DESIGN TOPIC FOR STUDENTS

 DT3046

Paper Food Service Set

  • LEVEL

    III
  • YEARS

    School yrs 7, 8, 9
  • AGES

    12–14 years old
  • STages

    UNDERSTAND ➔ DECIDE ➔ CREATE ➔ BUILD ➔ TEST
  • SUMMARY

    Design a food service product made from paper. Build your paper food service set and test it.
  • TECH

    Low-tech
  • CHALLENGE

    Complex
  • TIME

    1 session (half-day)
  • TEAM SIZE

    1 or 2

About

Fast food restaurants (or quick service restaurants) are popular around the world. Most cities will have hundreds of fast food restaurants operating day and night. The food must be served on plates or packets, and drinks are in bottles or cups, that may be sealable, but must be easy to open and handle. Those are known as food service items. Once the food is consumed, the food service and packaging must be disposed and recycled so as not to pollute.
 

Your task

Design a paper food service set for a fast food restaurant of your choice. Your food service set must consist of at least three distinct items, such as a plate, bowl, tray, cup, and so forth. The set that you design may be multi-functional, or it may be intended for a specific food dish, as you wish. Your food service set will be manufactured out of any kind of recyclable paper. Plastic must not be used anywhere on your food service set. Your food service set may, for example, be moulded from paper pulp; and it may also contain non-paper parts like glue, ties, or staples, as long as they are recyclable and are not made from plastic. Build a working model to test your paper food service set. 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.
 

Note for teachers

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