The Stool – Ongoing Project

Ms. Shemo purchased a stool from one of the Eco-friendly projects at NIS. One morning the stool fell and broke. The children considered the problem for a while.

When Ms. Jo. Came in to class, Noah reminded Ms. Jo that the stool was broken.

Designers are also problem solvers. Ms. Jo asked the young designers if they could fix the stool. They thought this was a good project. The children went to the Primary School Design Pit to find materials to fix the stool.

The designers agreed that they should use “some sticky things” to fix the stool. Glue sticks, masking tape, duct tape, transparent tape, glue tack, a hot glue gun, and white glue were the “sticky things” they could find in Design. They thought that the hot glue gun, duct tape, clear tape, glue tack, and white glue were good fixing materials for wood, and were good materials for fixing the stool, but they couldn’t decide which would work the best. Designers sometimes test materials and then decide on the most suitable ones.

After picking the materials for fixing the stool, our young designers started to test these materials. The first one was the Glu Tack.

The young designers brainstormed different ways to apply the Glu Tack either on the seat or stool legs. Whilst testing the Glu Tack they found some other problems, for example, the seat wasn’t put evenly on the stool legs.

They didn’t forget to fix these problems as well. Finally, the young designers got the seat back on the stool. They will leave the stool in K2A until the next lesson to test and see if the Glu Tack worked well.

 

Test two…

The second material the young designers decided to test was the duct tape. The children used the green tape and pasted the sides down to fix the stool.

Right away they could see that the plastic top moved around. It did not look like a safe choice.

They decided to add a sign to let people know that it was not safe to sit on. The designers will need to reflect on their choice and decide what they need to do next.

 

Test three…

We reviewed our last test and decided that duct tape wasn’t a good solution. Next, we used hot glue to fix the stool.

Before gluing, the designers brainstormed the advantages and disadvantages of using hot glue.

Mason and Patrick thought the hot glue would make cracks in the seat because the glue was hot. What do you think?

Let’s give the hot glue a bit of time and see if it will make cracks in the plastic seat.

Our problem-solving continues…

Documentation by Ms. Jo and Ms. Eileen