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Design and Technology on Channel 4
This programme is currently off air. To find out TV times for other Learning programmes, visit the Learning TV schedule page. Five groups of students working with professional designers accept the
challenge to find an innovative product design. The choice is wide. They
can undertake a completely new product or re-think an existing one. With
their designer, each team brainstorms the problem to find a preferred
idea. Later, the team may divide into specialist groups to focus on research,
computer design, modeling and market testing. Among their resources they
have a CAD/CAM
with the 'joined-up' software now available to schools, designers and
engineers. Students are encouraged to think things out for themselves,
without rejecting quirky suggestions or way-out solutions.
joinedupdesignforschools is a national project devised in association
with the Design Council to bring top designers into schools. Throughout
Britain, selected schools have identified specific projects that need
some design input. Over several months these schools worked with the designers
on solutions that address their individual needs and requirements. In
all cases the 'clients' were the students
in the school. They defined the problem, developed the brief, evaluated
the ideas from the designers and refined the solutions to ensure that
they were both practicable and fulfilled the brief. The series features
some of the schools taking part in the project, with each programme following
one project from start to finish, to show the whole design process. From
conception to realisation the aim of the project is to show how design
makes a real difference. Design for Life (KS4-GCSE/SG-HS)
Whatever design discipline students choose they will be influenced by
the same principles whether they are working in textiles or electronics.
This new programme demonstrates that design is above all a creative process.
We see how designers respond to the social, cultural, economic and environmental
implications of their designs – whether creating a bicycle or a new
drink. In the process of design we see how designers take advantage of
the new smart materials and transform them with tools such as CAD/CAM.
The programmes illustrate the importance of looking at past products and
evaluating them in order to respond to the needs of the present, as well
as trying to predict the needs of the future. Design for Life features
five different products, five different design teams and five different
design solutions for the twenty-first century. |
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