SGBIS Art, Design & Technology

Investigation, Extension & Challenge Unit

Year 9 Design & Technology:

Virtual Ventura

SGBIS Year 9 Design & Technology: Virtual Ventura

Product/outcomes You will be allocated a specific role within a team. Working to a “live brief” (a real project ) your team will be asked to prepare and present a sales pitch to promote an innovative, ethically and environmentally aware product that your team has designed, developed, produced and budgeted. The idea is that your product could be suitable to be manufactured and sold in the Design Museum shop, London. In school a team of judges will watch all team pitches and select one winning pitch to be submitted to the Virtual Ventura competition. In school recognition will be given for areas of excellence and prizes/certificates awarded.

Use this link to see some of last year’s winning entries And this link to see some of the shortlisted entries

Investigation: Design Brief - Create a well-designed product to sell in the Design Museum shop, relating to the theme of “journeys”. The product should reflect the Design Museum’s distinctive brand and must compare favourably to the range and quality of other items in the Design Museum Shop. Here are some other designers’ portfolios for you to look at for inspiration. Other links and resources are shown later in this unit, but these two links are particularly useful:

The Design Museum learning resource website Discover Design Considering the theme of “Journeys” Many products in the Design Museum Shop are portable items that could be used on a journey. This could be a lunch box, a travel card wallet or headphones for listening to music when travelling. The shop products also appeal to people who visit the Design Museum as part of a journey to London. The brief can be interpreted in a number of ways – it relates to products for travel, as well as those inspired by travel. Think creatively when considering your first responses and remember that no idea is a bad idea. Create a group mind map to share with the rest of the class. You will be asked to create an inspirational A3 mood board of images and products related to journeys. Investigation Extension task Produce an extended research scrap book/journal that contains phrases, poetry, photographs, sketches, paintings, found items, song lyrics, etc. relating to the theme of journeys.

Description of the project:

Virtual Ventura is a project and competition which challenges young people to create a well-designed, enterprising product to sell in the Design Museum Shop

All pupils involved will receive certificates for participation in Virtual Ventura 2012.

Winning Ventura team launch product in

Design Museum shop

SGBIS Year 9 Design & Technology: Virtual Ventura

Techniques, Skills & Knowledge

Creative Collaboration: Designers and entrepreneurs often work with other people because individuals rarely have all the skills needed to make an idea work. As a team, think about your talents and interests and work out who would be best in each role. The primary focus of this project is to develop creativity and enterprise. In this project you will work in a team of 4-6 people - specific roles and skills are outlined below. Team Leader: An all-rounder who can plan, manage their time and help other people work together.

Designer: Creative people who are skilled at problem-solving and exploring creative ideas

Communications manager: Confident people who are good at summarising ideas, understanding other

peoples’ points of view and presenting.

Finance manager: Someone who is good with facts and figures, and with excellent research skills.

All team members should…

o Research other relevant existing products and consider possible markets.

o Help come up with initial ideas

o Research possible materials and processes for manufacture.

o Agree on a name for your team and your product

o Give positive feedback to other team members

o Consider the environmental aspects the final idea

o Decide which charity to donate profits from the sale of your product to

o Contribute to the final pitch

Click here to see the detailed role and task descriptions for Ventura team members

Key Concepts: Sustainable design - The Design Museum Shop champions positive ethical design solutions and sustainability, so your design should do this too. You should consider the wider environmental and ethical implications of your idea. This may mean selecting sustainable materials, designing your product so that it avoids unnecessary waste during manufacture, or creating a product that encourages its user to act in a positive ethical and sustainable way. Useful website: http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx Target audience/market -Your product will ideally appeal to a wide audience. You can choose to design your product to a focused audience such as children, young people (aged 13-19) or adults. You should consider the audience throughout the research and development of your product idea. • Target audience research: conduct interviews with potential customers, or use the internet to find out more about retail habits of potential customers – where do they shop? How much money do they spend? What are their hobbies and interests? Which music/films/computer games/mobile phones and devices do they like? Use this link to download a worksheet to help complete this task • Marketplace research: detailed research into the Design Museum Shop using the website and factsheets.

