This semester focused a lot on working in a group to design a science museum exhibit for children. The goal of this project was to get children to learn something interesting about science and have fun doing it. As you know, children have short attention spans, plus it's extremely hard to tell what different kids will like. This put us in a teacher-like position and was the most challenging part of designing our exhibits.
Let us just speak hypothetically for now and assume that this project would be executed again at a later date. There are certain methods I would use to go about completing a project like this again that perhaps weren't fully met this time around.
The first detail to attend to, even before designing a project, is picking out your team. Some people work better alone, but it's my feelings that if you need to do a project such as this one where you have many different types of people you have to interest, the more the variation of the designers the better. That would imply that you should have at least three people on your design team in order to get different views. I would even recommend having about five team memebers. Now when choosing a team, you can't choose five different leaders, because that creates a leadership problem. However, you can't choose anybody who isn't going to be gung-ho active about the project. One or maybe two leaders would work out alright in a team of that size, and the rest would be dedicated workers who are on the unwanting side of making decisions. However, it is crucial that everybody inputs the same amount of mind and effort.
The next step, and first in the design process, would be to find a consultant, prefferably a school teacher or at least some kind of information-provider with children of thier own. It is key that this consultant knows kids, or else they will be of no help. In my case, being a mechanical engineer, I would want to teach the kids something about engineering, and would pick out a professor I know that has kids to help us come up with a design concept that would interest children. Not only would they be able to help us because of those two things, but they also have experience and know what is most exciting and interesting to people in their field. Another good place to look for information is online. There are tons of good ideas for projects for children to be found on the internet.
At this point it would be good to have
a meeting and actually design the project. The hardest part of this could
be figuring out where to find materials needed and staying under budget,
whatever that might be. Also, the final design has to be something relatively
mobile, so that it can be easily moved to different testing and application
areas. Other than those restrictions, peoples' minds should be able to
roam free in the possibilities.
Problems ... are always a problem.
Funny that, huh? A major problem that can occur is not being able to find
set materials to complete the project. This is not really a solvable problem.
All you can do at that point is redesign that part of the project in order
to obtain the same function with different materials. There is no other
solution for a setback like this. Another major problem is that maybe the
design doesn't turn out to be safe for children. Safety plays a big factor,
and if that cannot be provided, the project is worthless. This is something
that needs to be researched and tackled before the build stage. This is
crucial, and if not done early enough could cause for the complete redesigning
and rebuilding of your project.
Prototyping can always be useful. This is not a crucial crosslink to the project, but can enhance a project to exhibition level. Prototyping is great for exemplifying something, whether it's simply showing the children a shape that they can pass around and touch or something like a clear plastic cover to replace that of a complicated mechanism so that the kids can see the innards and working parts to understand the machinery. This is always interesting to people of all ages.
The most crucial thing to remember
when designing a project for kids is that children learn through examples
and not by "preaching" to them. Kids don't like reading to learn and they
don't particularly like being lectured either. The best way to teach kids
is to SHOW them what they're learning. Visuals are key, and actually are
more interesting to people of all ages.
As far as other reflections of the
semester go, there are a few key points of learning to be had by the entire
class, as I see it. One of the first and most important things we took
out of this class was from the design/build project #1. I had no idea that
it was so hard to communicate using directions. We learned that detail
in directions was seriously important and that working with a team is as
important to complete a project. Also, we learned a great deal about manufacturing
products. Before this class I had no idea, for instance, how the case of
a calculator was made, let alone, how available that resource is to us
as students here. Everybody knew that things like that were designed and
manufactured with machines, but we didn't really understand the particulars
of the matter. Everybody is leaving this class with the knowledge it takes
to produce any relatively simple prototype of a design. It was kind of
a "the way things work" learning experience, necessary for all engineers
at some point in their careers. Most importantly, we learned that experience
is always the best teacher, which is why we werent' penalyzed for not always
designing things to perfections. The best way to learn is through failure,
because that teaches you to never make the same mistakes twice. In fact,
most of the learning in this class was through trial and error. It really
is the best way to retain that information. Also, the lack of a strict
grading system was immensly helpful in our learning. It allowed for us
to not worry about what grade we were going to get on a project and just
go all out and get creative in our designs and not be afraid of failure.
It helped us push towards the line separating creative and effective, and
not effective and too creative. It's good to be able to reach and know
your limitations with respect to this. Overall, this class was an experience
beyond all other class structures and I wish that more learning could happen
in this manner, becuase I probably learned the most in this class this
semester than in any other class.