Suggestions for Related Design Activities

• Challenge participants to use Imagination Place! to create a machine that... helps at home. helps at school. helps your community. helps the world.

• Ask participants to design a magazine ad for their inventions.

• Have participants redesign an object or invention they use ever day. For example, they might redesign a telephone, a car, a school notebook, etc. They can make sketches, and also use whatever materials are available in the workshop room to make prototypes.

• Choose a common, readily-available "designed" object such as writing instruments (pencils, pens, markers, chalk) or spoons or combs and start a workshop collection of design variations.

• Have participants build a model of a machine or designed object using whatever materials they can find or that are available in the workshop room. This can be the basis for a "design" exhibition. Presentations of their models should include naming visible parts.

• Start a workshop collection of "Identifiable Designs"--design elements, logos, etc. that are affiliated with specific companies or products. Talk about individual items: How does their design relate to the product or company? What messages do they convey? How do the elements of the design contribute to those messages? What is the significance of having recognizable corporate or product identity? Participants can use the collection for a display or presentation.

• For practice with plan and schematic drawings, ask participants to make a plan drawing of the workshop room, or to do a schematic drawing of an object in the room, such as the globe or the the fish tank. As a creative exercise, they can design their own dream houses. Those who are interested can even plan the landscaping. For a long-term group project, participants can design the "school of the future" and build a model of it. This is an excellent way to give participants practice with measuring and scale.

• Participants can develop their own research projects related to design. One project could involve tracing an invention--e.g., the telephone--back form its current design through earlier versions to the first.

• Invite designers to visit the workshop, show their work, and answer questions.