Designing is an everyday activity.  It is something we all do.  Design is the way we solve problems and find the best solutions.  Designing and making are part of what separates humans from others in the animal kingdom and have been crucial in the evolution of man. Every object in the man-made world has been designed. 

Most objects have been well designed, they are good to look at and work efficiently.  Badly designed things often do not work properly, they may even break down or wear out before they should and they often do not look ‘quite right’.

Every part of the design is important.  To make a successful design nothing can be left to chance.  Ideas must be checked, tested and modified before the right solution is found and prototypes made and tested before production can start.

Although the idea may be in our heads we cannot totally design things in here because we cannot retain all the information needed in order to make a complex product successfully.  This is why we need recipes and working drawings.  Instead we have to explore our ideas using drawings and models.  These give us a record of our thoughts, which we can develop to work out solutions.  As well as helping us to talk to ‘ourselves’, drawings and notes and models also let us talk to other people, so that we can get their advice and explain what we are doing.  Communication is a vital part of designing and is now assisted by computer generated images.

And then we have to do the making.  To make successfully we need to know about different materials, well known ones, new ones and ‘smart' ones; their characteristics and how to use them in order to choose the right ones.  We need to know how to use tools and equipment, skilfully and safely and how to cut and shape.  We need to know about different processes so that we can make and construct effectively and we now have the advantage of manufacturing managed by computer.

To do all this effectively we need to know the ‘way things work’.  About mechanisms and electronics we need to be able to draw on and combine all our skills and knowledge in art, science, maths and literacy.

But it does not finish there.  We are all consumers so we all have a part to play in understanding about markets, about economics and value for money, about good and effective use of the earth’s resources and about how good technology can help the world and about how bad technology can devastate our world.

In three years we cannot teach you all this, but what we can do is to provide you with a platform of skills, knowledge and experience which will help you to make choices and choose directions later.  We can provide you with the opportunity to be excited by making, by that feeling of achievement.