katie
Instagram:katesdesigns5
Job role:Product Design Student
Skills:Sketching Procreate Adobe Indesign Rendering
My name is Katie and I am on the little inventors team for 2024! I'm in my 3rd year at Edinburgh Napier University studying Product Design. I am considering a career in teaching, so this placement is perfect as it gives me an insight into what it teaching/ leading a project involves. I can't wait to get started and see what the children invent and what the 1st years make!
Recent blog entries
Today was the first lesson with the primary school children at Dalry Primary School. To begin with we did a quick presentation explaining what little inventors was as well as show them what we did (as first years) when we did the project. Everyone looked excited to start, so we kept it brief. we got the teachers to split the children up into 3 groups, this meant that we all had a group and theme each. My theme is the ground/earth.
Once the classroom had settled down from everyone moving about, we began a discussion on what problems we currently face on the ground. I had them think about the ways they get to school, litter on the ground and how we could recycle natural resources more. Once the children became more understanding on what I wanted them create, I got them to make characters. These characters were allowed to be fictional/ non fictional as it would allow them to add a personalised touch to their inventions.
After this quick task, we moved on to inventing! The children got stuck in and began drawing and colouring anything that came to their mind, we had some crazy inventions!
I went round checking that everyone was okay and getting on fine with the task to.
In this session, we got to introduce ourselves to the 1st years we would be working with on the little inventors project. This felt a little more nerve-racking as they are a lot bigger than primary school children! however, once we got started I got really comfortable and came out of my shell.
This session started out with a presentation from the little inventors leader, Lottie Smith. The presentation explained the whole idea of little inventors and what the project entailed.
After this, the 1st years were given a project for the rest of the day. This was to take a Child's idea and make it come to life, however, they only had 4 hours and in the project to come they have 3 weeks. This sprint project gave them an idea on how to model in relation to a picture presented to them. They also learned new cardboard techniques which would help them along the way.
As they did this we went round and introduced ourselves as the 3rd years and allowed them to ask any questions they had. We also got them to choose the theme they wanted to be a part of, this worked out well and we didn't have to disappoint anyone. Everyone got the theme they were after.
Left this session looking forward to get properly started!
