Design & Technology
TECHNOLOGY FACULTY
| 🎓 Course Type | Elective |
|---|---|
| 🧩 Units | 1 - 4 |
| 🗓 Timing | Units 1 and 2 in Year 9, Units 3 and 4 in Year 10 |
| ⏱ Hours per week | 3 |
| 📚 Prior Experience | None required although it is desirable |
| ✏️ Selection | Possible to commence study with any of the above units |
| 🧭 Future Pathways | TCE - Design Production or Object Design IB - Design Technology HL or SL VET - Construction |
Design and Technology is a practical subject that offers students the opportunity to organise information, materials, processes, tools and equipment to design, make and appraise their work. The subject provides for self-expression through a design brief.
Students apply knowledge of materials, practical skills and safe working practices both as an individual and as a member of a group.
Four sequential units are available. Together they form a complete two-year course.
The Design and Technology workshop has a wide variety of industry-standard equipment and machinery. Students will be trained in the safe operation of each machine as appropriate for their skills and needs.
In the course of the two years, the following topics and processes are covered:
- Working on set, structured projects
- Working on individually designed projects and open ended briefs
- Research, design influences and product analysis
- Design communication strategies to help develop and present ideas
- Project planning
- Material manipulation and joining methods
- Processing timber, metal, plastics and other resistant materials using machinery and hand tools
- Finishing processes for various resistant materials.
Students will be expected to communicate their ideas as they work through the design process. This will include providing evidence of research work, sketches, detailed drawings, cutting lists and job lists which together will form a folio of work to support their practical design work. An evaluation of each piece of work will be completed.
Students will be required to complete research work to enable them to have some understanding of the historical influences in design. They will also investigate areas of technological change in a chosen field of interest, with a focus on effects this may have had on everyday life.
Where possible, students will be taken to view and comment on exhibitions relevant to their study to enable them to experience a wide range of design work.
The actual design briefs given to students will be wide and varied, with some as problem solving activities and others having limitations imposed by material, time, equipment and processes. The units in both Year 9 and Year 10 can be taken singularly for one semester or the other, but all four units will deliver a more comprehensive knowledge.
Year 9 Projects
Slot together stool
Project Focus - Design for Disassembly
Project Skills - Ergonomics and Structural design
Speaker Project
Project Focus - Design aesthetics and function
Project Skills - Working with mixed materials, simple electronics, box construction, acoustics, high quality finishing techniques
Lighting Project
Project Focus - Minimalist design
Project Skills - Modeling, CAD and Laser Cutting
Bedside Table Project
Project Focus - Furniture making and Manufacturing up skilling
Project Skills - Cabinet joinery
Year 10 Projects
Understanding Modernism in Design
Students explore the sequence of design from The Eiffel Tower through to Post Modernism. Students make models of some design classics
The Shearers Quarters Chair
The students go through an extended version of the Design Cycle researching chairs, the local environment and modern design to create designs a chair to suit the Shearers Quarters, an award winning house on Bruny island. They then make a 1:5 scale model of their design.
Objet de A
Students work on a 10 week long project based on a simplified version of the Year 12 Object Design course, researching, designing and making an object that in some way relates to the future or their future.
