National Year 9 Design and Technology
Chapters: 5
1. Design
User research and needs · Design specifications and problem framing · Creative approaches (biomimicry, user-centred) · Communicating ideas: sketches, models, CAD
- The Design Process: From Problem to Product – The design process is a loop of steps designers use to solve a real problem for real people: investigate the need, define it in a brief and a measurable specification, generate many ideas, build a prototype, then test and evaluate it against the specification. Whatever fails sends you back round the loop. This repeating is called iteration, and it is how almost every product, app, building and artwork is improved.
- Design Thinking: Solving Problems by Starting with People – Design thinking is a way to solve problems by first understanding the people who have them. It has five stages: empathise (watch and listen to users, using tools like an empathy map), define (write a clear problem as a 'How might we…?' question), ideate (create many ideas, including from nature: biomimicry), prototype (make quick, cheap models) and test (try them with users and improve). It is iterative and user-centred, and it opens up and narrows down twice, like a double diamond.
- Technical Drawing: Communicating Design Ideas – Technical drawing is a shared visual language for showing the exact shape and size of an object. Designers start with freehand sketches, then use pictorial views (isometric, oblique) to show the object in 3D, and orthographic projection (front, top and side views) with standard lines, dimensions in millimetres and a scale so that anyone can make it. Today most drawings are made with CAD software.
2. Make
Specialist tools and CAM · Choosing materials and components
- Production Methods – Firms choose how to make things by how many they need. One-off (job) production makes a single item to order; batch production makes a set of identical items, then switches; mass (flow) production makes huge numbers on a line; continuous production runs non-stop. Lean production and just-in-time cut waste and stock. Quality control checks products against a target size with a tolerance (for example 50 ± 0.5 mm), and quality assurance builds quality into every stage.
- Materials and Their Properties: Why Things Are Made of What They Are – Every product is made from materials chosen for their properties. The main families are papers and boards, timbers, metals, polymers (plastics) and textiles. Physical properties describe what a material is like (density, conductivity, how it reacts to heat and water). Working properties describe how it behaves when we use or shape it (strength, hardness, toughness, elasticity, plasticity, malleability, ductility). Materials come from natural sources such as trees, ores and crude oil, and are sold in standard stock forms like sheets, bars, tubes and planks. A designer picks a material by matching its properties to the job, and also thinks about cost, availability, looks and the environment.
3. Evaluate
Past and present designers · New and emerging technologies · Testing against specification · Impact of design on society and environment
- Design History: How Movements and Designers Shaped Everyday Things – Designs change over time because of new materials, new technology and new ideas about people and society. Arts and Crafts rejected cheap factory goods and valued hand-made work. Art Nouveau used flowing curves from nature. Bauhaus and Modernism said form follows function and designed for mass production. Mid-century designers used moulded plywood and plastic for affordable furniture. Postmodernism and Memphis broke the rules with colour and fun. Today's designers focus on sustainability and digital making. Studying the work of others helps us analyse, get inspired and design better.
- New and Emerging Technologies – New technologies change how products are designed, made, sold and thrown away. In industry: automation and robots, CAD/CAM, flexible manufacturing, just-in-time (JIT) and lean production. In enterprise: crowdfunding, virtual marketplaces, co-operatives and fair trade. For sustainability: finite vs non-finite resources, disposal of waste, the circular economy. For people and culture: jobs, inclusive design, fashion and trends, planned obsolescence. Good designers weigh the benefits against the costs to people, society and the environment.
- The Design Process: From Problem to Product – The design process is a loop of steps designers use to solve a real problem for real people: investigate the need, define it in a brief and a measurable specification, generate many ideas, build a prototype, then test and evaluate it against the specification. Whatever fails sends you back round the loop. This repeating is called iteration, and it is how almost every product, app, building and artwork is improved.
- Sustainable Design: Products That Are Kind to People and Planet – Sustainable design means making products that meet our needs while harming nature and people as little as possible. Every product has a life cycle: materials, making, transport, use and end of life. A life cycle assessment adds up the ecological footprint (energy, CO₂, water, waste) at each stage. The social footprint is the effect on workers and communities: pay, safety, child labour, fair trade. Designers use the six Rs (rethink, refuse, reduce, reuse, repair, recycle), design for maintenance, repair and disassembly, and avoid planned obsolescence. Ecodesign also weighs the economic side: a product must be affordable and profitable, so the best designs balance environment, society and economy.
4. Technical knowledge
Material properties and structures · Mechanical systems · Electrical and electronic systems · Programmable components, sensors, actuators
- Materials and Their Properties: Why Things Are Made of What They Are – Every product is made from materials chosen for their properties. The main families are papers and boards, timbers, metals, polymers (plastics) and textiles. Physical properties describe what a material is like (density, conductivity, how it reacts to heat and water). Working properties describe how it behaves when we use or shape it (strength, hardness, toughness, elasticity, plasticity, malleability, ductility). Materials come from natural sources such as trees, ores and crude oil, and are sold in standard stock forms like sheets, bars, tubes and planks. A designer picks a material by matching its properties to the job, and also thinks about cost, availability, looks and the environment.
- Mechanisms: How Machines Change Motion and Force – A mechanism takes an input motion and force and gives a different output motion and force. There are four kinds of motion: rotary, linear, reciprocating and oscillating. Levers turn on a fulcrum; mechanical advantage (MA) = load ÷ effort. Gears and pulleys pass on turning motion; gear ratio = driven teeth ÷ driver teeth, and output speed = input speed ÷ gear ratio. Meshing gears turn opposite ways; a belt keeps the same direction. Cams, cranks and sliders, and rack and pinion change rotary motion into linear or reciprocating motion. Mechanisms trade speed for force: you never get more work out than you put in.
- Basic Electronics: Components and Circuits – Electronics uses small components to control electric current. A battery or power supply gives energy; a switch opens or closes the path. A resistor limits current (V = IR), a capacitor stores charge and can smooth or delay a signal, a diode lets current flow only one way, an LED is a diode that gives light, and a transistor uses a small base current to switch or amplify a much bigger current. Each part has a standard circuit symbol. Circuits are planned on paper or in a simulator, tried on a breadboard, and made permanent by soldering on a circuit board, using the right materials and safety steps. Analogue circuits handle smoothly changing signals; digital circuits handle on/off signals.
- Embedded Systems – An embedded system is a small computer built inside a bigger product to do one job, like a washing machine or a traffic light. It reads sensors (input), runs a program on a microcontroller (process) and drives actuators like LEDs and motors (output). The program repeats in a loop and uses variables, conditions and events. Smart objects send their data to other devices using protocols such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
5. Cooking and nutrition
Nutrition and health · Savoury dishes and cooking techniques · Ingredients: source, seasonality
- Nutrition – Nutrition is how we get and use the substances in food. The body needs six groups of nutrients: carbohydrates and fats (mainly energy), proteins (growth and repair), vitamins and minerals (small amounts to keep the body working), and water, plus fibre for healthy digestion. Carbohydrate and protein give about 17 kJ per gram, fat about 37 kJ per gram. A balanced diet gives all nutrients in the right amounts, and energy in should roughly equal energy out.
- Cooking Skills and Techniques – Good cooking is safe, skilful and smart. Keep food out of the danger zone (5–63 °C), cut pieces the same size, know how heat reaches food (conduction, convection, radiation), choose a moist or dry method, use seasonal ingredients, and scale a recipe and its cost for any number of people.