Week+1

This week students began the tuning in phase, where they engaged with various learning engagements to explore the central idea.

__**Monday 8 August **__ Big, Bigger, Biggest Skyscraper Challenge

On Monday we kicked started our Year 6 Exhibition with a team construction challenge. The teams were to build a tower using 5 Atlases, 5 Dictionaries, 7 bibles, 4 x 1000 MAB Blocks, 10 Party Blocks, 10 dominoes and 10 coloured minis. Height, stability and design were the goals with a 30 minute time frame imposed on the task. The teams had to decide on the specific roles of each group member comprising of 2 engineers, 1 designer, 2 builders and a Health and Safety officer. The builders and the HS were the only people to touch the building materials. Before taking on this challenge students watched a presentation from the "Big, Bigger, Biggest" series on skyscrapers. The DVD highlighted the 7 leaps that have occurred in construction and design that have paved the way for the tallest skyscraper ever built, the Burg Dubai Tower. Of course students weren't working with the right building materials but the challenge of "thinking outside the square" and team dynamics was a good starting point. Some groups certainly did better than others in specific areas of stability, height and design and even team work. All in all it created great discussion and highlighted the innovative approach to skyscraper development.

__** Wednesday 10 August **__ The Genius of Design

Think about this statement: // "You don't think about your toothbrush being designed until you put a bad toothbrush in your mouth." // How true! How often do you think about the everyday objects in our world? As suggested in this DVD, we live in a "designed" world, rather than a "natural" world. Things around us are constantly changing and developing in front of our eyes - take the personal computer.....how that has changed our lives today! So what does a designer do? How do they know what to design? What are Dieter Rams' 10 design principles? What in our world is designed? These were all questions that the students had an opportunity to investigate today. Students then watched the first episode of The Genius of Design, then in pairs discussed Dieter Rams' 10 Principles of good design:  **__10 Commandments of Good Design __** Dieter Rams - German Industrial Designer (Source - Wikipedia 2011) Good design:
 * is innovative
 * makes a product usefulis aesthetic design
 * is honest
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">is as little design as possible
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">makes a product understandable
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">is unobtrusive
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">is long lasting
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">is thorough down to the last detail
 * <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">is environmentally friendly

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">Below are some example of the task students did to follow up - using words about design they created a visual representation of their understandings. <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 130%; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">

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