VCE Units 3 & 4 - Product Design & Technology: Wood or Textiles

VCE Units 3 & 4 - Product Design & Technology: Wood or Textiles

Overview

In VCE Product Design and Technologies students are designer-makers who design solutions that are innovative and ethical. As designer-makers, they learn about the design industry, teamwork and the collaborative nature of teams, entrepreneurial activities, innovative technologies and enterprise. The development of designed solutions requires speculative, critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, numeracy, literacy, and technacy. Students participate in problem-based design approaches that trial, test, evaluate, critique and iterate product solutions. Students prototype and test using a variety of materials, tools and processes. Throughout the process of designing and testing, students learn that innovative and ethical solutions come from constructive failure and intentional evaluation.

Unit 3: Ethical product design and development

Students plan to develop an ethical product through a problem-based design approach, starting with a need or opportunity and using a design process and testing to problem-solve. The design brief, product concepts and the final proof of concept are developed through the Double Diamond design approach, using design thinking. Students undertake the role of a designer to generate, analyse and critique product concepts, with the chosen product concept becoming the final proof of concept. Throughout a design process, the product concepts and the final proof of concept are evaluated using relevant factors that influence product design, and shaped using design thinking. Students learn about ethical research methods when investigating and defining their design need and/or opportunity and generating and designing their product concepts.

Areas of Study:

  1. Influences on design, development and production of products
  2. Investigating opportunities for ethical, design and production
  3. Developing a final proof of concept for ethical production

Unit 4: Production and evaluation of ethical designs

Students collect, analyse, interpret and present data, use ethical research methods and engage with end user(s) to gain feedback and apply their research and findings to the production of their designed solution. Students also focus on how speculative design thinking can encourage research, product development and entrepreneurial activity through the investigation and analysis of examples of current, emerging and future technologies and market trends.

Areas of Study:

  1. Managing production for ethical designs
  2. Evaluation and speculative design

Forms of Assessment

  • Short answer tests
  • Folio design, evaluation and realisation of Production project

Prerequisites and Corequisites

Students would be expected to have satisfied the work requirements of Units 1 & 2 Product Design and Technology.

Link to Study Design

VCE Product Design and Technologies 2024-2028 Study Design