This starter activity can be used as an introduction to reverse engineering. Using the presentation Earphones and Headphones, students are asked to identify the product and its function. They consider the following questions:

These activities provide students with an understanding of the importance of fitness for purpose when designing new products. Students learn how to effectively dismantle and investigate an engineered product to determine its function/purpose.

In this activity, from the LSIS, students discover for themselves the importance of the perpendicular distance in moments. It is presented as a whole class discussion but can easily be adapted for small group work.

The activity uses a magnetic disc that takes about 15 minutes to construct. The activity will...

This resource investigates how hoverboards work.

Suggested learning outcomes include:

• Understand how at least two different examples of hoverboards function.
• Know how to analyse examples of existing products.
• Analyse the main features of a product and identify improvements that...

This resource considers the social implications and challenges faced.

Suggested learning outcomes include:

• To know what is meant by a remote area.
• To understand the social problems and challenges faced by people living in remote...

This IET DIY Faraday Challenge asks students to design and prototype a product or process involved in creating the James Webb Space Telescope. Your design must include an electric circuit and should be designed as a working prototype.

In this resource children investigate how the properties of different materials change when they are frozen. The two activities are based on a challenge scientists and engineers had when designing the James...

In this activity children learn about how the James Webb Space Telescope is designed to keep itself cold. They find out about the sunshield and how it works then explore how they can keep cold things cold, when...

Aimed at upper primary learners this resource provides a design and technology activity based on the challenges engineers and space scientists faced whilst working on the creation of the telescope. Children...

Aimed at primary level, the seventeen activities this pack investigate science around the theme of water. They link to the topics of states of matter, materials, electricity and area of design and technology and geography.

The activities include: creating a model of the water cycle, demonstrating surface...

Aimed at primary level, this resource provides a design and technology project which links to work on the properties of materials and aspects of environmental geography. Children design and make a model of a pond and discover more about the work of engineers throughout the process. In the first lesson the context...

This IET...

From Practical Action, this resource encourages students to look at how design specifications are balanced when developing new products.

This resource provides a cross curricular design and technology project for primary children, which looks at what plants need to grow and on water transport in plants. The context is provided by a story about a boy who moves to another planet to build a settlement there. The problem is to design a way of...