France Troisième Technology
Chapters: 3
1. Design and innovation
Group design project and prototyping · Evolution of objects and life-cycle impact
- 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.
2. Technical objects and systems
Sensors, actuators, interfaces
- Sensors: How Machines Sense the World – A sensor turns a physical quantity (light, temperature, distance, moisture, sound, pressure) into an electrical signal. Analogue sensors give a smooth voltage; an ADC turns it into a number the computer can use. A controller compares the number with a threshold and switches an actuator, often through a relay. Readings taken at regular times are data logging. Good sensors have the right range, sensitivity, accuracy and response time.
3. Computing and programming
Connected objects and the internet · Programs with nested loops and sub-programs
- Computer Networks and How the Internet Works – A network is a group of devices linked to share data. Each device has an IP address. Data is cut into numbered packets. Routers pass each packet hop by hop towards its address, and TCP puts the packets back in order. DNS turns a website name into an IP address. Clients ask, servers answer. Firewalls, passwords, updates and encryption keep a network safe.
- How Networks Grew and How Data Travels – A computer network is a group of connected devices that share data. Networking began with ARPANET (1969), grew into NSFNET (1980s) for universities, and joined with other networks to become the Internet, a network of networks. Every data communication has five parts: sender, receiver, message, communication media and protocol. Bandwidth is the range of frequencies a channel can carry (in Hz); data rate is how many bits travel per second (bps). Every device on a network has an IP address. Data can move by circuit switching (a fixed path is booked first) or packet switching (data is cut into packets that travel on their own).
- Block Programming: Algorithms, Loops, Variables, Events and Sensors – In block programming you snap coloured blocks together to build a program. An algorithm is the plan; the program is the plan written in blocks. Loops repeat blocks, variables store changing values, conditions choose between actions, events start the program, and sensors feed the robot facts about the world. Custom blocks (subprograms) give a name to a group of blocks so you can reuse it.