We started a very exciting project a few weeks ago and now we are " done " with it. My classmates and I are going to reflect on our Design Thinking experience together. It might be confusing to you but I will try my best to explain them.
1. Understand
Here are the questions:
In my research, the most helpful question to answer is:
" What forces are used in catapults?",
This was the most helpful question for me because to be able to build a catapult, we need to be knowledgeable on the parts of the catapults and know how it works to create our own. It took me and my partner, Daisy pretty long to understand how forces in catapults work. In 3rd grade, I was able to build a very beautiful catapult myself in Art but I have no idea of why it works and how it works that way. Since we spent so much time on this phase, we did create a " successful " catapult ourselves.
After my Design Thinking cycle, I can understand that a catapult isn't easy to build or structure. It takes a lot of time and effort to make a catapult work the way it needs to. I can clearly understand that my catapult wasn't strong enough since the materials we were provided with wasn't " real ". My base and my arm aren't stabled with the correct materials so it didn't work the way we expected it to. There were many different designs but after designing our own, I feel like the force that our spoon has isn't enough to fire a marshmallow over a chair from two feet away.
- In your research, what question was the most helpful for you to answer?
Here are the questions:
- How does a catapult works?
- What type of catapults are there?
- What does a catapult do?
- What forces are used in catapults? ***
- How do those forces work?
In my research, the most helpful question to answer is:
" What forces are used in catapults?",
This was the most helpful question for me because to be able to build a catapult, we need to be knowledgeable on the parts of the catapults and know how it works to create our own. It took me and my partner, Daisy pretty long to understand how forces in catapults work. In 3rd grade, I was able to build a very beautiful catapult myself in Art but I have no idea of why it works and how it works that way. Since we spent so much time on this phase, we did create a " successful " catapult ourselves.
- After the first Design Thinking cycle, what were you "understanding" about your design? Give an example.
After my Design Thinking cycle, I can understand that a catapult isn't easy to build or structure. It takes a lot of time and effort to make a catapult work the way it needs to. I can clearly understand that my catapult wasn't strong enough since the materials we were provided with wasn't " real ". My base and my arm aren't stabled with the correct materials so it didn't work the way we expected it to. There were many different designs but after designing our own, I feel like the force that our spoon has isn't enough to fire a marshmallow over a chair from two feet away.
- Provide a picture/summary (with the source!) of the information that was the most helpful for you from your research.