learndesign
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Six by Six
A six-foot cube of space somewhere people already pass, a small pile of lumber, and one question to answer with it. What goes there is yours to work out, and you have to show it was worth building.
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Design Projects
Bounded projects students complete in a tech course, with skills, assessment, deliverables, materials, and steps.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Modular desk lamp
A four-week build that combines three processes in one product. Mill a hardwood base, vacuum form a shade over a mould you make yourself, and print the joint that connects the two.
Design Project · 1 lesson ·
Laser-cut phone stand
A one-lesson project. Model a two-piece slot-together stand in Fusion and cut it from 3 mm plywood so the slots hold without glue.
Design Project · 6 weeks ·
3D-printed RC vehicle
Design and print a radio-controlled car, boat, plane, drone or submarine around a shared set of electronics. Pick the vehicle; the CAD, the wiring and the assessment are the same.
Design Project · 3 weeks ·
Hand-launched glider
Design a glider that flies straight and far from a hand launch. Airfoil ribs and a fuselage from laser-cut balsa, a printed nose and wing saddle, and a test log that proves the glide ratio got better.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
A better wayfinding system for your school
Find out where people actually get lost in your building, then design the signs, colours, names and maps that fix it. A system, not a sign. Tested with strangers before anything is printed.
Design Project · 6 weeks ·
Waste sorting camera
Build a camera system for a school waste station that looks at what someone is holding and lights up the right bin, so garbage, recycling and organics stop ending up in the wrong place. Train the classifier on your own school's trash, design the interaction, build the housing, and test it where the bins actually are.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
A wall clock
Design a clock for a wall, three ways. A laser-cut analog clock on a quartz movement; a printed clock with electronics that tells the time in a way nobody has seen; or a clock that measures something other than the hours, like the tide, the moon, a season, or a deadline. Pick one route, or one route and a twist.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
A scene from a story
Pick one scene from a play, a film or a book and design the space it happens in, as a lit scale model. Read for what the scene needs, decide what the room says about the people in it, then build it in plywood, print and light.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
A prop for stage or screen
Design and make one hand prop that has to be believed. A key, a lantern, a device, a weapon that is not one, a book that does not exist. It has to read from the distance it will be seen at, survive the run, and be safe in an actor's hand.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Build a skateboard deck
Press a seven-ply maple deck with a Roarockit kit and a Thin Air Press vacuum bag, then shape it, drill it, finish it and ride it. Your outline, your concave, your graphic. A real product with real loads on it.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
A set piece for the stage
Design and build one full-size piece of scenery that a production can actually use. A door unit, a window flat, a platform, a rolling wagon, a staircase. It has to look right from the seats, hold the people who use it, move on and off in the dark, and come apart to fit through a door.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Pumpkin launcher
Design a machine that throws a payload as far and as repeatably as you can. Prove the mechanism at desk scale with a ping-pong ball, then build it full size from 2×4s and launch a pie pumpkin across the field.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
A museum-style exhibit
Design and build a physical display, model or hands-on simulation that teaches one idea to a stranger in about a minute, with no one there to explain it. A working mechanism, a cutaway, a scale model, or an interactive that shows why something happens.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
A 3D-printed model rocket
Design, simulate, print and fly a rocket on a commercial 18 mm model rocket motor. Stability comes from the numbers before it comes from the launch pad. Recovery has to work, the flight has to be safe, and the altitude has to be measured.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Interactive display module
Design and build one interactive module on a 10" × 10" plywood square that stands alone and also lives beside other people's modules on a shared wall. An Arduino, some inputs, some outputs, and an experience that makes a stranger say "that was fun" or "interesting".
Design Project · 6 weeks ·
A working model of a human joint
Build a tabletop, display-grade model of one human joint that moves the way the real one moves and stops where the real one stops. Bones printed, ligaments that limit motion, muscles that drive it if you go that far, on a base that says what you are looking at. Designed with a kinesiology partner who knows the anatomy.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
A DIY speaker
Design and build a small speaker from a driver, an amplifier board and a box you designed for that driver. The box is the product. Its volume, its port and its stiffness decide how it sounds as much as the driver does.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Concrete casting with 3D-printed moulds
Design an object in Fusion, turn it inside out into a printed mould, and cast it in concrete. A planter, a speaker body, a desk organizer, or the heavy base of a lamp. The print is the tool; the concrete is the product.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Structures for animals
Design and build a structure for an animal that will actually use it. A solitary bee hotel, a bird or bat box, a cat tower, a catio, a dog house. The client cannot read your drawings, so the research has to be right.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Wayfinding model of the school
Build a scale model of the campus that helps a new student find their way. Each group makes one building from plans; everyone assembles the site together. Labels, colour and a legend make it a map, not just a model.
Design Project · 3 lessons ·
Vinyl-cut sign for a quote wall
Design and cut a single-colour vinyl sign of a quote you believe in, no bigger than 20" × 18", on the Roland GS-24. The typography has to do something a printout could not.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Trophies and awards
Design an award for a real event at the school and make a run of them, combining laser-cut structure, a 3D-printed figure or feature, and a UV-printed plate. A product, not a one-off.
Design Project · 2 weeks ·
Reverse engineering a product
Take a product apart down to its base components, mount every part on a display board (knolled, grouped and hand-labelled), then explain how it works in a group presentation where each member presents three slides.
Design Project · 3 weeks ·
Parametric laser-cut panels
Model a wave or an object in Fusion, slice it into parallel ribs, cut them from 3 mm plywood and stack them on rods so the surface reappears in the air between them. One panel per person, under 12" × 12", assembled into a wall.
Design Project · 5 weeks ·
Outdoor seating from 2×4s
Design and build outdoor benches, seats and small structures from construction lumber for an outdoor learning space. Ergonomics, exterior fasteners and finishes, and a build that survives a Canadian winter.
Design Project · 6 weeks ·
Build a mini-putt hole
In a group of three or four, design and build one themed, ready-to-play mini-putt hole from lumber and plywood. Four individual checkpoints track your work from the first pencil sketch to a reflection after play testing.
Design Project · 3 weeks ·
Functional 3D printing
Find something around you that is broken, missing a part, or annoying to use, and fix it with a printed part. The part has to work, and it has to be designed for the printer, not just printable.
Design Project · 3 lessons ·
A custom rubber stamp
Engrave a stamp die into laser rubber on the Trotec Speedy, then design and print a handle that fits your hand and tells you which way is up. Artwork, mirroring, shoulder angles, ergonomics, and ten clean impressions.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
CO₂ dragster
Design, draw, carve and race a CO₂-powered dragster from a basswood blank. Thumbnails to a full-size Fusion drawing, then band saw, rasp and sandpaper, then a timed run down the track.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Tabletop carnival games
Design and build a small carnival game that fits on a table, runs for an afternoon at a school event, and is fair, fun and hard to break. Wood, laser-cut graphics, and optional lights, sound and scoring.
Design Project · 3 weeks ·
3D-printed bike accessory
Design a part that fits a real bike and does a real job, model it in Fusion from your own measurements, print it, and prove it survives use. Mounts, clips, guards, holders, tools.
Design Project · 6 weeks ·
Every object tells a story
Design prompt: tell a compelling story about sustainability. Technical skill: laser cutting, with vinyl wall lettering for the label. Displayed museum-style.
Design Project · 4 weeks ·
Acoustic panels
Design and build a wall panel that absorbs sound and looks like it belongs in the room. Test the material choice, not just the look, and write a spec sheet for the result.