Design Prompts for Middle Schoolers

[ja...@gorgemakerspace.com]

Hi Everyone:

I'm teaching a week-long summer camp to middle schoolers focusing on design and engineering and would love to know where you find design prompts: simple profiles of people, real or imaginary, that would motivate students to engineer with empathy and inspiration. I'm thinking along the lines of Stanford's d.school chair challenge for each of the characters on The Simpsons. 

Thanks!

Jack Perrin

www.gorgemakerspace.com

[ohswe...@gmail.com]

Not a perfect answer to your question, but two thoughts:

Is the focus on building the physical product or defining the problem?

These are focused less on the empathy side, but incorporate technical detail and testing.  

https://u.osu.edu/tek8/

For empathy, is there another camp, or a partner in the camp they could work with?  They can easily design chairs for each other and get feedback, or make flexible seating/lap desks for younger kids, etc.

You might also skim the local news stations clips or newpaper for human interest stories that lay out problems.  We did a transit challenge and did things like find a parent who had go-pro video of their bike commute we could talk to, and a local news story about how slow bus service made it hard for working moms with childcare, etc.  

[jfi...@carrollschool.org]

Hi,

I don't have one source that I use for this type of thing, but I tend to find videos that tell a short story about someone (who is real) and then use those as "prompts" to get students thinking about how their designs can solve a problem, help someone else, change the environment, etc. 

A couple of examples:

- Walker Wheeler Video from PBS Design Squad

- Enable's 3D printed prosthetics, Annika Video

We have similar videos for 3D printed houses, robotics, etc.

I find that the students can really connect with seeing a student of a similar age, and then we have a discussion that leads to thinking about how we can apply what we've seen to other engineering ideas.

[Matt Zigler]

This past school year my students participated in PrintLab's Make:Able challenge, which focused on the design of a device for someone with hand mobility issues. They included several pre-recorded interviews with potential clients as well as prompts and thinking routines for developing empathy and designing a solution. Registration was free and there was a lot of flexibility in the timing of the submission. They are planning on doing it again next year so I would keep an eye out for it at https://www.makeablechallenge.com/. Their blog also has a lot of info including the winning designs from this past year: https://weareprintlab.com/blog

The challenge is done, but my code still gives me access to the challenge toolkit. If you are interested in that you can email me directly and I'll pass on my code for the toolkit.

Matt Zigler

BITlab Coordinator

Bullis School

Potomac MD

[hele...@isomers.com]

This school year, we did the Goals Project, which focuses on the UN SDGs as well as the Build a Better Book project. The BBB project turned out to be a great empathy/service learning/design project! http://buildabetterbook.org/

[Karen Shibles]

I’d appreciate the access code. This looks like a cool opportunity!

Thanks!

Karen