Design Club Journal — Week 2
This week, the Service Design Academy was back at Dens Road Primary School, Dundee, for another exciting Design Club. Read all about Jo’s experiences below. You can read about Katie’s adventures with the young people of Dens Road in Design Club Journal week 1 here.
Last Thursday, I went to my first ever design club, at Dens Road Primary School. I was so excited, and had been looking forward to it for months since first seeing the design club advertised, on the Design Club website back in May.
I, like Katie, was a bit apprehensive about how the kids would engage and interact with me especially as my usual ‘teaching group’ are adults, mostly working professionals and not young people who know more about technology and apps than I do!! However, I needn’t have worried, the kids were fantastic, very engaged and questioned everything they didn’t understand. It was great!
As they were so excited at the first session, they did not complete all of the tasks, so on week 2 we focussed on the tasks from week 1 they hadn’t completed. These were:
Firstly, looking at app examples. Discussing in small groups what the apps were, who they were for and what the purpose of them was. The kids all had great fun completing this task, and empathising with the people these apps were for. The apps the young people looked at ranged from calculating how much sugar is in their snacks to helping people find their way around the city; perfect for me as I am always getting lost!
After they had all discussed and presented back their thoughts on the example apps they got to work figuring out the design process. I gave them this as a group task, offering 5 volunteers to come to the front of the room to hold each stage of the design process. As a group we discussed what each stage meant as some of the language was unfamiliar to some of the young people, again they were so great at questioning and asking for clarity on anything they did not understand. It took a few attempts but finally they agreed on the order of tasks, with them wanting to empathise with people before defining their challenge:
We then looked at the different options for briefs online. There are currently 4 exciting projects to choose from, two environmental challenges and two health and wellbeing challenges:
After lots of lively debate and voting on each project, the young people went with the majority vote and agreed to tackle helping someone to eat healthy food. We spent the last 20 minutes of the day brainstorming ideas around helping people to eat healthy food. The ideas ranged from a smoothie making app, to a gremlin that would tell you off for your unhealthy choices. I am so excited to see teams forming and watch as these ideas develop within the upcoming sessions.
There will be no Design Club next week as it falls on an inservice day. Stay tuned later in the month for more SDA adventures with the young people of Dens Road Primary School when Design Club is back in session.
