Grade 6 Engineering Class Tackles Global Day of Design

Today, May 6, is Global Day of Design, a 24-hour design event inspiring students to create, make and build. The day focuses on using the design thinking process in school and encourages students to make, build and tinker. The goal is to inspire a transformation in schools around the world to incorporate design into an every day practice with students. In the past three years more than 140,000 students from 1,250 schools have participated.

 

This year, Baldwin’s Grade 6 engineering class jumped right in during their Baldwin Wired class. Students, either individually or in small groups, worked through various design activities:

 

Flappy Bird - Students used code.org to create their own Flappy Bird Game, which is a side-scroller mobile game where the player controls a bird, attempting to fly between columns of green pipes without hitting them. The students saved their projects so others could play it as well.

 

The Wallet Project – Students were asked to redesign the traditional wallet to fit users’ needs. They interviewed each other, asking specific questions about the ideal wallet. They then worked through the design process to sketch a design and develop a prototype using whatever materials available to them.

 

How to Make Toast – Organizations are scrambling to figure out how to deliver “camp” this summer if it has to be done virtually. The students’ goal was to provide a visual as to how they could provide summer camp to the community. To accomplish their end goal, they were asked to go slightly off task and draw a picture of how to make toast. Using no words they had to illustrate the important actions to someone who has never made toast before. This was an exercise in system thinking. They watched the Ted Talk titled “Got a Wicked Problem, First Tell Me How to Make Toast,” and then revisited their original summer camp problem.

 

Classroom Redesign – Students were asked to redesign the traditional classroom.  They worked through the design process to sketch a design and developed a prototype using whatever materials they had available.