Mechanics of Gears
STEM teaching kit for 11/12 year olds.
Brief
The brief was to create an interactive kit to teach primary students about the workings of gears, help them to understand how to calculate gear ratios and give them a basic understanding of mechanical advantage.
Research
Research into existing kits, things they do well, disadvantages.
Research into appropriate materials for the kits construction.
Research into the basic gear ratio calculations.
Conceptualisation
Exploration of various ideas through sketching.
Selecting the most novel solutions from the research process.
Prototyping
Using low tech methods of prototyping building test gears from cardboard and foam to finalise kit functionality.
The final gears are made by creating a CAD drawing to use as a cutting template.
Using Indesign to create instructions for the users.
Using Canva to create cards to display maths problems to be solved by users.
Testing
The finished prototype being tested by peers to examine ways to improve its functionality further and make it more understandable.
