This summer, encourage your students to think like engineers and inventors! D!Lab is offering four design thinking challenges that develop creativity and engage students in the process of innovation. The D!Lab Summer Imaginations program engages students’ minds and hands in a summer where academic and creative connection and engagement is crucial.
All four challenges are listed below. Participants will have until August 15 to complete and submit photos and videos of their completed challenges. Send your submissions to dlab@saes.org.
At the end of the summer, Amazon gift cards will be awarded to the students who create the most original designs. Students who submit multiple challenges are eligible for multiple prizes. Students will be notified of their submissions by email.
Curious about the 2020 Summer Imaginations challenges? An archive of last year’s challenges can be found here.
Old Parts to New Parts
Sometimes parts are more creative than the whole.
Here is your challenge…
Disassemble a piece of old technology. An old computer, a toaster, a radio, even an electric drill. Disassemble the parts piece by piece. Be sure to ask permission to disassemble!
At the end of the disassembly, examine all of the pieces that you have. Think about the role each piece had in the service of the object you took apart.
Select several of the pieces. Think about how you might incorporate three or four specific pieces into a new piece of technology.
Here are the constraints (limitations) for this challenge:
- Photograph the pieces of the technology that you took apart.
- Create a drawing of your new piece of technology and the places you incorporated the recycled parts. Explain the purpose and how the parts you disassembled from one object make your new technology work.
In order to be considered for summer prizes, your submission for Challenge #1 must be received on or before August 15, 2021. Take a picture of your object and plan and send it to dlab@saes.org. Your drawing must include the maker’s name, age, and school. Please ask your parent or guardian to send the email.
Reading for Empathy
Empathy is a skill humans possess that helps us better understand the needs and experiences of others.
This year, due to library closures during the pandemic, children in many communities lacked access to reading materials on a regular basis.
Here is your challenge: can you re-imagine a library building as mobile book delivery service?
To start, in your community or in your experience, what images come to mind when you think of libraries? What does a library provide? (Some examples: WiFi, books, videos, magazines, reading spaces…)
What might a mobile library look like? Where might the mobile library park so it could provide a setting for reading, conversations…. maybe even some food?
Draw a prototype of the re-imagined library. Label the changes you made and the reasons for these changes. Explain why each change is important to the library and the user. What ages of people might come to your mobile library?
Photograph and submit the drawing of the prototype for the mobile library that you imagined.
In order to be considered for summer prizes, your submission for Challenge #2 must be received on or before August 15, 2021. Take a picture of your prototype drawing and send it to dlab@saes.org. Your drawing must include the maker’s name, age, and school. Please ask your parent or guardian to send the email.
Going Up?
You are challenged to create a mechanism to lift two toy cars from the floor to a tabletop. A lift, or an elevator, is a mechanical device that moves people, or in this case, cars, from one place to another.
Note: You may use your hands to operate the mechanism, but you may not physically lift the cars or the platform that the cars are on.
Use any materials you wish to create a lift (elevator) that moves two small toy cars from the floor to a tabletop, the distance of about one (1) meter.
Think of found materials around the house for this challenge. Cardboard boxes, string, paper towel tubes…be creative. Ask for permission before using any found materials.
Make a working model of the lift. Take a video of your elevator in action! As your lift gets to the height of the table, the cars should be able to simply drive away. Likewise, cars should be able to drive onto the lift and return to ground level.
In order to be considered for summer prizes, your submission for Challenge #3 must be received on or before August 15, 2021. Take a video of your lift and send it to dlab@saes.org. Your drawing must include the maker’s name, age, and school. Please ask your parent or guardian to send the email.
Air Boating
For this challenge, you are asked to think about motion and movement in a new way.
Can you design and build a boat that operates not on gasoline, but from a balloon’s air?
Use any materials you wish to create a functioning boat that uses the power of air from a balloon to propel it across the surface of water. Your boat must move at least one (1) meter.
Think of found materials around the house for this challenge, such as food containers or cardboard boxes. You will need several small balloons for this activity. Be creative. Ask for permission before using any found materials.
Please be mindful of balloons around younger siblings. They are a choking hazard.
Build your Air Boast and take a video of it in action! Measure the linear distance that your boat travels.
In order to be considered for summer prizes, your submission for Challenge #4 must be received on or before August 15, 2021. Take a video of your boat in action and send it to dlab@saes.org. Your drawing must include the maker’s name, age, and school. Please ask your parent or guardian to send the email.