Hands on Design and Prototyping for Makers
Brief
The Hands-on Design and Prototyping for Makers workshops (2x 4 hour sessions on a Saturday) are TryIt trial for the Design Thinking and analogue prototyping components of Makerthon Camp (which is also to be trialed with 15-18 year olds in the July School Holidays).
Session Objectives
- Establish safe, welcoming and adventurous atmosphere- to promote productive creative environment for the workshop and build community of FL users.
- Develop participants' base technical drawing skills- to promote participants' confidence in visually capture (documenting) and communicating ideas.
Develop participants' basic analogue prototyping skills- to promote participants' confidence in using basic hands on materials for prototyping testing a prototype and confidence iterating * Develop participants' basic critical and problem solving skills- to promote participants' confidence in assessing the success/ viability of a prototype and how to build iterative momentum.
Proposed Schedule
Day 1
| 0000 - 0015 | Welcome / General induction | -Welcome & Tour of the Fabrication Lab -General Safety Induction |
| 0015-0030 | Ideas | - What's you favourite Invention, What thing do you wish you'd invented - whos your favourite maker, inventor. -What makes a successful idea Ideas are like…Seeds, Stars, Virus, beards, rabbits, Cars, arseholes  |
| 0030-0045 | Why Making | - Why do you make? Why do other people make? What motivates you to make? Why would you like to make? |
| 0045-0115 | How Making | - Whats design thinking? Whats a design brief? - what happens between a design brief and great project outcome? - what makes a great maker =actually making something, anything =even finishing something =a solution that at least partically fulfills the brief, =an novel solution, =an elegant or efficent solution, =new learnings to be shared |
| 0115-0130 | make x out of y | Pick a design brief from the hat |
| 0130-0145 | Break | |
| 0145-0215 | Drawing | Drawing is a skill, like riding a bike or playing the piano - very few people can do it without some practice but theres also techniques and exercise that anyone can learn to get you started. -Intro to Orthographic Projection -3 point perpspective, -exploded and cutaway views other conventions - hidden lines, zoom in on details, dimmensions. |
| 0215-0230 | Draw your project | Draw your invention - in pairs interrogate the drawing for understanding of how it will work |
| 0230-0300 | Prototyping | Sometimes a drawing isn't enough to work out if it will work - prototypes let you work out the details before you get to far. You can start with inexpensive materials too- Paper - scirssors, fold glue. Cardboard - knife and hotglue or modeling clay. There's tricks for getting get started- Choose a construction method Make a beam, and bracket, Make a box with tabs, make a sandwich, make a spine and ribs extrude and cut, coil and slab |
| 0300-0315 | Prototype | Use the matrerials available to create a quick prototype of your invention or even just one key aspect of it |
| 0315-0330 | assessment of a prototype and iteration | |
| 0330-0345 | Plan to Iterate | |
| 0345-0400 | share |
Day 2
| 0000 - 0015 | Share | Talk about any thing you've learnt/realised since last week |
| 0015-0030 | Prototype & Document | with your reflections in mind add to you prototype |
| 0030-0045 | and then document your design | |
| 0045-0115 | Swap inventions | Inventor hands over documentation, and receiver plays the lost in translation/ chinese whispers game in order to explain it back and fill in the gaps |
| 0115-0130 | Embellish your partner's invention | pivot on the concept with a new designer, |
| 0130-0145 | document and hand it back. | |
| 0145-0200 | Break | |
| 0200-0215 | Iterate | Respond to your partners pivot with another prototype |
| 0215-0230 | ||
| 0230-0300 | ||
| 0300-0315 | Prototype | |
| 0315-0330 | Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design | https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html |
| 0330-0345 | ||
| 0345-0400 | share |
| Materials | Quantity | Cost | Supplier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper Pencils and Ruler and a folder for each participant | 1 | $0.00 | Supplier 1 |
| Cardboard, Hot Glue, rubberbands, string, paddlepops, skewers, straws, plasticmake, knives | 1 | $0.00 | Supplier 2 |
| Plastercine | 1 | $0.00 | Supplier 2 |
| Snacks | $0.00 | Supplier 3 | |
| Total | $0.00 |
Tools and Preparation
Tools
- Tool 1
- Tool 2
- Tool 3
- Tool 4
Preparation
Before the workshop you will need to …