Extension task: Research another design focussed shop – look online or visit one such as IKEA or Alessi to collect more ideas about products, prices and customers. Visit other gallery or museum shops in Rome to research their products and customers:

MAXXI MACRO Palazzo delle Esposizioni

SGBIS Year 9 Design & Technology: Virtual Ventura

Product analysis In your teams you will discuss ‘what makes a good product?’, including the following factors:

form function aesthetics materials manufacturing

ergonomics price sustainability product USP (Unique Selling Point) Click here for a glossary to help you to understand this terminology and other DT specific words Developing ideas Building on the research your team has produced you will generate a range of initial ideas .These will be developed through sketches and/or 3D modelling identifying key design features of your ideas and choice of materials. Sustainability must be considered. To help your ideas to progress use these top tips from professional designers. Still stuck for design ideas? Try designing the worst possible product for your target customer, then use that to think about things to avoid and things that work well. Presentation techniques and modelling You can choose from a variety or combination of presentation techniques to present your ideas as they develop; computer aided design, isometric drawing, sketching, 2 point perspective drawing, card/foam board models, etc. some of you may plan plastic, textile or food outcomes and may need to test some of these out to help work out your budget. Manufacturing You should show evidence that you would be able to manufacture your product using materials and technology that are easily available – ideally in school or in the local area – and that you could produce multiple copies of your product. You need to look closely at how products are designed and manufactured. Use this link as a starting point. As each team will all be designing totally different products individual research into materials and processes may be needed. Here are some useful sites but you can also do you own research into how similar products or ones that use the same materials are manufactured.

Bitesize 1 Technology student How it’s Made Bitesize2 Costing and budget Be enterprising! Your product must be sold for a retail price of around £10 per item. You will need to think about manufacturing costs, packaging and marketing and the value of your own time as you consider the true cost of your product. You may be working with Y12 Business Studies students for this part of the project. For a glossary of useful financial terms click here For a blank budgeting sheet and an example of a completed sheet click here

SGBIS Year 9 Design & Technology: Virtual Ventura

Testing Test your product idea on your target market. By trying out your product you will be able to see where improvements need to be made. To help record your findings, make notes, photographs and sketches showing suggestions for improvement. Compare your product against a similar existing product. Extension task: Create a survey/questionnaire about your product and present main findings graphically using ICT. You might use Survey Monkey to do this. Present a pitch Your pitch will be a maximum of three minutes long. It will aim to ‘sell’ the product idea to the rest of the class. Watch some of these clips from the TV programmes ‘The Dragon’s Den’ and ‘The Apprentice’. This will help to give you some ideas for your own pitches. Here are some images and ideas from previous schools’ pitches. Here is a schools’ pitches video.

Don’t forget that the team needs to work together to present your pitch. Everyone has a valuable contribution to make. Read through these Judging Criteria to see what the judges are looking for and also to understand how you will help to judge and give feedback to the other teams in your class. Choosing the SGBIS entry for Virtual Ventura A school-based competition will be held where all teams will pitch their products to a team of judges. The best entry will be selected for entry to the Virtual Ventura competition. However all teams will develop and refine their pitch in the form of three minute presentations and in school prizes will be awarded for success. If shortlisted, the selected school team will submit a three minute long video to Ventura at the Design Museum on 5th December.

Summary of extension and challenge opportunities

o Produce an extended research scrap book/journal that contains phrases, poetry,

photographs, sketches, paintings, found items, song lyrics, etc. relating to the theme of journeys.

o Research another design focussed shop – look online or visit one such as IKEA or

Alessi to collect more ideas about products, prices and customers. Visit other gallery or museum shops in Rome to research their products and customers:

o Create a survey/questionnaire about your product and present main findings graphically

using ICT. You might use Survey Monkey to do this.

SGBIS Year 9 Design & Technology: Virtual Ventura

Investigation: Relevant References and Resources (click on links to follow):

Investigation & research by other SGBIS students (click thumbnails for larger versions)

NB: some of this DT work by our students is displayed by the Design Museum on Flickr and you may need to login via Yahoo in order to access it.

Resources including Inspirational products, retailers and designers (click thumbnails for information)

Other useful DT links:

DAFONT (Good for exploring lettering styles)

The Design Council

The Victoria & Albert Museum (Art & Design Ideas from different times and cultures)