Design Challenge

LearningTiffany Strickland

Program Director,

The Tech Challenge

The Tech Museum's Design Challenge Learning approach engages students in the design process to solve a relevant, real-world problem. Students reinforce their science, mathematics, social studies, and language arts content knowledge, through an open-ended design process that results in an original, team-driven solution. Students take responsibility for assessing their own progress and incorporate peer feedback as they conceptualize and redesign their projects.

Goals of Design Challenge Learning

• Students start thinking creatively.

• Students learn to problem solve.

• Outcomes (projects) are innovative.

• Failure is a big part of the process and students learn to deal with failure and how to overcome.

• Students have to learn to collaborate and work together.

• Students learn to take risks.

Through this try, fail, learn approach, students develop skills and habits of mind of Silicon Valley innovators.

Real World Problems:• Create a solution to help earthquake

survivors! After an earthquake severely damages a bridge, your device will reach and rescue a person stranded on the bridge.

• Marine scientists are asking The Tech Challenge’s young engineers to help them clean the seas. Your team’s challenge is to design and build a device that can collect trash from the ocean without harming marine life.

• Create a device to deliver water to a tank located in a village on a hill above the river. There is no electricity in the village; only the flow of the river can be used to generate power.

• Create a device that can deliver a payload of up to 6 geological instruments to the top of the volcano.

• Design, build and operate an unmanned device that can survive a 12 -foot drop into a Martian crater and then successfully exit the crater by ascending a 6-foot crater wall.

The

Engineering

Design Process

CIRCLE OF PONG

Sometimes it is safe to

keep your distance.

Imagine if you had to

deposit a small piece of

monitoring equipment into

a lava pit that is located in

the middle of an island.

How would you do it?

What is the Problem:• What is the limits?

• How can you solve it?

The Challenge:

Design a Device that will deposit sensitive monitoring equipment (a ping-pong ball) into a

Lava Pit (paper cup) that is located in the middle of and Island (the purple tablecloth

folded or arranged into a large circle).

Constraints:

• Each team member must be actively involved in the deployment and operation of the

device

• The sensitive Monitoring equipment must start outside the Island and must come to rest

inside the Lava Pit - purple tablecloth.

• Team members may not touch the sensitive monitoring equipment, except to place it in

the device prior to deployment.

• At no time may any team member reach or extend any part of his/her body into the

imaginary cylinder that extends above lava pit - (purple table cloth).

• You may use only those items/materials that your materials kit provides.

• You may not destroy, modify, or dramatically change the sensitive monitoring equipment.

• Your team has 30 minutes to develop, build, and test your device prototype.

Explore: • Find out what others have done

• Gather materials and play with them

Materials Kit: Per Team of 4-6 people

10 cm masking tape

8 large paperclips

40 cm string

3 twisty ties

6 rubber bands

1 small short plastic

solo cup

1 8 ½ X 11 inch sheet of scratch paper

1 small bag (containing all other items)

1 straw (acting as a tape dispenser)

Design:• Think of lots of Ideas

• Pick one and make a plan

• Make a drawing of a model Be visual: map it!

Encourage wild ideas

Defer judgment

Stay focused on topic

Build on the ideas of others

Listen to 1 person at a time

Go for quantity

Create:• Use your plan to build your idea

Design Constraints

Select materials: think creatively

Experiment with a design

Record your choices

Document your observations and results

Repeat!

Try It Out:• Test your Idea

Remember the Lava Pit (tablecloth) is a hot area and we don’t

want any burning flesh or singed hair

Your device may FAIL!

• Failure, however, can be

transformed into a

learning experience that

actually improves your

child's ability to succeed

in the future. As Henry

Ford once said, "Failure is

only the opportunity to

begin again more

intelligently."

How can we help turn their student’s failure into a lesson in success?

Help the student identify the emotions she/he feels and express those in an acceptable

way. When your student is not successful, whether in the classroom or on the ball field, we

should be available to help them work through the emotions.

Give him/her an opportunity to talk about why they think things didn't go the way they

wanted or expected them to go. Even youngsters can express their feelings, and one of the

best things we can do is listen.

Let your students know that winning isn't the most important thing. Give as much praise

for his effort and his attitude as you do for a winning outcome.

Talk to your student about his strengths--the things that you observe as his positive

traits. Conversations such as this can help build self-esteem in even a very young child.

Keep your expectations for your students reasonable and realistic. Don't expect your

eight year old to master a piano piece by Beethoven in two days, just because another student

can.

Remember that your student watches how you respond to failures in your own life. It's

okay to share your disappointment and important to show them how you learn from the

experience.

Make it Better• Think about how your design can be

approved.

• Modify your design and try again.

Spend the next 20 minutes using to engineering design process to create your device.

Spend the next 10 minutes testing your device for the group.

• Don’t forget to test and redesign

• Teams will exhibit their device, share with the group their design

decisions (what tradeoffs they made, what materials they chose,

what worked/didn’t work etc), and then demonstrate their device.

A signature program of The Tech Museum of Innovation, The Tech Challenge is

an annual team design challenge for students in grades 5-12 that introduces and

reinforces the science and engineering design process with a hands-on project

geared to solving a real-world problem.

• Open to students in grades 5-12.

• 3 grade levels: Elementary: 5-6; Middle School: 7-8; High School: 9-12.

• Participants collaborate in teams of 2 to 6 people.

• Registration fees are only $50 for the entire team.

• Fees waived for Title I schools/

after-school programs.

• Solutions can be created with

common, low-cost materials.

• There are no pre-qualifying

conditions to enter.

• Special needs students are

encouraged.

The Tech Challenge

201 South Market Street

San Jose, CA 95133, USA

1-408-294-8324

thetech.org

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all rights reserved. © 2013, The Tech Museum of Innovation, all rights reserved. The Tech Museum of Innovation is a registered 501 (c)(3).

Tiffany Strickland

Program Director

The Tech Challenge

Tstrickland@thetech.org