Engineering Practice: Innovate to Design Solutions
Engineers rely on their imagination, creativity, and ingenuity to generate novel solutions.
“The Middle Magnet Might Be Too Much”
While improving their maglev transportation system, two upper elementary students discuss how they can make changes to their initial design to better meet the criteria. Watch & Reflect:
Reflection Questions
- Question prompts can help students to think differently about their design, even if their it already meets the criteria and constraints. Use prompts such as:
- “That’s a really interesting design. Is there a way you could do that using fewer materials?
- “Your design meets the criteria, but I wonder if there is another way you could do it.”
- “Awesome! If we changed the criteria to _____, would you need to change your design?”
- Have students take a walk around the classroom to see other designs. Ask what ideas they could borrow to improve their design.
- Remind students it’s okay to return to the imagine phase of the Engineering Design Process. Have them review their original ideas. What new ideas can they come up with now?
Because engineering is inherently open-ended, students will see among their peers many different designs that solve the same problem. Their designs might fail to meet a criterion or constraint, requiring them to reimagine a new solution. This innovation can help students to be more resilient and open-minded about what is possible, in and out of STEM classrooms.
Related Practices: Envision Multiple Solutions, Make Evidence-Based Decisions, Work Effectively in Teams, Persist Through and Learn from Failure
Featured Unit: Designing Maglev Systems