Year 7 Product Design: Eco-Torches

In Product Design this year, our Year 7s have been working hard on being "green designers"! They have been investigating how to design for a sustainable future and have been learning how long products take to decompose in a landfill. This was quite an eye-opening experience for them - did you know a plastic bottle takes 450 years to decompose? Did you know that glass may never decompose? 

Using this knowledge, they designed and made eco-friendly torches made from old products and materials. Some students chose to use materials that decompose quickly if the torch were ever to be disposed of, and others decided to save materials from a landfill site that are known to take a long time to decompose.

Here are some of the products they designed:

Be on the look out for more projects from our students soon and updates on other exciting things happening in the D&T department! Please feel free to leave us any comments, we'd love to hear from you!

Year 8 Laser Cut Acrylic Phone Stands

Our year 8 product design students have been stretching their imaginations and design skills with this acrylic phone stand project! They designed these from scratch, made 3D card models, drew up their designs using CAD, laser cut the digital drawing and then finally bent them into shape using the strip heater! We are so proud of the students' creativity, resilience and their final outcomes - check out some of them below:

Be on the look out for more projects from our students soon and updates on other exciting things happening in the D&T department! Please feel free to leave us any comments, we'd love to hear from you!

Year 8 D&T Copper Pendants

As mentioned in this post a few months ago, our KS3 D&T students have been working hard and having fun learning about metals and producing these creative copper pendants! We took advantage of the lovely snowy scenes outside and had a photo shoot showcasing some great designs, check them out below:

Be on the look out for more projects from our students soon and updates on other exciting things happening in the D&T department! Please feel free to leave us any comments, we'd love to hear from you!

Year 7 D&T Wooden Project

Year 7 have been working hard making some creative wooden toys this term! They have been effectively applying a variety of skills and techniques in working with timber to produce really high quality products. Check out some of the excellent examples they've been designing and making so far:

We love how each one is unique and students are challenging themselves with the complexity of their designs! Be on the look out for more projects from our students and updates on other exciting things happening in the D&T department. Please feel free to leave us any comments, we'd love to hear from you!

KS3 D&T Students Working with Metal

Our KS3 curriculum at Beaumont School has had an overhaul this year to ensure our students will be prepared for the new GCSE specification coming into play very soon!

As students will need to know something about all material areas for the new GCSE, we've introduced a fun metal pendant project into the curriculum where students can learn more about copper properties and how to work with metals. The students are thoroughly enjoying it and they've had amazing outcomes so far: we took advantage of the beautiful Autumn weather this week to have a photo shoot outside!

Check out the fantastic work being produced by our students below!

Be on the look out for more projects from our students and updates on other exciting things happening in the D&T department! Please feel free to leave us any comments, we'd love to hear from you!

GCSE Product Design & Resistant Materials Projects

Congratulations to our GCSE Product Design and Resistant Materials students who have finally finished their courses (just one exam to go!). It has been a long 2 year journey, and we are really proud of the amazing work that has been produced by them! Check out some of our year 11's final products below:

We are really proud of their achievements and wish year 11 lots of luck in their upcoming exams!

How year 8 are using the laser cutter in Product Design

With the introduction of the laser cutter last summer, the year 8 Product Design scheme of work has had an overhaul this year so that this new technology could be included in the curriculum.

So, year 8 students are now designing and making unique and high-quality acrylic phone holders!

They are sketching ideas, modelling from card, using Computer Aided Design (CAD) to draw their ideas on 2D Design software, using Computer Aided Manufacture (CAM) via the laser cutter to engrave and cut out the acrylic, and finally bending their models into 3D working products using the strip heater! The results have been absolutely fantastic - here is an example of one piece of work from start to finish:


Sketching ideas:

Making card model to scale:

Using CAD to draw the final design:

Using the laser cutter and strip heater to manufacture final product:

Here are some other fantastic examples of phone holders designed by year 8 students:

 
 
 
 
 

We look forward to seeing what wonderful designs the other year 8 groups come up with in Product Design this year!