Technical

Technical

Design and Manufacture is an area of Technical Education that offers the pupil the opportunity to develop high order skills in a variety of areas.

Shown below are some examples of the design process.  These are pages taken from a variety of design folios, covering a range of products.  Help for those who are trying to understand the design process and particularly the folio development can be found here on the right.

The design folio is quite a linear process.  There is a starting point where a problem is given, that is followed by a process of research and development before we reach a point where an acceptable solution to the problem is obtained.

Sounds simple enough, however many students can get lost as they work through this process due to both time constraints and their desire to produce a solution that is often overly complex and out-with their skill set.  For this reason I like to introduce them to the development of a folio early in the learning and teaching process and tend to focus more on key elements of the folio in isolation rather than the development of a folio in its entirety.

Many students find this particular subject to be challenging as they are introduced to new terminologies, analysis tools, design factors and much more, many of which they are totally unfamiliar with.  However, once they have grasped it, many of my own students have given me very positive feedback and many have stated that this has been their favourite area of study.

Start

known as the

Brief

Research

Specification

Development

The answer to the problem

known as the

Solution

At this point the students have to continue to produce a manufacturing stage showing how the designed item will be made.  They typically show this in steps with each step clearly explaining what should be done.  There is usually a cutting list of materials to relate back to showing all of the sizes for each part and naming the material.  The student then go on to manufacture the item designed using this information before finally testing it to see if it functions correctly as intended.  This stage is known as the Evaluation.

Manufacture

Evaluation

Artist, Photographer and Technical Advisor