Brilliant Bionics

Students will:

• Use the Design Thinking Process to problem-solve a challenge and prototype a solution.

• Design and construct a bionic adaptation to improve the human body.

• Develop communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills by working as a group to solve a challenge. 

Students can:

• Follow key aspects of the Design Thinking Process to solve a challenge and prototype a solution.

• Work collaboratively with classmates to effectively communicate group responsibilities when planning and making.

• Respond to the prompt and challenges that arise throughout the activity using critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills.

Empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test, feedback, engineer, bionics, ergonomics, programming, movement.

The Stanford Design Thinking Process helps solve complex problems with creative solutions.

We've broken down the process to support you when engaging with your Makedo Design Challenge here.

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Creativity and innovation: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.a. Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processesb. Create original works as a means of personal or group expression

Engineering Design (ETS)

• K-2-ETS1-2: Develop a simple sketch, drawing, or physical model to illustrate how the shape of an object helps it to function as needed to solve a given problem.

• 3-5-ETS1-1: Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.

• 3-5-ETS1-2: Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

• 3-5-ETS1-3: Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.

Life Science (LS)

• 1-LS1-1: Use materials to design a solution to a human problem by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.

• 4-LS1-1: Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.

• MS-LS1-3: Use argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells.

The student is expected to:

• Science 1.13 A Identify the external structures of different animals and compare how those structures help different animals live, move, and meet basic needs for survival;

• Science 2.13 B  Record and compare how the structures and behaviors of animals help them find and take in food, water, and air;

• Science 3.12 A Explain how temperature and precipitation affect animal growth and behavior through migration and hibernation and plant responses through dormancy;

• Science 3.12 C Describe ho natural changes to the environment such as floods and droughts cause some organisms to thrive and others to perish or move to new locations;

• Science 3.13 A Explore and explain how external structures and functions of animals such as a neck of a giraffe or webbed feet on a duck enable them to survive in their environment;

• Science 5.12 A Observe and describe how a variety of organisms survive by interacting with biotic and abiotic factors in a healthy ecosystem;

• Science 5.13 A Analyze the structures and functions of different species to identify how organisms survive in the same environment;

Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2)

• Working Scientifically: Students will be asking simple questions and recognising that they can be answered in different ways (e.g., how to make the joints move).

• Biology: Animals, including humans: Students will identify, name, draw, and label the basic parts of the human body and say which part of the body is associated with each sense.

Key Stage 2 (Years 3 to 6)

• Biology: Animals, including humans (Year 3 focus): Students will identify that humans and some animals have skeletons and muscles for support, protection and movement.

• Biology: Animals, including humans (Year 5 focus): Students will describe the function of skeletons and joints to include: support, protection, and movement.

  • Alignment: The lesson provides a tangible model for hinge and pivot joints.

Cross-Curricular Link (Design and Technology)

• Key Stage 2 - Technical knowledge:

  • Students will understand and use mechanical systems in their products [for example, levers, linkages, or simple machines]."

    • Alignment: The movable limbs function as simple linkages.

Strand A: STEM Skills and Connections

• A2: apply the engineering design process and coding skills to design, build, and test devices, models, and/or structures.

• A2.2: follow an engineering design process to design, build, and test devices, models, and/or structures that address a need or want, and make improvements to the design on the basis of testing and peer feedback.

• A2.3: use a variety of tools, materials, and techniques to build models and/or structures.

Strand C: Life Systems (Biology)

• Grade 1- C2.1 (Needs and Characteristics of Living Things): investigate the external characteristics of humans and other living things and how these characteristics help them meet their needs.

• Grade 3- C2.1 (Growth and Changes in Plants and Animals): investigate the skeletal and muscular systems and how they help humans and other animals move, support their bodies, and protect their vital organs.

• Grade 5- C2.1 (Human Health and Body Systems): investigate the circulatory, respiratory, digestive, skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems and how they work together to enable the human body to function.

  Strand D: Structures and Mechanisms (Physics/Engineering)

• Grade 4- (Pulleys and Gears): investigate how simple machines such as gears, pulleys, and linkages work, and how they affect the speed and direction of movement.

  • Alignment: The movable limbs act as a simple linkage system.

• Grade 6- D2.1 (Simple Machines and Mechanisms): investigate how different mechanisms, such as linkages and gears, can be used to control, modify, and transmit force and movement.

  • Alignment: The Makedo joints are a simple form of a linkage used to control and transmit motion from one cardboard piece to another.

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  Visual Arts: Creating and Presenting

• D1: apply the creative process to produce art works in a variety of traditional two- and three-dimensional forms that communicate feelings, ideas, and understandings, using elements, principles, and techniques of visual arts.

• D1.2: demonstrate an understanding of the use of the elements of design (e.g., shape, form, line, texture) and principles of design (e.g., movement, balance, rhythm) in the creation of their own art works.

  • Alignment: The principle of movement is the central artistic theme of the project.