they spent time prototyping their product. During their building we stopped every 20 minutes to give constructive criticism and encouraging words. I feel so blessed to have such intelligent students in my class. They all give each other incredible feedback and the recipients actually change their designs. We were lucky to be able to share our products with another class. Each group spent 5 minutes critiquing one another and then switching. That made a huge impact on the kids because these students haven’t seen their products so in turn, there were many fresh ideas floating around. We did a rough presentation with each group talking about these specific items:

1. Introduce yourself
2. What was your design challenge? (define)
3. Who is your client? What are his or her needs?
4. Explain how your product/prototype meets his/her needs. Use your prototype to do this!
5. How is your prototype new & innovative?

Tomorrow we will work on finalizing the prototypes and making our final design debrief. They will put these items on a poster board to present during the exhibition on Friday night. We are so close to the end but still have lots of exciting work to go. I can’t wait to see your child’s final presentation! See you all tomorrow.