DESIGN TOPIC FOR STUDENTS

 DT3028

Sculptural Bedside Lamp

  • LEVEL

    III
  • YEARS

    School yrs 7, 8, 9
  • AGES

    12–14 years old
  • STages

    UNDERSTAND ➔ DECIDE ➔ CREATE ➔ BUILD ➔ TEST
  • SUMMARY

    Design a sculptural bedside-table lamp made from found objects. Build your bedside-table lamp.
  • TECH

    Medium-tech
  • CHALLENGE

    Complicated
  • TIME

    5 sessions (one week)
  • TEAM SIZE

    1 or 2

About

A bedside lamp illuminates where and when we need it most. Bedside lamps are used to illuminate the bedroom tastefully, for reading on the bed, and so forth. A sculptural lamp contains a sculpture as a part of the lamp itself, that can enhance the bedroom by being visually intriguing or interesting, and thereby adding utility and style to the room where we spend so much of our time.
 

Your task

Design a sculptural bedside lamp. Your bedside lamp should give good illumination and have a sculptural form suited to such a prime location in the bedroom. Your bedside lamp must be safe in use whilst giving good illumination. Build a working model to test your bedside lamp. 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.