About

Fruit and vegetables are an important part of our diet. Most home-cooked meals are accompanied by fruit and vegetables. Many people around the world are vegetarians or vegans who mostly eat fruit and vegetables anyway. Families buy their fruit and vegetables from a shop or supermarket and then keep them at home until they are needed. Fruit and vegetables can stay fresh for a good amount of time if they are stored properly. Some fruit and vegetables should be refrigerated, others not, some fruit and vegetables must be kept separate from others, or they will all spoil quickly. Surprisingly few homes have proper fruit and vegetable storage.
 

Your task

Design fruit and vegetable storage for your home. You may design storage for any fruit and vegetables that you like. You may design some kind of object, or a cupboard, or even something like a refrigerator, whatever you think is necessary. Your fruit and vegetable storage must be made of a suitable material, and may be electrically operated if necessary, but it must safely enclose the electric parts. Build your fruit and vegetable storage and test it. Work on this project on your own, or together with a classmate.
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The design thinking stages

Follow the five design thinking stages to ensure that you think of everything and do everything necessary in order to succeed in your design project. First, you must UNDERSTAND the design topic and the needs of the users. With that understanding, you can DECIDE what is important to your design solution and what is not so important. Then you CREATE to come up with ideas and improve them. Then you BUILD your chosen design idea in a physical form and improve it through trial-and-error. Finally, you TEST your built design idea to get the opinions of users. ​​​​​​​Use the methods from the Design Thinking for Schools website as you follow the design thinking stages.
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​​​​​​​Note for teachers

Doing student design projects that use electrical parts or microcontrollers such as Arduino requires:

• teachers who are able to supervise such a project;
• laboratories or workshops with electrical and electronic parts and tools;
• and students who are trained to work with electricity, tools, and equipment.

Read the guide for teachers on Safety for the BUILD Stage for Level III to safely supervise this design project.