Part 1: Engineering & the Design Process

The Design Process: What's It All About?

Design Process

a series of steps that help people think creatively and invent solutions

Prototype

an early sample or model built to test a concept or process

All Design Squad Latinx activities are structured around the design process, which gives kids a framework for thinking through a challenge. To familiarize yourself more with the design process, think about a challenge you currently experience in your daily life. Maybe you often forget your keys, drop your phone, or can never seem to get to bed on time.

Have a challenge in your head? Great! Now check out the design process steps and keep that challenge in mind as you do.

Click the +/- icons to learn more about the design process.

Identify Client and Problem

The first step in the design process is to identify the client, for in Design Squad Latinx, kids will be designing for clients. Clients are either imagined individuals (people or animals) or real people from their communities (in the case of the “Create Your Own Engineering Challenge” Module). Once you understand who the client is, you need to understand the problem they are experiencing. It can be tempting to jump straight to brainstorming solutions, but before you do, make sure you truly understand the issue at hand before trying to solve it.

Who is your client? What is the problem? How does the problem affect your client and others?

Brainstorm and Design

Brainstorm

Once you understand the need, it’s time to brainstorm ideas for solutions. Focus on rapid idea generation and embrace wild ideas—sometimes far-fetched ideas lead to breakthroughs!

How could you address your challenge? Try to think outside the box as you brainstorm solutions!

Design

Once you have an idea, the next step is to sketch out possible solutions and perhaps build a quick and simple prototype.

Take your best idea for a solution and sketch a quick design. You can simply do this in your head, in digital format, or on paper if you’re feeling inspired!

Build, Test, Redesign

This is the heart of the design process! It’s the iterative cycle of building, testing, and redesigning, and then repeating the process to refine designs until they are successful.

While you won’t be building, testing, and redesigning your solution right now, take a moment and think about what this iterative process might be like for your design idea. Imagine you have built and tested your solution and something didn’t work. How could you redesign or build on your first idea to make it better?

Share Solution

Just as you worked through your challenge by following the design process, you will guide kids using the same steps as they work through engineering activities. By engaging your club in the design process, you not only equip them with skills to solve engineering challenges, but you also help them discover that it is a valuable way to solve many kinds of problems beyond engineering.

To introduce your club to the design process or review the steps together, we have created an activity, “Discover the Design Process”. This activity is a great high-energy tool to get your club comfortable with the design process and each other, having kids work together in teams to solve problems before they start actively using the design process to tackle engineering challenges in your club.