Researching

• For EDEXCEL, you should do 4 -5 A3 pages; it's all worth 9 marks.

• First of all, you need to write an introduction to your project - tell us all about your ideas. Then you need to show how to break down your overall plan into sub-problems. (Click View - Page Layout to correct the formatting)

• Now you need to write your Design Brief:

• To start finding out what people would like your project to do, you need to write a Questionnaire

• Once you have the results, you can do some nifty work to produce your Statistical presentation of results, generated in EXCEL, merged into WORD, with analysis and conclusions

• It would be really good to Interview someone who you could call an expert and write up a report and conclusions. Ask lots of open questions that start with words like What, Why, How, If, Where, When …

• And finally, you should try to carry out some wider research about your project, including product test reports, books, e-mail, CD ROMs, databases, internet, data sheets, magazines, manufacturers.

• Most important of all is your analysis and conclusions for all your results

• Quote all information sources

• All the raw data and tables of results should appear in the appendix, at the very end of your folio.

Product Analysis as appropriate

And then, to get you going, thinking about how to develop your design ideas, try some of these whacky techniques - they all came from two fab DT teachers, Rowan Todd and John Lee at Sheffield Hallam University

• User Trip Example
• Under Wraps
• Product Comparison Matrix Example (Click View - Normal to display in landscape)
• Component/Function analysis Example (Click View - Normal to display in landscape)

Specification

Once you have carried out all your research and analysed commercial products, you can finish off the research section by writing your Specification

Exemplars

>> Designing ...

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