#fixingattitudes

Where we want to go

Partnerships with Universities – students in to schools to support Fixperts projects

D&T GCSE / A + AS Level – Connection with examination boards

Fixperts Project format for schools, run independently in-house with support.

Fixperts Schools Award (Design Museum

& Deutche Bank Design Ventura model)

Primary school projects (Gallions Model)

Challenges

Building connections with schools and possible partnerships with universities

Developing a new format for Fixperts, different from HE - Key concepts need to be introduced gradually – no counting on prior knowledge

Working within schools’ constraints (Timetabling, curriculum and examination requirements, overstretched teachers, reluctance to move from familiar models, assessment)

Case Study: Integrating the Fixperts philosophy in to a given theme -

Series of 3 workshops with Gallions Primary School, Beckton, in collaboration with Institute of Imagination

Using a step-by-step approach, we built a series of workshops responding to the school’s request to work with children and their families around the theme of Health and Wellbeing.

These steps were:

Understand how objects solve problems by analyzing existing products.

Develop observation skills and the ability to identify problems in their own world, by charting ‘A Day in My Life’ and noting areas they think may benefit from improvement.

From these, extracting three main areas and working on ideas to address these problems, using sketching and simple modeling.

Experimenting with a chosen idea as a viable product, by naming it, explaining and presenting it to others, and by experiencing the possibilities of more advanced prototyping through 3D printing, integrating electronics, etc.

I’m cold! It’s raining! I can’t reach!

Analysing products, what problem they solved and how they solved it

A Day in My Life sheet

A child’s design of an Airobrush, addressing children’s reluctance to brush their teeth ‘because it’s not fun’.

Brussel-sprout football, encouraging children to eat vegetables through play – if you suffer a goal, you eat a sprout!

The Bee Bottle – helping children drink more water during the day

Tzise – a pedal chair that powers you telly – if you don’t pedal, your telly won’t work!

Lea Jagendorf is a designer and a design educator, with an MA in Graphic Design from the Royal College of Art in London, and a PGCE in Design & Technology from Goldsmith University of London.