The James Dyson Foundation celebrates #STEMCAD2015 at Phoenix Military Academy

The event was a part of STEM Career Accelerator Day (#STEMCAD2015), a national campaign and series of events designed to engage and expose students to career-focused experiences.To kick off the workshop, Phoenix Military Academy students spent time listening to James Dyson’s story and learning about how it took him 5,127 prototypes before designing the world’s first bagless vacuum cleaner. They also learned about how the Dyson design process is iterative and how they could apply it to the design brief they were given.

The brief students were given was simple: design something that solves a problem at school. Students brainstormed a list of problems they experience on an daily basis: teachers taking a long time to take attendance, students losing their pencils, Chromebooks losing their charge too fast, and keeping their uniforms wrinkle-free.In small groups, the students discussed the problems they brainstormed and decided on one problem to solve. They were then tasked with sketching their solutions to the problem.Each group decided on one sketch to prototype. They were given sheets of cardboard, cardboard tubes, Dyson parts, tape, hot glue, and X-acto knives to use. Students had 40 minutes to take their 2D paper sketches to a 3D prototype.

When students were finished with their prototypes, they presented their design ideas to the rest of the groups. The designs the students created were fantastic: one group created an auto-correct pen, another created a student ID scanner to help teachers with attendance, and a third group prototyped a desk complete with a drawer and an electrical outlet for a Chromebook.Upon conclusion of the workshop, many students shared how they liked working together in teams to solve a common problem and how they enjoyed creating 3D prototypes, just like engineers do.If you are interested in learning more about holding a workshop for your students, please contact the JDF at jamesdysonfoundationus@dyson.com.