Hat Storage
Before!!
After!! The finished product
Senior Syndicate – Room 12
Teacher: June Crawford
Room 12 worked with Simon Reveley, a process engineer from Heinz-Wattie. The children enjoyed hearing about some of the problems Simon had to solve at work and how he went about it. He amazed us with all sorts of facts and figures. Each visit and discussion session with Simon was written up on a flip chart, so we could use it for reference during dicussions between his visits.
Our flip charts explain what we did...
Our problem:
- Lose hats
- Get stolen
- Forget it at home
- Gets trodden on
- Grumpy parents who don't want to buy a new hat when the old one gets lost
- Grumpy teachers who tell you to play in the shade if you don't have a hat
- Left in the playground
- Don't like playing in the shade
- Take up too much room in a desk
- Confusing because they're all the same and you can take the wrong one
- Dirty
- Left all over the floor
- No room in classroom desks
- Forgetting our hats outside
- Being lazy
- Telling the difference between hats
Forgetting our hats outside
We need:
Something that let's us know we've left our hat
- Buzzer
- Like a frisbee and flies back on
- T could tell you
- Loud speaker
- Light
- Walkie talkie
- Camera – like speed camera
- Bounces back on head
- Maid
- Squirter
- Horn
- Hat that follows you
- Hat that changes into cat and follows you
- Detective
- Heavy hat
- Something that makes a noise or smokes when it comes off
- Cell phone
Telling the difference between hats
What do we need?
To know who it belongs to and room number. Full name and class.
How?- Radio with prerecorded message
- Password
- Made up word on it
- Computer chip
- Sew name on
- Permanently mark hat so no-one can change it
Something that stops our hats coming off
- Clip to clip it on
- Duct tape
- Double sided
- String
- Wire
- Flax
- Magnet
- Heavy cat sitting on top
Something that captured and retained our hats if they got let outside
Something that goes and get s the hats if they are left outside and returns it to class – teacher, child
Examples of hook labeling
No room in classroom desks
We need to be able to:
- Store our hats without damaging them
- Store our hats while we are working
- Store our hats after school
At the moment they are:
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
|
| in desks |
?
|
x
|
o
|
| on hooks |
x
|
o
|
o
|
| in bags |
x
|
o
|
x
|
| on chairs |
x
|
x
|
x
|
What do we need to think about when designing a hat storage system?
Where can the hat be attached?
- Brim – it's tougher so won't get damaged
- Top
- Hem
- Side
How can we hold the hat? (X = we could use it more than once)
- Nail – hang by cord X
- Peg X
- Blu tack X
- Sticky tape
- Duct tape
- Velcro X
- Clip X
- Glue
(No = X )
-
Line across the classroom X
-
Wall X
-
Chair
-
Window X
-
Corridor (free)
-
Box X
-
Rooms 10 and 11 X
-
Storeroom X
-
Teacher's desk X
-
Circular hanging thing (like a clothes line) X
-
Desks (free) X
-
Bags (free) X
How much room do we need?
- We need to measure the hat, diameter (33cm) and height (8.5cm)
- We need to know the weight (85g, [email protected])
- We need to know the number of hats (28)
We decide they would be easy to read if we made them on the computer. We are good at making text boxes in Word.
They have to be:
- Easy to read
- Colourful (add a clipart picture to make it personal)
- Lasting (we could laminate them)
Solution
We decided, as a class that the solution that best satisfied most of the reasons why our hats were a problem was already available but needed a small improvement.
We already have hooks in the corridor for our bags. If we labelled our hooks clearly we would all be able to find out hats easily and others would be able to put them away if they found them.
Labels for our hooks
We measured the distance between hooks and each group talked about what size would be good for the label. We cut some paper to the sizes suggested and blu-tacked them up by the hooks.
After discussion we decided that an even bigger one would be better and decided 15cm x 6cm would be a good size. We also thought they would look better all the same size.
Teacher's Comments
To have outside expertise in any field can only be of benefit to children and teachers. Simon Reveley's experience and knowledge of technological practice was invaluable. His approach was methodical and easy for the children to follow. Simon shared practical problems he had to solve in his work with the children and they found this motivating.
Engineer's Comments
I spent time telling stories from my work, which interested the children especially when we got them to work out things (like how many minutes at 500cans per minute it takes to make all the baked beans the class eats in a year).
The problem-solving exercise for their hats worked well, with plenty of ideas generated (like a robot that goes around the school collecting hats). I hope that the concepts of design (clear identification of problem, generation of possible solutions and evaluation against criteria) are retained.
I enjoyed the time I spent in Room 12 and I think most of the children did too. They have been exposed to a practical design process and given a vision of what can be achieved on an industrial scale by the same methods used on their problem.
