Last Thursday Year 11 students participated in a wearable technology, product development activity. After some initial idea generation activities, students were given 3 problem scenarios and asked to propose a solution to one of them using wearable technology. They then had to mould it from plasticine or clay, and pitch it to the rest of the class.
The problems included an elderly gentleman with Alzheimers who has lost his short and long term memory and so gets confused and lost; the need for a door entry and access control system for a hospital, and a coach needing to analyse his teams’ performance and the effectiveness of his strategies during a sporting match.
The ideas the students developed included inner soles that charged when the shoe was on a shoe rack, a variety of tech jewellery, wrist bands, tie and shoelace clips. One group also designed a pair of glasses for the man with Alzheimers which offered facial recognition and indicated to the user the name and their relationship to the person they saw, that analysed their comments and conversation to identify where the user was going and what they were doing, and give them prompts to remind them along the way if they went off track.
At the end of the session each group had to analyse and define their product’s key attributes, and then pitch their product to the group. The activity was fast paced, dynamic, and lots of fun …and the outcomes for a really short activity were incredibly creative and valid!
Through this activity the students were required to use the following skills: empathy, creativity, problem solving, digital skills, opportunity recognition, and communication skills amongst others.
