What Wood You Like to Make?

During the second semester of 2019, I challenged my Year 5 students to go beyond making things with cardboard and glue. For years, it seemed every student that passed through upper elementary was stuck in thinking that cardboard and hot glue were the only resources humanity used to build and design things. Despite having an amazing Makerspace and the technology and tools to step outside this comfort zone, they were not doing so on their own.

In the hopes of graduating beyond cardboard and hot glue, I designed a challenged that extended over the last few months to inspire new possibilities and provide opportunities to build in a more sustainable and functional manner.

Here were the ground rules:

Here was the process, which attempted to blend design thinking with mathematical concepts we were learning:

The students placed themselves in groups of three based on similar needs or problems they wanted to solve. They then looked for mentor texts to help inspire potential design elements they wanted in their own wooden creations.

We purchased the wooden boards and then shared out the total dimensions each student would be allotted. They would have to work within spatial limits. In order to check these limits, students designed a blueprint on isometric paper with the anticipated dimensions. They then had to calculate the total surface area of their proposed design to see if it fit within the allotted wood dimension limits. If they had a plan that worked for them, they began to work on their cardboard prototype.

Over the next few months, we moved into the secondary Design Technology lab and taught students how to safely use certain tools, such as drills, sandpaper and measuring devices. We had the students mark where they wanted their wooden plank cut and then adult assistants made the cuts for them. Once they had all of their pieces cut and sanded, we invited them to design a personal brand for their design. They created the logos on an app called Assembly and then we imported them into a laser printer to be burned onto a piece of wood. Here were some of the logos they came up with:

Finally, students were able to finish their designs with a great degree of independence. Aside from cutting the wood pieces, the vast majority of the assembling was done by them. They were quite versed in using power drills, vice clamps, hinge systems, sanding blocks and varnishing. Students made book shelves, tissue boxes, bird houses, game cartridge shelves and random boxes to hide things from their siblings. Overall, it was a really valuable learning experience for the students and they rose to the challenge.