Course topics.

Try this with Product Design and Technologies

1. Compare the topic list with the current course outline from your school.
2. Pick a topic you can partly explain and identify the exact part you want to work through.
3. Bring one example of the kind of question or task your school uses.

View Product Design and Technologies resources on ATARMAXXING ↗

Topics in the resource inventory

• One-off, low-volume, high-volume and continuous production: methods, technologies and when each is viable
• Lean manufacturing versus flexible and responsive manufacturing: aims, similarities and differences
• The 6Rs and the triple bottom line: applying and critiquing them against a real product
• Circular economy, cradle-to-cradle, Design for Disassembly, Extended Producer Responsibility and lifecycle assessment
• Style, technical and functional obsolescence: benefits and issues for producers and consumers
• AI, automation, CAD, CAM, CNC, laser technology, rapid 3D prototyping and robotics: impacts on production
• Mycelium, 3D-printing polymers, composite metals, repurposed plastics, vegan leather and bamboo
• Investigating and defining, evaluating existing products and planning research: critical, creative and speculative thinking techniques
• Need or opportunity, end-user profile, function, constraints and considerations, and writing evaluation criteria
• Primary and secondary, qualitative and quantitative research, digital methods, ethics and intellectual property
• Visualisations, design options and working drawings: drawing systems and annotations that earn marks
• Need or opportunity, function, end users, market, lifecycle and technologies as tools for evaluating products
• Design elements and design principles: identifying them and critiquing how a designer has applied them
• Ethical design, the three sustainability dimensions, IP, standards, worldview and First Peoples' design knowledge
• Second diamond: prototypes, the chosen product concept and the final proof of concept, and synthesising feedback
• Properties and characteristics, experiments and trials, and social, environmental, economic and worldview selection factors
• Timeline, quality measures, materials and costings, tools and processes, risk assessment and safety controls
• Goal-setting, monitoring efficiency and effectiveness, managing time and resources, and justifying modifications
• Research and development, speculative design thinking, innovation, entrepreneurial activity and new and emerging technologies
• Collecting, interpreting and synthesising data and end-user feedback to judge success and justify improvements