5th Grade Invent

Design Thinking

5th-grade students reviewed Tinkercad this semester as part of their “Invent” Odyssey. Elaborating on an introduction to Tinkercad they had last year as 4th graders, they used Design Thinking steps this month to ideate a solution to a problem they have in everyday life. Each student designed a unique “tool” prototype by following the Design Thinking steps: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.

One student designed a tool to solve the problem of extra long wires on his headphones. This device can be used as a spool to shorten the wires so they don’t get tangled when he is wearing them.

Another student designed a pencil holder to solve the problem of a messy desk and their pencils rolling off and falling onto the floor.

The E-Skill of Adaptability came up often during this Odyssey, as students had to sometimes alter their initial design once they realized certain design limitations in Tinkercad. Alternately, once within Tinkercad it spawned new innovations to make their tool even more useful than originally ideated.

Once the tool design was completed, the students scaled down dimensions to 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 inch ratio so the tools can be printed on our 3D printers.

We can’t wait to see what they look like as a 3-dimensional object!