On the 29th January we ran a workshop with 30 students at Carmel College in St. Helens. The session aimed to design and build a life-sized prototype of a portable shelter. We tasked the students to consider product design and budget, balancing creativity with cost by creating a shop for them to purchase their construction materials. They had to build their shelters at life-sized scale as well as design them to be portable, whether that was through flat packing or folding them up into a rucksack.
After a few warm-up activities, the groups sketched some thought-provoking designs and made some practical prototypes. Then the big build began! They worked hard to translate their plans using the materials available and carefully considered the budget.
In the space of one day, our groups designed and made six shelters before presenting them back to each other. To add to the young people’s competitive edge, we ran a gentle competition between the groups, each prototype and design was unique and used different elements of practical solutions and creative concepts. The winning group was ‘The Caterpillar’; not only was it the strongest prototype but it also incorporated lots of practical elements as it was lightweight and easily collapsible, as well as using paper origami to create a tunnel, making it distinctive from the other shelters.
They all did amazingly well and worked hard to bring their visions to life. Thank you to all the students at Carmel College who attended and embraced the challenges. Thank you to Danielle Edgson for organising and supporting the session and thank you to Carmel College for bringing us in to run such a fun workshop.