Design-a-thon (2013)

This year, Invention Squad's all day school design event took place on November 22nd.

With help from a bunch of incredible volunteer designers, kids took part in a series of workshops. We made fantastic spaghetti structures, glittered hand-pots, taped cityscapes, up-cycled CD mobiles and school logos.  The idea of Design-a-thon is to immerse the students in a whole day of hands-on, creative activities. One kid described this as "the best day of the whole school year".     

Logo T

Invention Squad ran a design competition to challenge the school kids to create a new logo for the school t-shirt. The final design was a combination of the best ideas from the students and alludes to the "small school with a big heart". All of the kids were given a free t-shirt to wear on the last day of school!

Kinder Book Design

Fresh off the press: Invention Squad has collaborated with Kindergarten kids to produce their very own illustrated books. The books are called "The Important thing about Spring" and "What I Never Do".

Opening the pages of "What I Never Do" gives you that bitter sweet memory of being a little kid. All those things we tried once: throwing pizza on the wall, feeding our brother garbage and giving ourself a haircut-and weren't supposed to do. All those things we wished we could do: riding the ferris wheel, going to the beach, staying up all night and playing Mario Bros. 

And then there's the ones that are just so lovely...

Upcycled Furniture

Invention Squad ran an all day workshop for Grade 5 Clinton Street students. The brief was for teams of kids to work together and design, model and then build either a table or a chair. Constructing furniture -especially chairs-is one of our favourite challenges because it requires a delicate balance between ergonomics (a comfortable fit for the body) and artistry (a design that looks great).

In our workshop, students are given a chance to move from a 2D sketch to a small construction paper model and then scale it up to create a full size piece of furniture. This open-ended prototyping exercise requires thought about how to make a structure strong and stable and yet comfortable at the same time.

Some of the tables were attractive as well as functional. 

Fantasy Homes

You have been commissioned to plan a new dream house.  Your client is Harry Potter. Your client is the Prime Minister. Your client is an alien hamster. What does their new house look like? Is it made of wire, wood, candy or balloons? Does it have any special features: high tech hubs, indoor gardens or play zones? Here's some of the blueprints the student architects at Clinton Street Public School came up with in the Invention Squad planning workshop.

This design workshop asked the participants to consider how functionality relates to space, shape and layout. Who is using this space and what do they need to do in it? How big does everything need to be? How do people move around in the space?