Here are some longer videos on the design process. From ideation to full scale concept car. It’s a pretty good introduction to some of the concepts and ideas we cover in Design & Technology related courses.
Category: Teacher resource
SOLUTIONISM – A Design Documentary
Going paperless
Scanning documents and collecting evidence of learning and assessment for a teacher is becoming more and more necessary, and will only continue to do so. I like many others use a multifunction printer/scanner to do this, however, it’s at home and when out of ink (which is always) it won’t co-operate and scan anything. At school there’s a few options, most taking quite some time and like so many other tasks done during school hours very susceptible to interference or distraction. My phone camera doesn’t give me the results I want, ie. they’re ‘crappy’, I’d much prefer ‘not crappy’.
Well I’ve just found the Doxie, I know it’s nothing new, but it looks to be catering for teachers and students directly, so maybe I’ll give it a go.
Shaped On All Six Sides
I love finding inspirational work like this. This is a short doco about the craft and philosophy of wooden boat carpentry.
Enjoy
The Wood Turner
Another great find is this video about a woodworker named Leo who lives in a yurt with his partner on the edge of Exmoor in the UK.
This beautifully shot film shows him turning a piece of wood into a beautiful bowl using a home built traditional treadle lathe (foot powered).
IDEO The Deep Dive
During my university days we watched a great short video series about the American design firm IDEO called The Deep Dive. I remember at the time being told that we’d have to order the tape (VHS!) from the ABC in the U.S. well advance a decade into future and we have the wonderful resource called Youtube. So thanks to Youtube, here it is in 3 parts. And I thoroughly recommend it for any design student.
Programming for 2013
Every year I start to program for my new classes, every year I try to make my collection of programs fit together, meet student outcomes and be clear, simple instructions for a teacher to follow. It always starts with my last template. Here’s a link to the first Excel spreadsheet I tried. This summer holiday I planned to simplify my process more and had the idea of using CS6 namely, Illustrator and InDesign to build a jigsaw’ish graphical program with ‘Outcomes’ and ‘Learn to’s’ and Learn About’s’ all connecting to activities, however, working with my prototype it became apparent that it would be rather unwieldy, although it did look pretty I must say. After getting rid of the little jigsaw tabs it became a little more workable. I still think I’ll play with the jigsaw idea in the future and one I have a colour A3 laser printer at my disposal I’m sure it will work.
But as you can see, it looks very much like the cells of a spreadsheet. Back to the drawing board and time to load the last excel template I used… Program_Maker_V3, feel free to download it and modify and enhance it if you like it. It has the Outcomes for most of the TAS subjects built-in but is easy to modify to your own syllabus.
Recently I picked up the new Office 2013 suite and I must admit, it’s good, especially the fact that it supports widescreen monitors which might not seem like much but with my dual monitor setup and going from a word doc into an excel spreadsheet, the process is very smooth. I’ll try to capture the way I work with it as a tutorial in the future. So with some ideas from my prototype during the holidays and new modifications to my previous excel spreadsheet I think I may have improved my system and results. Here is the first program for 2013 which includes sheets for Resources, Evaluations, Outcomes(data) and a Scratch Sheet to try things. Feel free to clear the current data and insert you own. And if you do use anything from it please share with others. Now if you have any ideas to improve it please message me on Twitter @MrSully_
Download Graphics Tech Semester 1 2013
1940’s Logging and Sawmill Operation in America
An interesting film from the archives.
3D printing, the emerging technology
Shapeways is one of several companies producing products for other people, using modern collaboration technologies and a growing ability for more people to produce 3d models.
The Cat Library
A simple modular design with a specific function.
An interesting concept with some Sketchup modelling which may be useful to show students.
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